3TB HD from WD

LunarMist

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IME that is normal for Samsung. About 10% are defective in some way from the start, but a good one will last for a long time.
 

LunarMist

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I don't get the relationship between HDTach and the student film about bad drivers. :scratch:
 

jtr1962

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Total speculation: Given that it starts around 2,147GB Looks like something in the file system or HDTach is using a long int (max value 2,147,483,647) to store a value and it rolls over and starts at the beginning again.
That's what it looks to me like it's doing.
 

Handruin

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I'm curious about a couple things. I noticed that Dell now has a Perc H700 RAID controller card (PDF warning). SD, have you researched this card at all in comparison to the Perc 6i? I feel like Dell is marketing it as its successor. I don't know how it performs in comparison, but it looks to be a hardware RAID. They offer higher cache amounts and also some kind of Nonvolatile cache upward of 1GB. It's not clear to me if it's 512MB volatile and 1GB NV. it also offers some marketing phrase of Cut-through IO for up to two times the IOPS...

512MB & 1GB Non-Volatile Cache (with the exception of H700 modular)
*In the event of power interruption, data retention in cache is extended from hours to years
*Introduction of larger cache size: 1GB

Cut-through IO (CTIO)
*Performance boost (up to 2X IOPS performance)
*Optimized for superior IOPS of SSDs over HDDs
*Ideal for small-block random workloads
*Easy to enable

Second, I'm pricing out a Dell R710 with internal storage and they offer 2TB 7200 RPM drives. It's a valid config to use these with the H700 (and the 6i for that matter). What I'll be curious to see is if the disks are of the 4K sector variety when they come in. If so, I wonder if they figured out how to make use of them with the newer RAID card and maybe there is an updated firmware for the 6i?
 

Mercutio

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They're available but they're not cheap. The better news is that a supply of newer cards might mean lower prices on Perc6s.
 

Handruin

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I could only find 3 on eBay and the prices are much more than the Perc 6i that we have. The cheapest I've seen is $350 new. I think it was over $700 when I added it as an upgrade on the R710 server. I'm going to look more into these and see who actually makes them and if they're any good.
 

Handruin

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Looks like there might some Dell shenanigans with them actually blocking drives that are not sold from Dell and are Dell certified. It sounds like there may be a firmware update in the works to un-Block non-Dell drives, but I haven't yet found if it's available yet. Obviously since they block regular drives, this RAID card is useless for us. However this thread I just found suggests the A02 firmware fixes this issue and so does this thread. I haven't found any concrete numbers but people in both posts suggest the performance is great with this card.

This (pdf) test report shows the improvements in performance over a Perc 6/i.

The Dell PERC H700 delivered up to an average of 41% better IOPS performance with internal SSDs than the Dell PERC 6/i

Here is some more info on the RAID controller:

It's LSI 2108 ROC. The perc H700/800 is the re-designed LSI SAS 9260-8i/9280 and can come with either 512MB DDR2 regular dimm (that's what I tested) or 1GB DDR2 with integrated NVRAM cache(no need to have battery).Here's the link of the exact ram chip used in 1Gb version:
http://www.netlist.com/products/NetVault_landing.html
I even flashed the card with the firmware for that LSI card into perc h700 with no issues and flashed it backed to Dell's firmware while I was testing the issue I initially had with this card (was detected in windows but not during the post on my second PCIe slot). I tested same drives on intel ICH9R in raid0 and had max speed of only 520MB (max read throughput). I used HDtune, ATTO and crystal disk mark. Basically there's a gradual performance increase going from intel to perc6 to perc h700, with the biggest increase going from 6 to 700. Cache definitely creates some sort of magic. I'm still trying to understand from technical perspective if sata 2.0 device (or combination of devices=raid0 for that matter) can achieve sata 3.0 speed when used on that port ?. And perc H700 is 6Gb capable....but I'm not getting those speeds
 

LunarMist

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Why does a 4-pack of WD 3TB drives cost more than four times as much as a single drive? It makes no sense. :elephant:

Does anyone use the 3TB drive successfully?
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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The trick there is to simply buy your drives from someone other than Newegg if you're that paranoid over their shipping methods.

Of course, having recently praised Amazon for their good shipping methods, I recently ordered a pair of drives that were delivered flat in the bottom of a box that contained nothing else but two air packs that did not even reach the edges of the container on any side.

Neither of the drives worked. Go figure.
 

LunarMist

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So all I need is the Win7 x64 and nothing special on a Gigabyte board?
 

ddrueding

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For the record, both the WD and Hitachi 3TB drives will work on the onboard controller of a DP55KG, but only if they are in "IDE" mode in the BIOS. AHCI or RAID see them as 700GB+.
 

bernZ

What is this storage?
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Interesting. When the 3TB drives are connected to the 3Ware 9650SE they show up as 750GB each.


Please don't mind the thread dig, but I have a follow up question on this. Did you ever figure out why they showed as 750GB?
 

bernZ

What is this storage?
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Hmmm.. This is interesting. Thanks for the quick response! I guess I'll go with 2TB 7k3000s on mine then. I'm hoping the discs will be supported properly.
 

bernZ

What is this storage?
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That's awesome! I might grab one 3TB disc for testing then... 5k3000 3TB discs sound like yumyums.
 
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