Newegg hard drive sale

[Bozo]

Seagate 500GB drive + Seagate 250GB drive for $229.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148136&CMP=AFC-TechReport&ATT=22-148-136

Bozo :joker:

 

[Adcadet]

Raptor 150GB $224.99 - $30 rebate at Newegg as well.

 

[Adcadet]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136012&ATT=22-136-012&CMP=OTC-B1zrat3

 

[LunarMist]

Seagate 500GB drive + Seagate 250GB drive for $229.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148136&CMP=AFC-TechReport&ATT=22-148-136

Bozo :joker:

It hardly seems worthwhile, unless you have some use for a 250GB drive. ???

 

[Bozo]

Actually, most of what I buy is in the 40-80GB range. The largest hard drive I have bought is 4-400GB for a RAID-5 array.

Bozo :joker:

 

[sechs]

Maybe I'm not keeping enough data online....

 

[Stereodude]

Call me when the 750GB's are ~$200. Then we'll talk. (and I'll buy 4 of them).

 

[LunarMist]

That would be when, around Q2-3 of 2007?

 

[ddrueding]

Well, they're $380 now. I would expect a drop to around $300 by the time the 1TB drives ship (Q1-'07?), and a much slower decline after that. I would actually be surprised if they went that low ($200) within 12 months.

 

[Mercutio]

Took what? Two and a half years for 400GB drives to drop to $200.

 

[Adcadet]

I'm thinking about getting a 150 GB Raptor for my new computer. The Raptor X and regular 150GB raptor are within $5 of eachother. Is there any benefit of the Raptor X other than looks (which to some might be a disadvantage)? Is it lounder or hotter since it has a polycarbonate window on it?

 

[timwhit]

I wouldn't buy it out of principle. I hate windows.

 

[LiamC]

I'm thinking about getting a 150 GB Raptor for my new computer. The Raptor X and regular 150GB raptor are within $5 of eachother. Is there any benefit of the Raptor X other than looks (which to some might be a disadvantage)? Is it lounder or hotter since it has a polycarbonate window on it?

Functionally identical. Bling, baby!

 

[Mercutio]

Why do you hate your data, Adcadet?

 

[Adcadet]

Is there any evidence that the Raptors are less than reliable?

 

[sechs]

They're made by Western Digital.

 

[ddrueding]

I can't say anything about the 150GB ones, but I've had about 20 36GB failures out of...erm...25 original drives (All in under 3 years). Some of them survived, some replacements failed, but that isn't a good record. The 74GB ones I have have all survived the duration to date.

 

[Bozo]

I have 15 36GB Raptors installed. Most have been running 24/7 for almost three years. Only had one failure.

Actually, I've had more Seagate SCSI drives fail. I have 26 18GB Cheetahs installed and have had 5 failures in 4 years. These also run 24/7.

Bozo :joker:

 

[Buck]

Make sure the Raptor drive is actively cooled.

 

[Mercutio]

I've not seen any reason to suggest that Western Digital has improved QA in any part of its product line.

Anecdotally I can say that of the last six computers that I've worked on that I have found to have disk drive problems, five had Western Digital drives (1 40GB, 3 80GB, 1 320GB) and the other was a notebook (60GB Fujitsu drive, if anyone cares). This has done absolutely nothing to restore my confidence in the brand.

 

[Buck]

That latest two hard drive issues I've dealt with this week are 1 Samsung 20GB, bearing noise is loud, and 1 Seagate 160GB, Sector 1 is bad and cannot be accessed.

 

[Onomatopoeic]

Is there any evidence that the Raptors are less than reliable?

For what it's worth, some people I know (nobody from SF or SR, just a couple of local folk) that have been using Raptors since the first generation in custom-built workstations, tell me the first generation Raptor was easily the worst for reliability (not to mention heat, noise, etc), and that the Raptor has definitely become more reliable with each generation.

But, that doesn't mean the Raptor takes the prize for being the most reliable hard drive on the market. I also know a person that has tried both the latest and previous generations of Raptors in a moderately busy mail server environment with not-such-great results, as the life expectancy was always on the order of 4 or 5 months with Raptors compared to 2+ years with 10kRPM SCSI hard drives.