REVIEW: "High Capacity Hard Drive Roundup"

[Computer Generated Baby]

ExtremeTech sets out to find who has the industry's biggest disc...

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1789322,00.asp






Interleave -- The flying head assembly blows these behind the Partition so that it can record data on a nice clean surface.

 

[LunarMist]

Western Digital's drive uses its 80GB per platter technology built on a more rugged platform suitable for reliable RAID 0 operation.

A rather incongruous statement all around, one might say. And where is the 7K400?

 

[sechs]

Seems to be pretty lacking. They included the 250GB Western Digital drive, but not the several other 250GB models out there.

 

[Santilli]

Reliable raid in ATA? Is there such a thing, and, if so what's it good for and what components do you use?

s
PS Standard is 5 year warranty on drives.

 

[timwhit]

I would place a high wager bet that RAID 1 ATA is more reliable than almost any single drive.

 

[Computer Generated Baby]

Reliable raid in ATA? Is there such a thing, and, if so what's it good for and what components do you use?

NOTE: This is a recurring bit of advice that I've been posting for a few years. I haven't done it this year (I don't believe), but, in a nutshell, here it is again.

Yes, you can definitely do reliable RAID -- and even decently fast RAID -- using parallel ATA (PATA) hard drives. But, you need to stick with the formula that I'll outline below.



For PATA hard drives:

My recommendation is to ONLY use modern IBM / Hitachi (meaning 60GXP or later) ATA hard drives or Maxtor MaxLine ATA hard drives. Maxtor MaxLine ATA hard drives are good, but they are kind of pricey. Basically, you can build an equivalent sized ATA RAID for a lower cost using HitachIBM drives and still have enough to purchase a spare HitachIBM drive to plug-in if one of your RAID members should die.

As for other brands of hard drives and non-MaxLine Maxtors -- everything else is Use At Your Own Risk. Note that this rule DOES NOT apply to Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives! As far as I know, any modern SATA hard drive works fine as a member of a RAID group. SATA drives with NCQ are a bit speedier -- basically work just like parallel SCSI.



For PATA RAID controllers:

3Ware's RAID controllers are generally about as good as it gets, though, I can tell you for sure that the two small and basic 2-channel LSI Logic (nee AMI) MegaRAID IDE and MegaRAID ATA controllers also work great. In both cases, you really need to stay with the hard drives mentioned above. If you do what Santilli did a while back -- mix a Promiseless RAID controller with non-IBM/Hitachi or non-MaxLine hard drives -- you are basically asking for t-r-o-u-b-l-e.

 

[connollyg]

What is it with these big but slow drives?

Why would someone praise just one sort of disk and ignore others, or is it becuase the people who write these reviews only know about desktop PC's?

HP are currently shipping 146GB 15K drives and 300GB 10K drives for the EVA admittedly, but i think they use them in the XP 12000 as well.

They have also announced the 2.5 inch SAS drives at 10K as well and 15K

G

 

[Santilli]

Gary:

I bought Maxtor 5120's, the supposed best IDE drives avaliable at the time. 5 of em. The other problem is ATA drives are phased out so often, that when one fails, and the warranty is for one year, you are sol. They ship you a "better" then your drive in Maxtor's case, but, that was useless in my array.

Don't really see the point. I'd rather gamble on refurbed Seagate 10k's, then ATA drives. Can be had for the same gig per dollar, or lower, then ATA, and, are more reliable, and faster, plus, they have been checked at the factory, unlike new ATA drives.

Sincerely

GS

 

[Santilli]

Gary:

I bought Maxtor 5120's, the supposed best IDE drives avaliable at the time. 5 of em. The other problem is ATA drives are phased out so often, that when one fails, and the warranty is for one year, you are sol. They ship you a "better" then your drive in Maxtor's case, but, that was useless in my array.

Don't really see the point. I'd rather gamble on refurbed Seagate 10k's, then ATA drives. Can be had for the same gig per dollar, or lower, then ATA, and, are more reliable, and faster, plus, they have been checked at the factory, unlike new ATA drives.

Sincerely

GS

 

[Mercutio]

That's fine and well and good, until the moment you need storage in densities greater than 36GB, Greg. The 147GB units aren't even available used at TWICE the price of comparable ATA drives.

 

[Santilli]

www.hypermicro.com

" ST3146807LC 146GB 10K U320 8MB REFURB - IN STOCK 86 PCS.
manufactured by SEAGATE
$225.00

ST3146807LC ST3146807LC Seagate Cheetah 10K.6, 146.8 GB, Ultra320 Wide LVD SCSI-3, 10,000 RPM, 4.7 ms seek, 8 MB cache, A/V rated, 3.5 LP, 80 pin interface - 80 to 68 pin SCA adapter included, Factory Recertified, 1-year warranty. "

Bought a couple, and I think he gave em to me for about 190.

Seems like everytime I look at ata drives at Costco they are around a dollar a gig, for a drive with a one year warranty.

I did pick one up for 130 bucks for a Maxtor 160 gig, but tax etc. get it up around the dollar a gig. The 250 gig, and 300 gig, one year warranty,
are always 250 or more. Costco is pretty much the only place I'll buy ATA drives, because of their fantastic return policy.

The above pricing makes the 146 gig just fine. They are very fast, and slot right into my SCA box.

S

 

[LOST6200]

Greg,

Have you shopped recently? ATA drives are under $0.50 per GB, often much less with a rebate. The major manufacturers have returned to 3-year warranties and Seagate has a 5-year warranty. A 300GB 10K SCSI drive is about 5x as costly as an ATA drive. Even if one could get by with only 2TB of primary drives, it is a little pricey for non-server use.

 

[Mercutio]

I can buy three 160GB drives for $210. Seagates, with five year warranties, just like your SCSI units.

I like fast access times but given the noise, heat and expense of big, fast SCSI drives, I can't see buying any more for home.

 

[Santilli]

Hi
I check em everytime I go in to Costco. Usually Maxtors. They still haven't caught up on the warranties. 1 year still.

250 gig, or 300 gig, 250 dollars. Usually in external USB 2 housings, so that's some consideration. I did buy a Maxtor 160 gig Diamond Max 9 for about 120 or so, with a 5 year warranty, but haven't noticed anything since. Kind of frustrating, since I wanted to put it in an older computer, but couldn't as a boot drive. Something about addressing that size drive with an old motherboard...

I have noticed the Seagate Momentus 5400 drive preforms really well, almost as good as a 7200 rpm Hitachi, but for a very reasonable price.

I've noticed Seagate has gone to 5 years on warranty for their ata DRIVES.
Haven't noticed the price/preformance ratio yet.

Currently I have two 146 gig, and two 36's in raid zero, to boot from, just because, as you said, I ran out of room, mainly due to games.

I've got another 36 gig 15K for a backup, and it works well for a Photoshop scratch disk, and virtual memory disk.

If I need more storage, I've got 5 bays in the back of the box for ATA drives, but, I figure if I can't get my stuff onto 300 gigs of scsi drives, I can burn it to DVD and store it.

Course, that could change...

s
PS
Been watching paradise on this website:

http://www.globefiji.com/live/

Perfect surf, with the world's best surfers...

 

[iGary]

I bought Maxtor 5120's, the supposed best IDE drives avaliable at the time...

I recall your "Promiseless" RAID period a while back over there at Snorage Review.

At that time, that particular Maxtor model was the best ATA drive for *single drive* implementations, not RAID. The "Best ATA Drive For Single Drive Implementations" was a constantly changing flash-in-the-pan "Best." One month it would be some new Maxtor, the next month it would be some new WD.

For RAID, the IBM GXP series hard drives -- long before the release of the 75GXP and after -- were the best ATA hard drives. Before the advent of SATA, all the expensive Fibre-Channel-attached and SCSI-attached RAID racks of the day that I personally saw the insides of all used parallel ATA IBM GXP hard drives. I know of some old RAID Level 5 arrays that are still in use and have been running for years that are based on the now-old IBM 22GXP, 27GXP, and 32GXP ATA hard drives. One of these is an old Ciprico array, the other an old Accom array.

HP are currently shipping 146GB 15K drives and 300GB 10K drives for the EVA admittedly, but i think they use them in the XP 12000 as well.

The XP12000 will likely come with Hitachi hard drives, since this beast is actually a Hitachi in disguise. However, I've definitely seen Seagate hard drives in HP XP1024 and XP512 array units before, so, never say never!

They have also announced the 2.5 inch SAS drives at 10K as well and 15K

er.... Not quite with the 15kRPM 2½ inchers -- at least not as of yet.

Nonetheless, the writing is on the wall as far as the future of the 2½ inch hard drive: It will slowly displace the 3½ inch drive in every niche, with the highest capacity being the last niche. The 2½ inch hard drive will be in the notebook, the desktop, and in the server. Take into consideration that the Seagate X15 series hard drives have -- for years now -- essentially been 2½ inch drives operating in 3½ inch clothing.

 

[Santilli]

Hi Splash :mrgrn:

At the time, I don't think there was a raid controller that really worked for ATA raid. I do remember after buying the Maxtors, having others post they didn't work in arrays, and, Seagate tech emailed me saying they couldn't get the Promiseless cards to work with their drives, in raid, either.

Figured that was a good time to write the loss off, and move back to scsi.

"Snorage Review"
ROFL :excl:


Greg

 

[Bozo]

I went through the same Maxtor/Promise RAID mess.

Finally bought a 3Ware card and never looked back. I'm still running 2 75GXPs that I bought when they first came out (2000 ??) on a 3Ware card in RAID 0.

Bozo :mrgrn: