Samsung Drive

[LunarMist]

So I had someone order a Samsung 204 drive and it is not reconginzed as a Samsung drive by the ESTool. In the description it is indicated with the HD204... and also as ST..., which is confusing. Has anyone had experiences with these drives recently? I assume they are either 1) a Samsung-built drive with new Seagate firmware, or 2) a Seagate drive labeled as a Samsung by Seagate.

 

[Bozo]

I'd vote for number 2.

 

[LunarMist]

Then what should one buy now that there arses basically two manufacturers?

 

[ddrueding]

Buy one of the two? Really, I don't pay attention anymore and it doesn't seem to matter.

 

[Mercutio]

There's still HGST as well.

 

[sechs]

Western Digital is fucking them up, too. The warranty tool has been down for over a week.

 

[LunarMist]

I like WD, but they have no large 7200 RPM drives at the moment.

 

[Mercutio]

Western Digital is fucking them up, too. The warranty tool has been down for over a week.

I thought HGST (the brand name) went to Toshiba.

 

[LunarMist]

Buy one of the two? Really, I don't pay attention anymore and it doesn't seem to matter.

Yeah, I sort of give up on figuring out what to use nowadays. I have been avoiding Seagate since the 1 and 1.5 TB cluster**** of a couple of years ago.
I bought a 3TB Seagate 7200 RPM retail drive with a warranty until April 2017. I'm testing it now and hoping for better luck than with Hitachi and Samsung.

 

[LunarMist]

I put a 204 in one computer and it shut down, rebooted, but I thought that might have been part of the GParted.. Then in the bay on the other computer smoke is coming out and something smells burned. Now I have to open up both machines. Computers suck.

 

[Stereodude]

I thought HGST (the brand name) went to Toshiba.

Nope, WD. They're now HGST, A Western Digital Company.

 

[LunarMist]

The 3.5 are Toshiba.

 

[Stereodude]

The 3.5 are Toshiba.

No, they're not. HGST is a wholly own subsidiary of Western Digital. The brand went to WD.

Western Digital divested some IP and equipment to allow Toshiba to jump in and make 3.5" drives. HGST will eventually stop making 3.5" drives.

The Toshiba Agreements
As previously announced, WD will be divesting certain assets to Toshiba, including manufacturing equipment and intellectual property, to comply with regulatory requirements that will enable Toshiba to enter the 3.5‐inch desktop and consumer electronics market segments and expands their capacity in 3.5‐inch near‐line enterprise. The divestiture will include the product IP for the 1, 2 and 3 platter 3.5‐inch 1TB/platter HGST platforms, associated production equipment and a limited set of WD test equipment.

WD has agreed to contract manufacture the transferred products for Toshiba for a period of time to allow for the orderly transfer of the production lines to Toshiba or a designated contract manufacturer, enabling Toshiba to compete immediately in the 3.5‐inch desktop/CE HDD market. It is anticipated that the manufacturing transfer can be complete within 6 to 12 months. WD and Toshiba also entered into a supply agreement for heads and media

HGST will continue to build and support all its 3.5‐inch desktop and CE products until closure of the divestiture. Post divestiture, HGST will continue to make other existing 3.5 inch desktop and CE products until the end of their production lives to meet customer demand and warranty obligations (i.e. 500GB and 667GB per platter products).

link

 

[LunarMist]

Thanks. That is a meaningless token. We are screwed.

 

[LunarMist]

368 reallocated sectors and corrupted files on the 203. After all of the carnage was done, I found three other questionable 2TB drives according to the SMRAT data. How do I monitor that continuously for the future?

 

[Mercutio]

I haven't found any way to readily monitor for corruption. Presumably the CRC data from a RAID5 or a zPool would help out quite a bit. It's not like you don't have plenty of drives sitting around to do such a thing.

 

[LunarMist]

I was thinking that the SM#RT would be enough. I assume you are talking about some kinds of RAiD.

 

[Mercutio]

I am absolutely talking about RAID. You're worried about bad sectors screwing up irreplaceable files, and RAID5/6 or distributing the data in a zPool would absolutely help guard against that. It's not perfect or infallible but it's a start.
You should probably also look at an online backup system.

 

[LunarMist]

There would have to be perhaps 8 drives for an internal RAID and then some kind of external 8-bay NAS-thingie for the primary backup. I'm not sure if it is worth a $5000 gamble since I'm not mentally prepared to learn all about this nowadays.

 

[Mercutio]

1. Take some old desktop you already have sitting around. Install the smallest, crappiest drive you have sitting around and five other, identical drives that are not Seagate or WD "Eco" models.
2. Install FreeNAS. Configure the drives as a single zPool. Turn on SMB networking. Share the zPool.
3. Profit.