SR has pre-release WD740GD benchmark results

[CougTek]

See this thread by CityK.

Only 40dB/A!!!

 

[Mercutio]

74GB is at least a reasonable, if small, size. 40db is impressive for a 10k drive.

Still, has anyone looked at SR's reliability rating for the Raptor 360GD?

It's in the 2nd percentile.

Now, I know that SR's survey is self-limiting and self-selecting and several kinds of inaccurate but... 2nd percentile.

That's like getting a 440 on the SATs, or having an IQ in the 20s.

In fact, the only drive I can find that's worse is the known-defective Fujitsu MPG3xxxAT-series.

 

[Buck]

I was never really concerned about the size, I actually like the drive at 36GB. But then again, it's because of how I view the drive being used. I would only use it as a boot/os/application drive, not as cumulative storage. I would hook up a pair of larger capacity 7200-rpm SATA drives for that instead.

I have always been in the mind set that boot, storage, and swap should all be on different drives and preferably on separate channels for best performance. Considering that the WD360GD is designated for server or high-end desktop usage, my multiple drive idea would find its price range. For those that are out of that price range, then they shouldn’t bother with the WD360GD or WD740GD.

 

[blakerwry]

Merc, I think alot of the problems with this drive can be attributed to poor controller hardware/software and/or a poor understanding of S-ATA on the part of end users.

 

[Buck]

SATA is relatively new too, and problems with the protocal are bound to exist. Hale Landis writes a bit of interesting information about this new technology on his website here.

Are you thinking about buying a Serial ATA system and drive? If yes, read this... The Serial ATA (or SATA) products that are now shipping and available in your local computer store may not be the most reliable products. Testing of SATA products with tools such ATACT program are finding a variety of problems. These problems are timeout errors, data compare errors, and strange status errors. These problems are being reported by a large number of people doing SATA product testing. Hale's advice at this time is be very careful - make sure you can return the SATA product your purchased if it does not perform as you expect. See the ATACT link above for some ATACT log files showing both normal testing of a parallel ATA (PATA) drive (no errors!) and testing of a SATA drive (lots of errors!).

Granted, he does have a flare for being dramatic, but if you read further on his site, you'll see some documented problems. Another note to take into consideration is that he is using his software for testing.

Just in case you're wondering who he is:

Hale Landis is an ATA/ATAPI interface consultant. Hale is available to teach classes about these interfaces or help design hardware or software for these interfaces. Hale has 25+ years experience creating diagnostic test software for disk storage subsystems and devices. He is very active in the ATA and ATAPI standards committee efforts and is a member of the ANSI NCITS T13 committee.

Over the years Hale has been very active in getting the ATA/ATAPI standards updated and has worked very hard to keep this interface simple, fast and cheap. The world doesn't need another SCSI or 1394!

Back in the early days of ATA Hale provided the ATA committee with a complete rewrite of the command description section for the ATA-2 draft standard. That rewrite established the basic format for the ATA command descriptions that is still used today in the ATA/ATAPI documents.

Some of Hale's proposals that are now part of ATA/ATAPI-4, ATA/ATAP-5 and/or ATA/ATAPI-6:

* IOR-/IOW- Response Tables in ATA/ATAPI-5.
* Several commands and features used by CompactFlash devices.
* Identify data word 93 (Hardware Reset Response).
* Really Big LBA (64-bit LBA).
* Better Device Reset (replace the DEVICE RESET command).
* Sector Globs (how to handle ATA drives with physical sectors of 1024 and larger bytes).

 

[i]

In other words, he lost his job during the tech-collapse, he's since been working at a local grocery store bagging groceries, and would really like to return to something approximating his old lifestyle.

 

[i]

(just a wild guess)