Re: 1Tb Drives *IN STOCK*...

["domdevitto" <dom.devitto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It's worth reading the Google paper on drive reliability, used on the
Google distributed search platform.

Key points: Heat (within spec!), and usage have no perceivable link to
reliability.  Also SMART is only able to predict drive failure half th
time - half the time the drive just dies.

Dom
--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, Jim Noble <yahoo-groups@...> wrote:
>
> Phil Harris wrote:
> > "RAID Edition" drives are supposed to be better able to
handle a
permanently
> > "on" life as well as being tweaked to handle the
externally generated
> > vibrations of other drives. They also may have data caching and
data
> > transfer algorithms that are better suited to the typical access
patterns
> > found in RAID storage systems than domestic use.
> >
>
> There's one other difference that could cause a problem. The WD Caviar
> "RAID edition" drives, for example, are set up to not to
spend much
time
> trying to fix read errors - when used in a RAID array, the
assumption is
> that the RAID controller will take care of filling in the blank from
> elsewhere in the RAID set (this is called Time Limited Error Recovery
-
> TLER). Thus if you're not using it in a RAID array you might
experience
> some data corruption if a read error is encountered and not resolved
> quickly enough.
>
> That said, the last drive I bought was a 500Gb Seagate Barracuda ES
> which I don't use in a RAID array. It has a similar feature (Error
> Recovery Control), but the timeout is 12 seconds in stead of the 7
> seconds used in the WD drives. I've not had any (noticeable!) problems
> with it...
>
> Jim
>