On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 17:51:17 GMT, "AFN"
wrote:

I need to buy some drives for a company server, to be used in a RAID
configuration. I'm used to buying SCSI drives, because I love 1) that
they feel cool to the touch when running and 2) they have a high "mean time
between failure" number (MTBF). I just hate the price of SCSI drives and
this is for a small business.

Now, I see that SATA drives have a good MTBF number comparable to SCSI. So
I'm thinking of buying the Maxtor 9 or 10 series SATA drives or the WD
Raptors that spin at 10k. They all have MTBF numbers like SCSI drives but
can someone tell me how cool or hot they are to the touch?

If an IDE (regular ATA) drive runs warm/hot, and a SCSI drive in the same
enclosure runs cool, where does SATA fall? Does anyone know from
experience touching these drives while they're running?


The answer is that there is nothing inherant about SCSI that
will make a drive more or less susceptible to high ambient
temp.

You have some mismatched components for your comparison if
you find SCSI "cool to the touch", there is no difference
except perhaps lower component function on the drive PCB
itself, moved to the controller card instead. This simply
moves a point of failure though, is not a justification one
way or the other.

SATA, IDE, SCSI are not details relevant to choosing drive
temp. RPM may be, so if it's THAT important for some
extreme environment then choose a 5400 RPM drive and a
suitably modified cooling system. There are temp readings
taken of a few drives for comparison, Goggle may find them.

The ultimate answer is that if your drives are being used in
an enironment mild enough to be hospitable to a computer and
user, a bay with appropriate active cooling [fan(s) in front
or rear] will be sufficient for any drives.