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#11
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On Fri, 08 Apr 2005 18:24:04 +0100, HVB wrote:
On Fri, 08 Apr 2005 16:51:44 -0000, wrote: In article , HVB wrote: ... Generally speaking, ATA and SATA drives are intended for desktop use and although they may be designed in a similar (or even the same) way, they are not subjected to the same testing regime or manufacturing tolerances as Enterprise-class products. ... No, wrong. Desktop-class drives are DESIGNED radically different from Enterprise-class drives. I know that. In my defense... I did say *may be designed* not are designed. HVB I think it's kinda funny how in other groups this would normally quickly turn into a flame war spurred by some user(s) who say, "my desktop ATA drive works fine. What are you talking about? All drives are the same except SCSI is a rip-off!" with maybe 1 person countering on the ES side. While in a group of basically storage professionals like this the ES/PS distinction is barely contentious; only its details are to a limited extent. For the OP FWIW I have noticed greater infant mortality, higher incidence of motors which turn noisy, and higher likelihood of defective drives which allow wild writes as well as just general inconsistency across the ES & PS product line with Maxtor drives over the last decade as opposed to most other brands. The problem, however, might be more related to my supplier & delivery route than actually Maxtor's fault (I don't know). Careful handling, integration & monitoring are probably more important for success than brand name. Everyone occasionally makes a bum model. Your or my bad luck may not be indicative of the overall brand. There is an interesting somewhat anecdotal project over at storagereview.com- their reliability database. I try to mention it when I can because the more ppl that contribute the better chance we have of it yielding accurate results. (Please not that I am not affiliated in any way with storagereview.com or its sponsors) |
#12
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Curious George writes:
For the OP FWIW I have noticed greater infant mortality, higher incidence of motors which turn noisy, and higher likelihood of defective drives which allow wild writes as well as just general inconsistency across the ES & PS product line with Maxtor drives over the last decade as opposed to most other brands. I had a weird and somewhat scary experience with a Maxtor 60gb drive. I bought it about 4 years ago, mounted it in a PC, installed an OS on it and did a couple things on it. That all worked fine. The machine was then powered off and ended up being taken out of service. Three years later I decided to use the drive for something else. The drive had no more than a dozen or so power-on hours and had just been sitting in an unused PC for 3 years. It spun up normally but I could no longer read data from it and the connected host didn't recognize it. This is a little bit disturbing since it makes using HD's as archive media sound unreliable. I asked someone about it and as soon as I said "60 GB drive" he immediately recognized the problem. He said that there was some contamination problem in an ALPS factory that made the heads for basically all 60GB drives of that era. And so the same thing likey would have happened no matter what brand of drive I'd bought, but wouldn't have happened with a 40gb drive or an 80gb drive. Gack. I still don't know my long term archive strategy. I guess LTO still looks best. |
#13
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In article ,
Curious George wrote: On Fri, 08 Apr 2005 18:24:04 +0100, HVB wrote: On Fri, 08 Apr 2005 16:51:44 -0000, wrote: No, wrong. Desktop-class drives are DESIGNED radically different from Enterprise-class drives. I know that. In my defense... I did say *may be designed* not are designed. I think it's kinda funny how in other groups this would normally quickly turn into a flame war ... In retrospect, my very terse "no, wrong" sentence was less than polite. I apologize for being too curt. There is an interesting somewhat anecdotal project over at storagereview.com- their reliability database. I try to mention it when I can because the more ppl that contribute the better chance we have of it yielding accurate results. (Please not that I am not affiliated in any way with storagereview.com or its sponsors) Most certainly all systems integrators that use large quantities of disks (ranging from Dell at the consumer end to HDS at the enterprise end) carefully evaluate the data on reliability of drives, and keep tabs on failures rates in the field. Certainly the data is correlated not just with manufacturer info, but also model, age, serial number range, and (where known) environmental conditions. And I'm also sure that all these companies keep that data closely guarded; not only is it a useful trade secret, but if leaked out it could also be lawsuit material. Think about it this way. If it weren't for Consumer Reports, how would you ever find out whether Ford's or Chevy's are more reliable? You could call both companies headquarters and ask for statistics - good luck! You could ask your beer-drinking buddies, and all you'd get were religiously held opinions, and a few anecdotes. Getting real information on such an important question is just very hard. -- The address in the header is invalid for obvious reasons. Please reconstruct the address from the information below (look for _). Ralph Becker-Szendy |
#14
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In article ,
Paul Rubin wrote: Curious George writes: I had a weird and somewhat scary experience with a Maxtor 60gb drive. I bought it about 4 years ago, mounted it in a PC, installed an OS on it and did a couple things on it. That all worked fine. The machine was then powered off and ended up being taken out of service. Three years later I decided to use the drive for something else. The drive had no more than a dozen or so power-on hours and had just been sitting in an unused PC for 3 years. It spun up normally but I could no longer read data from it and the connected host didn't recognize it. This is a little bit disturbing since it makes using HD's as archive media sound unreliable. I asked someone about it and as soon as I said "60 GB drive" he immediately recognized the problem. He said that there was some contamination problem in an ALPS factory that made the heads for basically all 60GB drives of that era. And so the same thing likey would have happened no matter what brand of drive I'd bought, but wouldn't have happened with a 40gb drive or an 80gb drive. It seems unlikely that all manufacturers of that era (Seagate, IBM/Hitachi, Maxtor=Quantum, WD, plus the Korean ones that make ATA only) would all use ALPS heads. ALPS has a high market share, but I can't really imagine it being near 100%. Gack. I still don't know my long term archive strategy. I guess LTO still looks best. There are persistent rumors around that the lubrication in the bearings (both spindle and actuator) will do something nasty like turn into tar, if you store a drive for a long time without running it. So relying on non-spinning drives for long-term archive seems dangerous. At least not without asking the manufacturer of the drive whether they support this mode. For my stuff at home, I have two disk copies of everything that's in use, plus one copy of all the archival stuff on a single disk. So far increasing disk capacity has made using a single disk as an archive viable (it is currently a 200GB ATA disk). Plus one extra copy of everything (most importantly the archive) on writeable CDs. Obviously, things that can be easily recreated (like tracks ripped from audio CDs) are exempt from the archive and backup. But it is quite amazing: For a home computer, including digital pictures (but not digital video), the increase in disk capacity over the last 10 years has meant that I never have to delete anything. -- The address in the header is invalid for obvious reasons. Please reconstruct the address from the information below (look for _). Ralph Becker-Szendy |
#15
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#16
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In article ,
HVB wrote: On Fri, 08 Apr 2005 04:11:11 GMT, flux wrote: Faeandar wrote: Point is that reliability of ATA is nowhere near that of Scsi or FC. Once you get down into the desktop class drives This statement is just fiction. Drives today are roughly the same in reliability, marketing claims notwithstanding. No - I think Faeandar has a point. It all comes down to cost. FC and SCSI drives are intended for Enterprise-class use; they are manufactured, tested and priced accordingly. But manufacturers sell few FC/SCSI drives compared to ATA drives, so it makes sense for there to be cost difference. Generally speaking, ATA and SATA drives are intended for desktop use and although they may be designed in a similar (or even the same) way, they are not subjected to the same testing regime or manufacturing tolerances as Enterprise-class products. Some vendors offer Enterprise type SATA drives - generally with faster RPM speeds and higher prices. I would expect these drives to have had more thorough testing than a standard desktop item. The vendors that are using ATA/SATA in products aimed at Enterprise use, like NetApp, have taken additional steps to ensure reliability. This could be stricter use of SMART data, probes on the data path or additional parity, specifically intended to improve the reliability of ATA/SATA subsystems. I don't know how much of it is true, but I do know that ATA drives are a lot faster and a lot more reliable than some here think they are. |
#17
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#18
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flux wrote:
.... I'm not sure I believe you. Then you might benefit from actually looking at the material he cited rather than pulling opinions directly out of your ass. - bill |
#19
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flux wrote:
.... I don't know how much of it is true, Rather obviously. but I do know that ATA drives are a lot faster and a lot more reliable than some here think they are. Since I don't recall anyone yet having actually quantified either value, your confidence in that statement seems rather unfounded. Fact: ATA drives max out at 7200 rpm, while SCSI/FC drives max out at 15,000 rpm. That gives SCSI drives a 2+:1 advantage in rotational latency right off the bat. (Yes, WD's Raptor spins at 10,000 rpm, which reduces the SCSI/FC advantage to 1.5:1. But you referred to 'ATA', not 'SATA', above.) Fact: ATA drives have average seek latencies in the 8 - 9+ ms. range (there may be one in the 7s somewhere), while the fastest SCSI/FC drives have average seek times less than half that (I haven't bothered to check out the WD Raptor in this regard). Another 2+:1 speed advantage for SCSI/FC. Fact: Unlike SCSI/FC drives, ATA drives do not typically support command queuing that allows seek optimization at the drive to further reduce average access latencies (and even those ATA drives that do often lack drivers that support this feature). Advantage: varies with the queue depth, but typically quite significant in enterprise use (i.e., when parallel rather than serial access predominates) and always at least noticeable as long as the queue depth exceeds 1. As for reliability, I'll let you read the paper that you previously neglected to: it's quite thorough in its assessment of the differences. - bill |
#20
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