Which disks for SATA-II RAID?

Western Digital is now offering the YS series for RAID.

"Jim Garrison" wrote in message
news
I'm planning to build a replacement for my current home
workstation/server, using hardware RAID1 for reliability. I have tried
software/hardware RAID solutions such as the Adaptec 1420SA and
motherboard-based RAID, with the predictably dismal results.

I've pretty much settled on a 3Ware 9650SE-4LPML SATA-II RAID
controller. My question has to do with which drives will work in such a
configuration. I ask because of a very bad experience 2 years ago with
Western Digital drives that weren't compatible with RAID because of
error-recovery features in the firmware.

I'm looking at the Seagate 7200.10 drives but I've read about very high
noise levels, both on this forum and in reviews on several vendor sites.
How about the Barracuda ES series (ST3500630NS)? Anyone have opinions
on these drives? Anyone have another recommendation?

I don't need the performance (or extra cost) of 10K or 15K drives.

"Frodo" == Frodo writes:

Frodo Western Digital is now offering the YS series for RAID.

I have 4 of these:
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16822136062
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/pro...sp?DriveID=250

I'm using them at the moment in a RAID0 configuration. Before that I
used them for a few months in a RAID5 config. Both ways they worked
fine. There was a glitch that surfaced occasionally but they fixed
that with a firmware update: http://tinyurl.com/2ryvla

In the RAID0 config I score faster than the best benchmark comparison
in SiSandra's filesystem test.

From WD's site:

Q: What is time-limited error recovery and why do I need it?

A: Desktop drives are designed to protect and recover data, at times
pausing for as much as a few minutes to make sure that data is
recovered. Inside a RAID system, where the RAID controller handles
error recovery, the drive needn't pause for extended periods to
recover data. In fact, heroic error recovery attempts can cause a RAID
system to drop a drive out of the array. WD RE2 is engineered to
prevent hard drive error recovery fallout by limiting the drive's
error recovery time. With error recovery factory set to seven seconds,
the drive has time to attempt a recovery, allow the RAID controller to
log the error, and still stay online.

Q: For RAID environments I need SCSI data integrity.

A: The Serial ATA version includes 32-bit CRC error checking for
all bits transmitted: command, data, and status. And, both SATA and
EIDE versions include error checking to compare the data read back
from the hard drive tob the data originally written to the hard drive.
--
"F**k Saddam, we're taking him out." --President Bush to three
U.S. Senators in March 2002, a full year before the Iraq invasion

On Thu, 10 May 2007 17:24:00 -0700, Bob Fry
wrote:

"Frodo" == Frodo writes:

Frodo Western Digital is now offering the YS series for RAID.

I have 4 of these:
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16822136062
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/pro...sp?DriveID=250

I'm using them at the moment in a RAID0 configuration. Before that I
used them for a few months in a RAID5 config. Both ways they worked
fine. There was a glitch that surfaced occasionally but they fixed
that with a firmware update: http://tinyurl.com/2ryvla

In the RAID0 config I score faster than the best benchmark comparison
in SiSandra's filesystem test.

From WD's site:

Q: What is time-limited error recovery and why do I need it?

A: Desktop drives are designed to protect and recover data, at times
pausing for as much as a few minutes to make sure that data is
recovered. Inside a RAID system, where the RAID controller handles
error recovery, the drive needn't pause for extended periods to
recover data. In fact, heroic error recovery attempts can cause a RAID
system to drop a drive out of the array. WD RE2 is engineered to
prevent hard drive error recovery fallout by limiting the drive's
error recovery time. With error recovery factory set to seven seconds,
the drive has time to attempt a recovery, allow the RAID controller to
log the error, and still stay online.

LOL. This is a fix ? How about making a reliable drive in the
first place that works with Raid controllers. How about making one
drive that a consumer can use either in a single or raid
configuration ?

Western Digital is pushing bull**** here to cover up their mistakes.
I'm surprised anyone believes this kind of marketing bull****
instead of simply being outraged at this kind of insult to your
intelligence.

wrote:

From WD's site:
Q: What is time-limited error recovery and why do I need it?

A: Desktop drives are designed to protect and recover data, at times
pausing for as much as a few minutes to make sure that data is
recovered. Inside a RAID system, where the RAID controller handles
error recovery, the drive needn't pause for extended periods to
recover data. In fact, heroic error recovery attempts can cause a RAID
system to drop a drive out of the array. WD RE2 is engineered to
prevent hard drive error recovery fallout by limiting the drive's
error recovery time. With error recovery factory set to seven seconds,
the drive has time to attempt a recovery, allow the RAID controller to
log the error, and still stay online.

LOL. This is a fix ? How about making a reliable drive in the
first place that works with Raid controllers. How about making one
drive that a consumer can use either in a single or raid
configuration ?

Western Digital is pushing bull**** here to cover up their mistakes.
I'm surprised anyone believes this kind of marketing bull****
instead of simply being outraged at this kind of insult to your
intelligence.

I tend to agree. I finally got WD to replace the disks with
RAID versions (with TLER) but all 4 showed unacceptable levels
of errors within 6 months. The need for "extended" error
recovery taking tens of seconds (i.e. non-TLER) indicates
that they're expecting the platters to develop errors and,
rather than improve the reliability they just do more work
in the firmware to hide the errors from the user. Well,
guess what - it DOESN'T hide the errors. All the time I had
WD non-TLER drives in my system it would regularly freeze for
10-20 seconds at a time.

I finally pulled them all out and chalked it up to experience.
I'd have to see some real hard evidence to the contrary before
I'd buy WD again.