September 10, 201114 yr This has probably crossed someone else's mind already but thought I'd put it out there... How about an unRAID-wide drive health monitoring tool? Something that would collect information for all or a sampling of drives used with unRAID. Their configuration, health, hours, etc, all sent to a central unRAID database. It'd need some level of security to prevent "optimizing" and an opt-out option, but it could provide more relevant data for our needs than tiny samples and the aging google study. Certainly better than emotion, which is such a difficult influence to avoid. It's been 30-some years since I bought my first 5MB HD ($2500 - gah) but I still find myself swayed horribly by the most recent few drives I've purchased.
September 11, 201114 yr I love the idea, but I'm not sure how valid the data will be as a predictor. I have been building and servicing PCs for a living for 17 years, and from what I've seen over the years, physical environment and treatment is much more important to disk longevity than purely make and model. Granted, there have been MANY examples of specific production runs (and companies) that were almost all stinkers, but those same companies have produced some very reliable drives as well. It's almost impossible to tell you have a stinker on your hands until it's much too late to quit buying it. (Seagate 40MB RLL drives excluded. 50% out of box failure rate was a dead giveaway) A database would be interesting from a historical perspective, but I don't think it would have any value at all as a predictor of future performance. The safest method I know of populating a large number of drives is to have varied makes, models, and build dates. Unraid provides a very easy way of accommodating that goal, because capacity matching is not a requirement, and adding drives after the array is built is painless. We have Joe L's excellent preclear drive exerciser available to weed out the drives that were shipped ready to fail, or damaged in shipment or install (installation handling is very important, NEVER allow two bare drives to hit each other, or any hard surface object. The G-force generated on a bare drive is very easy to spike with seemingly innocuous contact. After installation the extra mass and springiness of the case can absorb much more impact without transferring the force directly to the drive) The emotional component can be very bad, because there are only two types of hard drives in existence right now, those that have failed already, and those that will fail in the future. It's inevitable that you will experience failure at some point if you keep your drives in service for any extended period of time. Even the best drive statistically available can fail and cause you an ulcer. It's better to assume you will experience failure, and keep backups commensurate with the possible pain of data loss.
September 11, 201114 yr Sometime soon it will be much easier to choose. Only western digital and seagate are left in the business of making consumer grade drives aren't they?
September 11, 201114 yr Sometime soon it will be much easier to choose. Only western digital and seagate are left in the business of making consumer grade drives aren't they? You forgot Toshiba. They do consumer grade 2.5 and 1.8, and enterprise grade 3.5.
September 11, 201114 yr You forgot Toshiba. They do consumer grade 2.5 and 1.8, and enterprise grade 3.5. I didn't, they only make enterprise and laptop hard drives as you say.
September 12, 201114 yr You forgot Toshiba. They do consumer grade 2.5 and 1.8, and enterprise grade 3.5. I didn't, they only make enterprise and laptop hard drives as you say. Why exclude them? An unraid box populated with laptop drives could be quite the power saver, and compact as well.
September 12, 201114 yr Why exclude them? An unraid box populated with laptop drives could be quite the power saver, and compact as well. Majority of users are going to be choosing between two brands of 2/3/4TB 3.5" drives soon (unless something changes) was my point. If you want to make a server using 1TB laptop drives then fill your boots.
September 12, 201114 yr Maybe we could just get Samsung et al to provide us with an RMA list for forum users.. http://www.samsunghddvalue.com/PRD/hdmal0030/hdmal0036.aspx?NW=UF&CUSTOMER=uIbBGvRgZ6E=
September 13, 201114 yr You forgot Toshiba. They do consumer grade 2.5 and 1.8, and enterprise grade 3.5. I didn't, they only make enterprise and laptop hard drives as you say. Why exclude them? An unraid box populated with laptop drives could be quite the power saver, and compact as well. Probably not very optimal for power consumption in Watts per TB one suspects.
September 13, 201114 yr You forgot Toshiba. They do consumer grade 2.5 and 1.8, and enterprise grade 3.5. I didn't, they only make enterprise and laptop hard drives as you say. Why exclude them? An unraid box populated with laptop drives could be quite the power saver, and compact as well. Probably not very optimal for power consumption in Watts per TB one suspects. Toshiba 1TB 2.5" Read/Write Power 1.7 watts Low Power Idle 0.65 watts Standby Power 0.18 watts Sleep Power 0.15 watts WD 3TB Green Read/Write 6.00 Watts Idle 5.50 Watts Standby 0.80 Watts Sleep 0.80 Watts
September 14, 201114 yr The latest Samsung RMA results.... HD204UI leads the way with 30% of all pending returns. (you can add one of mine in the near future)
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