May 13, 200917 yr Hi, I have an unraid box now running fine with 6 x WD 1TB EACS hard drives. I'm looking to buy 6 more 1TB hard drives. My dilemna is... should I buy the WD 1TB EADS hard drives because they are green and low power (currently $89.99 at Newegg)? Or will I be fine with the Hitachi 1TB hard drives (currently $75.99 at Zipzoomfly)? I heard they are slower and hotter, but speed is not a big deal to me. The heat issue is a "minor" concern. So are the WD hds worth the $14 more for the heat, power, and speed savings? Keep in mind that for the price of 6 WD hds, I could buy 7 of the Hitachi's.... Also, anyone run into any issues with mix matching 1TB hard drive manufacturers? Thanks.
May 13, 200917 yr Also, anyone run into any issues with mix matching 1TB hard drive manufacturers? Thanks. Personally, I'd go with the 6 cooler, but slightly higher priced drives. Heat is always an issue, but so is the load on your power supply. Less heat = less load on the power supply. Green in this case has more than one benefit. Drive speed will not be an issue with any of the drives... the LAN is the primary bottleneck for most people. I've had very old 8 gig drives in my array, and they are very slow, but still can serve up a movie just fine. ( I don't recommend you go with drives that slow, or old, as they sure are not "green") As far as mixing drives from different manufacturers, it has never been a problem. You can mix and match as you desire. Unless you really need 6TB of space right now, I'd actually purchase only 2 or 3 drives now, and grow the space for the immediate needs. You can then add additional drives, as you need, in 6 months or a year. Who knows, by end of year you might find the 1.5TB drives on sale at the same prices as the 2TB drives take over the high end market. The other advantage is that you will get drives from different manufacturing lots... If there was a common manufacturing flaw, it would not affect multiple drives at the same time. Joe L.
May 13, 200917 yr Ya great advice there! #1 rule with storage purchasing - buy what you need when you need it! Prices will drop, new tech will come out... buying in bulk will cost you more money in the end for higher $/GB amounts not to mention wasted electricity. Right now I have 6x1TB drives with 500GB of space available... but I'm avoiding buying anymore because I know that the 2TB drives are available. The trick is waiting out the premium costs of new technology. Once those 2TB drives hit $200 and less (preferably $160) I will be all over them... of course only what I need though.
May 13, 200917 yr ditto on the "buy what you need when you need it". newegg has small specials on the EADS almost every month. In their email newsletter deals they just had one for WD10eads for $85 after the coupon code and the WD15eads for $130 last week.
May 13, 200917 yr Author Well, I do need the 6TB now because I'm consolidating servers. Yeah, I was going to buy the WD10EADS drives for $85, but the deal expired yesterday. Now that it's back up to $89.99, it's less attractive...
May 13, 200917 yr Patience is a virtue and don't worry there will be more deals. Keep in mind to check Live.com to see what its cashback is for Ebay. I've grabbed some ridiculously cheap drives in the past after receiving the % of cashback. $220 right now for a 2TB drive... getting there.
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