200GB+ hard drives in raid 1 mirror

[kaishaku72]

Maybe the NL35 series from Seagate are their SATA workstation offerings.

WD just happens to provide enthusiast level performance with their 24/7
workstation and enterprise drives. I presume the NL35 is not on par there
since I've never heard of them...

 

[kaishaku72]

The WD4000YR is back on Newegg... and I still can't decide.

It seems Seagate is reputed to be more reliable across models but
the SR reliability survey for the 7200.8 is not good, and neither
were some of the reviews comparing it to the 7200.7.

Meanwhile, WD makes "enterprise"-level SATA drives rated
for 24/7 operation with 5 year warranties. The popular Raptor
is in this family and the system drive on two of my machines.

Yet those "other" WD enterprise drives, the WD4000YR and 2500/3200SD
don't get the perfect reviews on Newegg I'd expect. I am wondering if a
lot of the DOA and quality control speculations are user errors, possibly
because people are transitioning to SATA for the first time?

I am considering:

? WD Caviar RE [WD2500SD/WD3200SD] (hopefully reliable)
? WD Caviar RE2 [WD4000YR] (unbelievable DOA counts)
? Seagate 7200.7 200G (known reliability, smaller than I wanted)
? Seagate 7200.9 250-320G (hopefully reliable like 7200.7, unlike 7200.8)
? WD Caviar SE/SE16's (more respected consumer drives)

Should I get consumer drives and consider them "throw-away"
members of a RAID 1 array? Should I go even further and RAID 5 them?

Ideally, I'd like two reliable drives in a RAID 1 mirror. The problem
is simply that reliability is a gamble until the drive is nearly too old
or small to consider, like the possibly slightly too small 200G 7200.7.

I don't like drives with different platter counts being grouped together
in the SR reliability survey. For example, some Seagate and WD models
of different capacity use different platters... Heck, some Seagate models
of the same capacity are different enough to cause people to seek out
the specific ones made in such and such country because it doesn't whine.

All in all, this seems like a giant gamble, and I hate that. I have consistently
had drives put into this position fail, and I am tired of it. If I go RAID 1 the
failures might just happen twice as often, causing me to scramble to find a
*compatible* replacement drive for the array... hopefully before the other
drive fails... This is not much better than my current (optimized) situation.

Meanwhile, another drive is dying.

 

[kaishaku72]

I gave up and ordered WD4000YR's after all... wish me luck.

 

[jiffylube1024]

The main killers in my experience of drives (aside from blind luck, or blind unluck) are heat and use. All >200GB 7200rpm drives seem to run hot; keeping them cool with a fan seems to make them a lot happier. Also, the more you use a drive, naturally, the shorter its life will be. I just replaced a client's 6 year old Maxtor 30GB HD that works like new; needless to say they use their PC for 1 hour a day or less, while someone else had a 120GB Maxtor die prematurely in 2.5 yrs.

I've also had failures from all brands. Sometimes it's just bad luck (first 3 years). Some drives give you lots of warning signs (up until recently, WD drives got EXTREMELY loud due to the bearings wearing out; a not-so-subtle reminder to replace your aging HD before WD finally caught onto the fluid bearing fad). I assure you that IBM Deathstar 75GXP will give you clicks eventually (mine lasted 5+ years before finally getting the click of death, so I'll corroborate with you that these drives can last if taken care of).

To finish off my spiel: I'd say you can be pretty safe with any of the major brands: Maxtor, WD or Seagate. You'll be running RAID 1, so you'll have half the failure rate. Maxtor's Maxline III series or Seagate's new 7200.9's (I just picked up a pair of 300GB 7200.9's myself) are attractive because they offer 5 year warranties. WD also has a new "RAID" series Caviar drive with a 5 year warranty that supposedly is more reliable (although it's also more expensive).