- Jun 30, 2004
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I thought I'd ask anyone willing to comment on the reliability of the subject items.
Over about 30 years of tinkering with what we once called "micro-computers," I've lost about two hard disks. I've had them configured as standalone, re-used in external USB drive boxes, pooled in WHS servers, components of RAID0 thru RAID5, and recently -- as "accelerated" HDDs in ISRT, but you can call that "standalone" for the way the Intel controller and software manages such a drive. The only problem about drive acceleration: you have to temporarily disable the caching/acceleration in order to reveal SMART information about the drive.
In my particular system I've been using for about 3 years now, I'd spent too much initially on a WD VelociRaptor. When I first installed it in the new system to the motherboard's onboard Intel controller, it failed in a week, and I returned it for the replacement -- my current boot HDD. I don't include this experience in my statement about "two failed hard disks in 30 years," because it simply failed while I was building the system -- not while I was using it.
The unit is ported to an SATA-II port in an ISRT configuration with a Patriot Pyro caching SSD (60GB) -- the latter connected to an SATA-III port.
Since the system was built in 2011, I had only two instances where I had to insert the Win 7 install disc to choose the "Repair" option because the HDD wouldn't boot. The second instance occurred today, after I reviewed event logs to reveal Event ID 55: "The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume \device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy[n]." I had recently cleaned up another event log error pertaining to the VSS volume shadow-copy service, and tweaked the system to get it to run properly.
After the easy task of using the Win7 install disc, I decided to unhinge the caching to reveal the SMART status of the VelociRaptor, and I downloaded the WD diagnostic tool. The drive got a clean bill of health. I also updated the firmware in the Pyro SSD, and SMART also gave it a clean bill of health.
But one might wonder about any possibility that SMART or a software diagnostic doesn't reveal something when it should. Anybody know something that I don't know-- as might be revealed or suggested by this -- my initial post to this thread?
Over about 30 years of tinkering with what we once called "micro-computers," I've lost about two hard disks. I've had them configured as standalone, re-used in external USB drive boxes, pooled in WHS servers, components of RAID0 thru RAID5, and recently -- as "accelerated" HDDs in ISRT, but you can call that "standalone" for the way the Intel controller and software manages such a drive. The only problem about drive acceleration: you have to temporarily disable the caching/acceleration in order to reveal SMART information about the drive.
In my particular system I've been using for about 3 years now, I'd spent too much initially on a WD VelociRaptor. When I first installed it in the new system to the motherboard's onboard Intel controller, it failed in a week, and I returned it for the replacement -- my current boot HDD. I don't include this experience in my statement about "two failed hard disks in 30 years," because it simply failed while I was building the system -- not while I was using it.
The unit is ported to an SATA-II port in an ISRT configuration with a Patriot Pyro caching SSD (60GB) -- the latter connected to an SATA-III port.
Since the system was built in 2011, I had only two instances where I had to insert the Win 7 install disc to choose the "Repair" option because the HDD wouldn't boot. The second instance occurred today, after I reviewed event logs to reveal Event ID 55: "The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume \device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy[n]." I had recently cleaned up another event log error pertaining to the VSS volume shadow-copy service, and tweaked the system to get it to run properly.
After the easy task of using the Win7 install disc, I decided to unhinge the caching to reveal the SMART status of the VelociRaptor, and I downloaded the WD diagnostic tool. The drive got a clean bill of health. I also updated the firmware in the Pyro SSD, and SMART also gave it a clean bill of health.
But one might wonder about any possibility that SMART or a software diagnostic doesn't reveal something when it should. Anybody know something that I don't know-- as might be revealed or suggested by this -- my initial post to this thread?
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