Help w\ determining best SATA for enterprise setting..

[airdata]

Looking to possibly replace some 300GB sas drives w\ SATA drives in a poweredge 2950. This is mostly bulk storage w\ a relatively high amount of read/write access day to day.


Was looking at the 750-1.5tb WD Black 6.0 64MB cache models and the 1tb velociraptors have also piqued my interest.

Can somebody share experience w\ using such drives in a Dell System or recommend sticking w\ SAS. Price is a concern as 600GB SAS drives are $400+ each and SATA would be 50% less or more.

 

[Coup27]

The standard WD Black and Velociraptors are only "rated" for 8 hours a day of usage. This is the standard for a consumer grade SATA hdd. As you are probably aware, SAS drives are rated for 24/7 usage, hence their increased cost.

WD do offer some 24/7 SATA HDD's which are probably somewhere in the middle. Have a look at the RE4's, AV-25 and AV-GP.

WD does say on their website that these drives go through an extended burn in and thermal cycle.

 

[airdata]

The standard WD Black and Velociraptors are only "rated" for 8 hours a day of usage. This is the standard for a consumer grade SATA hdd. As you are probably aware, SAS drives are rated for 24/7 usage, hence their increased cost.

WD do offer some 24/7 SATA HDD's which are probably somewhere in the middle. Have a look at the RE4's, AV-25 and AV-GP.

WD does say on their website that these drives go through an extended burn in and thermal cycle.

Thanks. Wasn't aware that some drives were only rated for 8hr/day. Already have some RE4's chugging away in another system.

Also found some similar Seagate ES drives that also have higher capacity lower priced SAS models. Found them looking for 24x7 as you posted about.

 

[the_meatloaf___]

We use a lot of Seagate Constellations at my workplace. They are SATA but are considered Enterprise class. We haven't had any problems with them.

 

[Coup27]

I know many consumer grade PC's which are on 24/7 with consumer grade SATA drives in and they've lasted 5+ years. Whether there is much difference in quality between consumer grade and enterprise grade I don't think we'll ever know. Howver if I put consumer grade 8hr's a day disks in a production server and they died I would get shot, so I thought I would mention it.

The pricing on the RE4 doesn't look to be much higher than a black and they are enterprise "ready and tested" according to WD so they maybe a good middle ground in quality and cost.

I would not consider Seagate anymore. Their quality has plummeted and they're nowhere near as good as they used to be.

 

[theevilsharpie]

If you intend to use the PERC controller in the 2950, you'll want to verify that it will accept drives from other vendors. HDDs are moneymakers for storage vendors, so they tend to brand the firmware and lock out non-branded drives from their controllers.