I've had it with seagate's 7200.11, advice pls

[bramdo]

Dear all,

during the last months I was one of the bad luck guys who had bought several Seagate barracuda Hd's (7200.11, 500 gb) which were victim to the strange lock up problem.
As you all know the initial firmware upgrade did cause a 'brick' but i finally managed to upgrade the drives with the correct firmware.
However, due to all the crashes and lock ups the disks do act strange from time to time.
They stop to respond when i try to secure erase them (even under dos) or they do a ridiculous long time over a simple format.

I have had it and I want to buy reliable harddisk which will be connected to an adaptec raid controller. What would you advice me:
- the spinpoints f1's?
- velociraptors (the price is a minus)?

Please help, i lost months of detecting the problem because it took ages for seagate to fix it themselves?

Bram

 

[tiggersbowl1]

I am by no means an expert, but the samsungs seem to be one of the more dependable manufacturers currently.

Sorry about your troubles and good luck with your future storage solutions.

 

[Blain]

Are you asking about a single drive or multiples in some kind of RAID array?

 

[bramdo]

Hi guys,

thanks for the response. There will be a raid 10 or 5 array for video edit solutions. I've seen good reviews for raid on the WD re3 (enterprise disks)

Bram

 

[Blain]

WD RE3 are the HDs you want to go with for your array.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Consumer level drives like the 7200.11 are not designed for RAID, get Seagate ES.2 (not really my recommendation at this point) or WD RE series (RE3 at this point)

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Originally posted by: BlueAcolyte
Consumer level drives like the 7200.11 are not designed for RAID, get Seagate ES.2 (not really my recommendation at this point) or WD RE series (RE3 at this point)

I've seen this observation before, and don't discount it, but I can add these caveats.

I think the advantage for the RE2 or RE3 (WD) drives, or Seagate SE's, is specific to "TLER" or time-limited error recovery. TLER prevents disk "fallout" through drive error-recovery processess.

I bought several Seagate 7200.10 drives for use in RAID5 under the 3Ware 9650SE 4-port PCI-E controller. That was in spring, 2007, and -- for this particular system-build -- I've never had a problem with them.

But in hindsight, and in conjunction with BlueAcolyte's remarks, I'd say it makes better sense to get drives with specific RAID-optimization features like TLER. I look at it this way: if you want RAID5 for both performance and reliability, you can compromise somewhat on sustained-throughput performance indicators, because either RAID0 or RAID5 is going to give you an ample performance boost under several current-gen drive models -- even accounting for the pricey VelociRaptor option.

On the Seagate models: The 7200.10's were touted in several reviews across the board when I bought them. Lately, I've seen consumer reviews complaining of shorter-than-desired longevity for these.

Back in '04, I'd picked Hitachi SATA-150's for the same promising review observations. Then a couple years later, looking at comparisons between Hitachi and Seagate, the benchtests seemed to point toward Seagate.

Don't discount the SpinPoints from Samsung, but my personal recommendation this year leans toward the Western Digital Black Caviars -- except for the reasons BlueAcolyte and I have discussed here.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: BonzaiDuck
I think the advantage for the RE2 or RE3 (WD) drives, or Seagate SE's, is specific to "TLER" or time-limited error recovery. TLER prevents disk "fallout" through drive error-recovery processess.

The RE vs standard drive question is debated from time to time, and one of the answers is that there often isn't much, and sometimes no, difference in the hardware between the versions. Add to that the possibility of disabling TLER using a manufacturer's utility (which WD supplies for example), and you have the possibility of choosing among the better priced drives and getting "RE" capability.

I say this meaning "you be the judge". Nobody's giving you a warranty on your data, with or without RE drives.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Originally posted by: Madwand1

Originally posted by: BonzaiDuck
I think the advantage for the RE2 or RE3 (WD) drives, or Seagate SE's, is specific to "TLER" or time-limited error recovery. TLER prevents disk "fallout" through drive error-recovery processess.

The RE vs standard drive question is debated from time to time, and one of the answers is that there often isn't much, and sometimes no, difference in the hardware between the versions. Add to that the possibility of disabling TLER using a manufacturer's utility (which WD supplies for example), and you have the possibility of choosing among the better priced drives and getting "RE" capability.

I say this meaning "you be the judge". Nobody's giving you a warranty on your data, with or without RE drives.

No quarrel with that . . .

 

[bramdo]

Hi guys,

thank you all. Adaptec announced that the seagate's arent compatible with the 2405 sas adapter so there is clarity but no solution

 

[Keriokie2000]

I could not get my 4 Seagate 1.5TB 7200.11 drives to work on RAID 0, 0+1, or 5 on an nVidia 750i raid controller. They work fine separately or in RAID 1. They even work as RAID 0 under Windows XP software RAID if I disable the RAID controller and use the drives individually. I am pretty sure it is a BIOS/driver issue and not a problem with the drives.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: tiggersbowl1
I am by no means an expert, but the samsungs seem to be one of the more dependable manufacturers currently.

Sorry about your troubles and good luck with your future storage solutions.

THe one thing I don't like about samsung is they require you to contact the store that originally sold you the drive to do a warranty rma.

with seagate or western dig you can just go on the website and punch in the serial number and it can go from the manufacturer date (so you dont need a receipt and such either).


so i suppose given that, i'd recommend you go with western dig or hitachi over seagatae.