| Author |
Message |
Paul Rubin
Guest
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 Posted:
Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:04 am Post subject:
are there any good desktop disk drives these days? |
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I'd like to buy a quiet, reliable hard drive for a desktop PC.
Capacity, speed, and $/GB are unimportant (within reason). I get the
impression that all the standard ATA-type desktop drives are complete
crap, and not intended for heavy use (continuous power-on even without
a lot of i/o). I looked at a 200 GB, $150 ATA drive next to a 36.7
GB, $200 server drive (same form factor) and the server drive weighed
about 2x as much, suggesting a much more durable mechanism.
36.7 GB is enough capacity for my purposes and I'm ok with paying $200
for it, but those server drives usually spin at 10k or 15k rpm, so
they need lots of cooling and they make a lot of noise. This isn't so
great for a desktop box.
Any other suggestions? Should I get a pair of those horrible ATA
drives and mirror them? |
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Al Dykes
Guest
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| Posted:
Tue Dec 07, 2004 6:14 pm Post subject:
Re: are there any good desktop disk drives these days? |
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In article <7x8y8azlsi.fsf_-_@ruckus.brouhaha.com>,
Paul Rubin <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote:
| Quote: | I'd like to buy a quiet, reliable hard drive for a desktop PC.
Capacity, speed, and $/GB are unimportant (within reason). I get the
impression that all the standard ATA-type desktop drives are complete
crap, and not intended for heavy use (continuous power-on even without
a lot of i/o). I looked at a 200 GB, $150 ATA drive next to a 36.7
GB, $200 server drive (same form factor) and the server drive weighed
about 2x as much, suggesting a much more durable mechanism.
36.7 GB is enough capacity for my purposes and I'm ok with paying $200
for it, but those server drives usually spin at 10k or 15k rpm, so
they need lots of cooling and they make a lot of noise. This isn't so
great for a desktop box.
Any other suggestions? Should I get a pair of those horrible ATA
drives and mirror them?
|
Who says the're horrible ?
The issue of 24x7 operation for retail disk drives comes up once in a
while and I've never seen a manufacturers spec sheet that says the
disk wasn't designed for 24x7. If someone knows of a model that does
have that restriction I'd like to hear about it.
IMO, you have to do backups of valuable data as if you disk is going
to die tonight, therefore it doesn't matter if some people think a
disk model is a dog. Each if the disk manufacturers has, at one time,
made a model that was problametic. FWIW, years ago I received a large
batch of Big Name PCs, that had a WD 1.6GB disk model that became a
well known dog in the industry. I ran those machines for years and
none of the disks failed. backup backup backup.
The best thing you can do for your disk is to monitor it's temperature
and keep it below the recommendation, found on the manufacturer's web
site. And backup backup backup
I think some retail disks have 3 year warranties. Get one if it makes
you feel any better. A manufacturer isn't in business long of he
consistantly makes disks that need to be replaced on warranty.
True server disks will be SCSI, and much more expensive, for several
legit reasons. Market size, for one. As for weight, sever disk model
changes are much more conserative and you may have been hefting an
older design. The software in retail disks may be optimized for
reading large files serially with just one or two I/O threads. Disks
designed for server operation are optimized for random block I/O with
many I/O threads. I've seen one benchmark of idential disk iron, with
desktop and server software that showed a preformance difference. I
can't give you a URL, offhand.
Mirroring is nice, and cheap these days, but it doesn't replace a
backup that's physically removed from the machine.
Can anyone document a case of common mode failure, probably the PSU,
that killed two disks in a chassis ? (short of a lightning strike)
--
a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m
---- |
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Malcolm Weir
Guest
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| Posted:
Tue Dec 07, 2004 8:39 pm Post subject:
Re: are there any good desktop disk drives these days? |
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On 7 Dec 2004 08:14:32 -0500, adykes@panix.com (Al Dykes) wrote:
[ Snip ]
| Quote: | Can anyone document a case of common mode failure, probably the PSU,
that killed two disks in a chassis ? (short of a lightning strike)
|
Stiction was a right b*stard with one product family we had. Shut the
chassis down, turn it back on, and some number of drives wouldn't
start. Shut down again. Bang the disks (really) Repeat until they
all spin!
Then call the disk manufacturer and host a bunch of their engineers
for a couple of weeks.
Get new firmware that puts a oscillation on the head arm as the disks
start to turn...
(The disks were 2.8GB 5.25in FH / 1.4GB 3.5in HH SCSI disks, to date
the problem).
Malc. |
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RPR
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Dec 08, 2004 1:32 am Post subject:
Re: are there any good desktop disk drives these days? |
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Ahh, the good old days :) Untextured media, a little outgassing or lube
depletion, and the fun was on. I saw a drive that apparently got a
little too much of a rotational shock and a head was ripped off the
gimbal and still stuck to the media.
Regarding desktop drives, most MTBF specs don't hold up when you run
them 24x7. Anyone who ever made RAID systems with desktop drives knows
this and the manufacturers are quite clear about it. They even offer
better strains of the garden variety breeds (for a slightly higher
price of course) for RAID usage, which makes a lot of sense for OEMs if
you figure service cost.
So, if your normal ARR at the bottom of the bathtub curve used to be
maybe 1 or 2%, it is probably more like 5% today if you run the drive
around the clock hard. That's not quite as bad as one of the dogs Al
mentions, but not good either. So, yeah, mirror them, test what happens
when you break the mirror before one dies, run backups. Also, you might
not want to buy a drive from the bleeding edge if you don't need the
highest capacity. A drive that's been on the market for a couple of
months has matured somewhat as the manufacturer gains experience with
it. |
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RPR
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:01 am Post subject:
Re: are there any good desktop disk drives these days? |
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Ahh, the good old days :) Untextured media, a little outgassing or lube
depletion, and the fun was on. I saw a drive that apparently got a
little too much of a rotational shock and a head was ripped off the
gimbal and still stuck to the media.
Regarding desktop drives, most MTBF specs don't hold up when you run
them 24x7. Anyone who ever made RAID systems with desktop drives knows
this and the manufacturers are quite clear about it. They even offer
better strains of the garden variety breeds (for a slightly higher
price of course) for RAID usage, which makes a lot of sense for OEMs if
you figure service cost.
So, if your normal ARR at the bottom of the bathtub curve used to be
maybe 1 or 2%, it is probably more like 5% today if you run the drive
around the clock hard. That's not quite as bad as one of the dogs Al
mentions, but not good either. So, yeah, mirror them, test what happens
when you break the mirror before one dies, run backups. Also, you might
not want to buy a drive from the bleeding edge if you don't need the
highest capacity. A drive that's been on the market for a couple of
months has matured somewhat as the manufacturer gains experience with
it. |
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Per Ekman
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Dec 08, 2004 5:54 pm Post subject:
Re: are there any good desktop disk drives these days? |
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adykes@panix.com (Al Dykes) writes:
| Quote: | Can anyone document a case of common mode failure, probably the PSU,
that killed two disks in a chassis ? (short of a lightning strike)
|
Had two drives in the same RAID-set in a Maxtrat fail to come up again
after a power outage. No amount of banging and coaxing helped so that
was a 24-hour restore from tape...
*p |
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Al Dykes
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Dec 08, 2004 8:57 pm Post subject:
Re: are there any good desktop disk drives these days? |
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In article <mjevfbdeyql.fsf@curlew.pdc.kth.se>,
Per Ekman <pek@pdc.kth.se> wrote:
| Quote: | adykes@panix.com (Al Dykes) writes:
Can anyone document a case of common mode failure, probably the PSU,
that killed two disks in a chassis ? (short of a lightning strike)
Had two drives in the same RAID-set in a Maxtrat fail to come up again
after a power outage. No amount of banging and coaxing helped so that
was a 24-hour restore from tape...
*p
|
Did both disks have to be replaced ?
I'm not asking about RAID failure.
I've been setting up machines with a second big disk and using image
backup software to do very fast full backups. One way this can fail as
a backup strategy is if a surge kills both disks in one shot.
Big (really big) power supplies have had crowar protection circuits
for many years. I wonder if PC power supplies have this, and how
reliable it is.
--
a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m
---- |
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Scott Howard
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Dec 09, 2004 1:06 am Post subject:
Re: are there any good desktop disk drives these days? |
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Al Dykes <adykes@panix.com> wrote:
| Quote: | The issue of 24x7 operation for retail disk drives comes up once in a
while and I've never seen a manufacturers spec sheet that says the
disk wasn't designed for 24x7. If someone knows of a model that does
have that restriction I'd like to hear about it.
|
Depends what you mean by 24x7. All drives are designed to be powered on
24x7, but generally low-end drives are not designed to be used (ie,
accessed) 24x7.
Manufacturers routinely publish MTBF figures, and as a rule the MTBF
for an IDE/ATA/SATA drive will be around the same as that for an
FCAL/SCSI drive.
The difference is that the MTBF for the SCSI/FCAL drives is generally
based on a duty cycle of 100%, whilst for IDE/ATA/SATA it's generally a
duty cycle of around 5-10%.
5-10% duty cycle is probably about right for a desktop/workstation/etc,
but for a server it can fall far, far short...
Scott |
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Vitoo Suwann
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Dec 09, 2004 10:51 am Post subject:
Re: are there any good desktop disk drives these days? |
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I heard from people that work in HD mfg that Server Driver (SCSI, FC) and
make diffrently from the consumer drive (IDE, ATA). That why MTBF, weight
and price are diffrent. The construction down to they of bearing use in the
drive are different. Scott is 100% correct in MTBF number and if you check
warranty on server drive and consumer grade drive you will see a big
diffrent. For small setup that require 24x7 uptime I would go with SCSI
drive. FC just too expensive for what you need.
V2
"Paul Rubin" <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote in message
news:7x8y8azlsi.fsf_-_@ruckus.brouhaha.com...
| Quote: | I'd like to buy a quiet, reliable hard drive for a desktop PC.
Capacity, speed, and $/GB are unimportant (within reason). I get the
impression that all the standard ATA-type desktop drives are complete
crap, and not intended for heavy use (continuous power-on even without
a lot of i/o). I looked at a 200 GB, $150 ATA drive next to a 36.7
GB, $200 server drive (same form factor) and the server drive weighed
about 2x as much, suggesting a much more durable mechanism.
36.7 GB is enough capacity for my purposes and I'm ok with paying $200
for it, but those server drives usually spin at 10k or 15k rpm, so
they need lots of cooling and they make a lot of noise. This isn't so
great for a desktop box.
Any other suggestions? Should I get a pair of those horrible ATA
drives and mirror them? |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
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Per Ekman
Guest
|
| Posted:
Thu Dec 09, 2004 12:01 pm Post subject:
Re: are there any good desktop disk drives these days? |
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adykes@panix.com (Al Dykes) writes:
| Quote: | In article <mjevfbdeyql.fsf@curlew.pdc.kth.se>,
Per Ekman <pek@pdc.kth.se> wrote:
adykes@panix.com (Al Dykes) writes:
Can anyone document a case of common mode failure, probably the PSU,
that killed two disks in a chassis ? (short of a lightning strike)
Had two drives in the same RAID-set in a Maxtrat fail to come up again
after a power outage. No amount of banging and coaxing helped so that
was a 24-hour restore from tape...
*p
Did both disks have to be replaced ?
|
Yep.
| Quote: | I'm not asking about RAID failure.
|
Well, RAID failure was the result, but the cause was simultaneous
drive failure.
| Quote: | I've been setting up machines with a second big disk and using image
backup software to do very fast full backups. One way this can fail as
a backup strategy is if a surge kills both disks in one shot.
|
Right, it would be very interesting to see how big a risk it
is. Mirroring seems to generally considered to be "sufficiently"
secure for permanent storage (there was an article about this in the
MSST2003 proceedings IIRC) provided that the media volumes are
uncoupled. As the pressure to replace tape with disk if growing these
kinds of coupled failure modes for disk becomes an important
argument. If the argument is for or against tape is dependent on the
answer :)
| Quote: | Big (really big) power supplies have had crowar protection circuits
for many years. I wonder if PC power supplies have this, and how
reliable it is.
|
I very much doubt that our failure was related to a power surge. More
likely stiction.
*p |
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Al Dykes
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Dec 09, 2004 7:18 pm Post subject:
Re: are there any good desktop disk drives these days? |
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|
In article <mje8y88ez0j.fsf@curlew.pdc.kth.se>,
Per Ekman <pek@pdc.kth.se> wrote:
| Quote: | adykes@panix.com (Al Dykes) writes:
In article <mjevfbdeyql.fsf@curlew.pdc.kth.se>,
Per Ekman <pek@pdc.kth.se> wrote:
adykes@panix.com (Al Dykes) writes:
Can anyone document a case of common mode failure, probably the PSU,
that killed two disks in a chassis ? (short of a lightning strike)
Had two drives in the same RAID-set in a Maxtrat fail to come up again
after a power outage. No amount of banging and coaxing helped so that
was a 24-hour restore from tape...
*p
Did both disks have to be replaced ?
Yep.
I'm not asking about RAID failure.
Well, RAID failure was the result, but the cause was simultaneous
drive failure.
I've been setting up machines with a second big disk and using image
backup software to do very fast full backups. One way this can fail as
a backup strategy is if a surge kills both disks in one shot.
Right, it would be very interesting to see how big a risk it
is. Mirroring seems to generally considered to be "sufficiently"
secure for permanent storage (there was an article about this in the
MSST2003 proceedings IIRC) provided that the media volumes are
uncoupled. As the pressure to replace tape with disk if growing these
kinds of coupled failure modes for disk becomes an important
argument. If the argument is for or against tape is dependent on the
answer :)
Big (really big) power supplies have had crowar protection circuits
for many years. I wonder if PC power supplies have this, and how
reliable it is.
I very much doubt that our failure was related to a power surge. More
likely stiction.
*p
|
What year did this happen and how old were the disks when it did ?
When exchanging disk drive war stories we have to remember that a disk
made a year ago is different in important ways, compared to a disk
made 10 years ago.
--
a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m
---- |
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Al Dykes
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Dec 09, 2004 7:24 pm Post subject:
Re: are there any good desktop disk drives these days? |
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|
In article <nJRtd.56493$QJ3.38982@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>,
Vitoo Suwann <vitoosu-zzz@reomove-zzz-yahoo.com> wrote:
| Quote: | I heard from people that work in HD mfg that Server Driver (SCSI, FC) and
make diffrently from the consumer drive (IDE, ATA). That why MTBF, weight
and price are diffrent. The construction down to they of bearing use in the
drive are different. Scott is 100% correct in MTBF number and if you check
warranty on server drive and consumer grade drive you will see a big
diffrent. For small setup that require 24x7 uptime I would go with SCSI
drive. FC just too expensive for what you need.
V2
|
re: 24/7 operation. In this thead it has been stated that consumer
disks are intended to be spinning 24hrs/day, but not doing head seeks
all the time.
I'll argue that a small business server is close to a home computer in
that it's only being used during business hours, plus whatever nightly
backup is done.
Corporate systems are likely to do after-hours processing that keeps
the systems busy all night. Public internet sites can be hit by
users, worldwide, at any hour.
--
a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m
---- |
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