Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 23:08:30 -0700 From: "Charles Burns" <burnscharlesn@hotmail.com> To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: RE: reliable HDD brand (LONG) Message-ID: <F863ZtORDcsXPLwvrzn0000acf4@hotmail.com>
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Oops, I keep making global replies only to one person. >On Saturday, September 29, Charles Burns wrote: >SCSI isn't more reliable simply because it is SCSI, SCSI is (in general) >more reliable because SCSI hard drives are used in servers, and system >builders pay a premium for the drives. The drives, in general, are >manufactured with much stricter quality standards. High end SCSI >hard drives >are server class components, whereas high end IDE drives are still >consumer-grade. > >Notice that the Seagate Cheetah X15 (a 15,000 RPM drive that >operates at a >high temperature, mind you) has a 5 yr warranty, whereas you will >not find >an IDE drive with more than a 3 year warranty (at least I haven't) > >Here are some quick specs that I dug up... Far from >comprehensive, but with >some good info (look at www.seagate.com and www.ibm.com for more specs): > >DeskStar 75GXP (IDE): >Start/Stops ... 40,000 >Non-recoverable errors ... 1 in 10e13 > >IBM 36GB Ultrastar 36LZX (SCSI) >Start/Stops ... 50,000 >Non-recoverable errors ... 1 in 10e14 > >Seagate Cheetah X15 36LP (SCSI) >Start/Stops ... ? (didn't say) >Non-recoverable errors ... 1 in 10e15 (100 times less than IDE drive) > > > >I had an old Seagate Elite 47GB full-height 5.25" (very heavy, >slow) drive >whos docs say that the drive REQUIRES active cooling...It gets >hot. It has >been in a cramped desktop server with no active cooling for over >3 years and >has survived a motherboard being fried (no idea how that happened), 2 CPU >changes, and has been at times used for web serving, FTP serving, >and used >as a SAMBA MP3 server for 1.5 years. I gave it to my roommates >when I left >Phoenix, AZ, and it is still working fine. (It was even purchased >used, it >was in an old PPro 180 Windows NT file server--without active cooling). I >have some IDE drives that have lasted as long, but not at SCSI-hard drive >heat levels. > >If it makes any difference, SCSI is also an older and more mature >technology, and has traditionally been far in advance of IDE for >reliability >features such as parity, ECC, and packet-based data transfers. >(At least I >think that the newer SCSI devices used packet-based transfers, similar to >TCP, but I don't know that one for sure) > > >Why is SCSI more reliable than, say IDE, when SCSI dictates the host > >interface? Is the actual data encoding on the platter any more >reliable? Is > >the drive spindle motor or head servo any more reliable? > >Yes. You get what you pay for. (And you really pay quite a bit with SCSI >drives) > > >I use to run SCSI > >exclusively, but I had so much trouble, specially when the >Ultra-Wide stuff > >came out that I switched to IDE. Other then one problem with the >IBM 75GXP > >45G, IDE was been more reliable for me than SCSI. > > > >I agree they are not as fast as IDE. > >You mean IDE is not as fast as SCSI? Probably a typo, just wanted to >confirm. > >SCSI has some other nice features, like how there can be multiple devices >per channel and how they can all be accessed at once, and SCSI >RAID arrays >are automatically capable of being faster just because of the >fact that the >interface supports higher bandwidth--320MB/sec max (theoretical) VS IDE's >current max of 133MB/sec (which no RAID cards yet support anyway) > >SCSI will probably eventually die off... Its market share has >been eroding >and less devices are available than once were. (Try finding a new >SCSI Zip >drive, for example, or a new SCSI Plextor CD burner... :( > >Not that I don't like IDE. The drives are dirt cheap and fast enough for >most consumer systems. I say SCSI for servers and expensive >workstations and >IDE for everything else. > > >Just my $0.01 > >Charles Burns _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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