From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Bill Davidsen Subject: Re: ATA cables and drives Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 13:24:16 -0400 Message-ID: <450C3340.9060507@tmr.com> References: <62b0912f0609160616k3b79ded9la2c918df057daef0@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <62b0912f0609160616k3b79ded9la2c918df057daef0@mail.gmail.com> Sender: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org To: Molle Bestefich Cc: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-raid.ids Molle Bestefich wrote: > I'm looking for new harddrives. > > This is my experience so far. > > > SATA cables: > ============= > > I have zero good experiences with any SATA cables. > They've all been crap so far. > > > 3.5" ATA harddrives buyable where I live: > ========================================== > > (All drives are 7200rpm, for some reason.) Unless you live where delivery services don't go, you can get 10k SATA or 15k Ultra320 drives from many vendors. I checked newegg just as a reference, there are many others. The rest of your questions sound like you are running the drives very hot, and drive life is inversely proportional to temperature. There are mil-spec drives which will live at 100C, but they are not readily available and cost way more than keeping drives cool. I have no idea what kind of SATA cable failure you are seeing, I have some in machines I take to give presentations, and if 10k miles in the back of an SUV didn't cause problems, I doubt any normal operation would. I've had them bad when I got them, but if they work once they keep working, in my experience. > > > I've tried Maxtor and IBM (now Hitachi) harddrives. > Both makes have failed on me, but most of the time due to horrible > packaging. > > I don't care a split-second whether one kind is marginally faster than > the other, so all the reviews on AnandTech etc. are utterly useless to > me. There's an infinite number of more effective ways to get better > performance than to buy a slightly faster harddrive. > > I DO care about quality, namely: > * How often the drives has catastrophic failure, > * How they handle heat (dissipation & acceptance - how hot before it > fails?), > * How big the spare area is, > * How often they have single-sector failures, > * How long the manufacturer warranty lasts, > * How easy the manufacturer is to work with wrt. warranty. > > I haven't been able to figure the spare area size, heat properties, > etc. for any drives. > Thus my only criteria so far has been manufacturer warranty: How much > bitching do I get when I tell them my drive doesn't work. > > My main experience is with Maxtor. > Maxtor has been none less than superb wrt. warranty! > Download an ISO with a diag tool, burn the CD, boot the CD, type in > the fault code it prints on Maxtor's site, and a day or two later > you've got a new drive in the mail and packaging to ship the old one > back in. If something odd happens, call them up and they're extremely > helpful. > > Unfortunately, I lack thorough experience with the other brands. > > > Questions: > =========== > > A.) Does anyone have experience with returning Hitachi, Seagate or WD > drives to the manufacturer? > Do they have manufacturer warranty at all? > How much/little trouble did you have with Hitachi, Seagate or WD? > > B.) Can anyone *prove* (to a reasonable degree) that drives from > manufacturer H, M, S or WD is of better quality? > Has anyone seen a review that heat/shock/stress test drives? > > C.) Does good SATA cables exist? > Eg. cables that lock on to the drives, or backplanes which lock > the entire disk in place? > > > Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for answers (if any) :-). > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > -- bill davidsen CTO TMR Associates, Inc Doing interesting things with small computers since 1979