Re: Re: Two Drive Failure on RAID-5

[Cry <cry_regarder@yahoo.com>]

David Lethe <david <at> santools.com> writes:

> Cry wrote:
>> By the way, I'm thinking about buying five of these:
>> 
>> Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB ST31000340AS SATA-II 32MB Cache
>> 
>> and one of these:
>> 
>> Supermicro SUPERMICRO CSE-M35T-1 Hot-Swapable SATA HDD Enclosure
>> 
>> http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/mobilerack/CSE-M35T-1.cfm
>>
>> Any feedback on the above?  Is there a suggestion on an
>> inexpensive controller to give more SATA ports that is very software
>> raid compatible?
> 
> Respectfully .. are you nuts??? 

Probably, thats why I asked for a sanity check.

I had originally gotten a batch of six extremely inexpensive WD 500GB drives.  I
have now had 4 of those six drives go tango uniform since May of 07.  None of
the replacement drives I've purchased (samsung, hitachi) have reported even a
single SMART error.  For my personal systems these are the first drives I've had
crash in 20 years.

> Don't buy the 7200.11 disks.   You bought a bunch of desktop class
> drives, and they crapped out on you, and you are about to make the same
> mistake again.  Get the server class disk that is designed to run 24x7
> duty cycle, which in your case would be the 'cuda ES.2

If I go with the 'cuda ES.2 is that enough risk management to stick with a
raid-5 arrangement?  I am doing this on my own dime so if I can go with four
drives now instead of five it would pay for the increased drive grade.  

> Sorry about the soapbox, but it never ceases to amaze me how people try
> to save by buying disk drives architected with lowest possible cost in
> mind, and don't investigate the higher-quality disks that are designed
> for extended reliability and data integrity.

That is the RAID meme.  If you have the redundancy why spend money on the fancy
drives?  On the other hand, four drives crashing has cost me about $500 dollars
in replacement drives and lots of time.

Always looking for an angle ;-)