2TB drives for RAID; Hitachi vs WD Green

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ctrudel

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I plan on adding a new array when my case (norco rpc-4224) arrives. I have an adaptec 5805 with a chenbro 28 port SAS expander I plan on using.

I'm trying to decide between the Hitachi 2TB deskstars and WD's WD20EARS drives. Both are listed as being compatible with the raid controller and I am aware that neither drive support TLER.

The hitachi drives seem to have a better reputation for reliability in RAID but they cost ~30% more and I can't even find a local vendor that stocks them regularly. The WD drives are cheaper (I could have several hot spares for the same price as the hitachis) and they are stocked pretty much everywhere in town.

I am planning on running 8 drives in RAID 6 (possibly with 1 or 2 extra as hot spares) and then expanding later. Any opinions on which direction I should go?
 
Wow it definitely used to be on there; I see it was updated on August 31 and it looks like they removed like half the drives from that list. The hitachis are still listed... I guess if they had reason to remove it that answers the question.
 
I had no success using the WD 2TB green drives in an array. Neither in a software mirror in Windows, nor hanging off an areca 1210 hardware card. One or the other would tend to lock up after a random amount of time online. Not right away, and not usually due to excessive load. Swapped 'em out for a bunch of Seagate 2TBs and have had no trouble since (knock wood).
 
i have a 2T WD green drive and with in 2 weeks bad sectors, with in 1 day of trying to recover data, the drive wont even spin up now, just makes a faint beep noise as if the head is stuck, has really put me off WD drives for some reason..
 
oxyi said:
hiatchi.

that's the drive that equallogic use in their san.
Click to expand...

The Deskstar or the Ultrastar? Our Equallogic with 1TB SATA drives uses Hitachi as well but they are not the consumer model but a model from the Enterprise range.
 
WD Green drive is not intend for RAID application - due to TLER disable. This means this drive can be MIA anytime and raid engine will report as BAD drive, but the fact it still work

Get Hitachi Deskstar, It works
 
DATOptic: the TLER function doesn't have any thing to do with the disk being 'green' or 5400rpm. Also WD Black 7200rpm wouldn't work properly in proprietary RAIDs.

Proprietary RAIDs require TLER-enabled disks to prevent dropouts and broken arrays.

The 4K sector issue on Samsung F4 / WD EARS is another issue in itself. While it affects performance it shouldn't affect compatibility. Green disks also have RAID edition versions with TLER capability.
 
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