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differences between desktop and enterprise HDDs

J

JoeComp

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jan 23, 2012
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http://www.storagereview.com/pick_the_right_drive_for_the_job_24_7_nas_hdds_vs_desktop_hdds

This article looks at some of the differences between desktop and enterprise HDDs. I think the author is too credulous with the specifications provided by the manufacturer, and makes some odd statements like "The picture above also highlights the overall mass of the enterprise case..." (mass from a picture?), but what I like about the article is that it has a few pictures showing specific differences in components between some Seagate desktop and enterprise drives.
 
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There were major differences a decade ago between the two. For one enterprise drives cost 3-4 times as much and included SAS/SCSI interfaces and larger caches as well as faster seek times and RPM's. The differences have been getting smaller and smaller now as more and more data companies are going with desktop drives and using raid type setup's to get enterprise speeds and reliability. But from what I have seen, they do start off with enterprise design and start using desktop parts as time goes by and the product becomes stable. These days the differences are only the firmware.

Seagate would be worst company to work with regarding this, they are a marketing company. And considering seagate drives fail more than others, to say their cost is lower.. Well what that proves is they recycle defective drives. They usually send back older used drives even if your new drive was DOA. The refurbished drives will more often than not fail soon after.. Hence they only offer a 3 month warranty on them. I seen people return them three times in a row because they were so bad. I had one drive get reallocated sectors after 10 hours of use. I dont rely on refurbished drives so I just use them as backup secondary devices. Sony and Apple would have much higher costs as we seen that especially with Apple products their service is excellent. You can reliably buy refurbished apple products and get the feeling they are like new. I would ask Seagate people the same question. Sony on the other hand was always top rate in quality ever since I have heard of them, even when other Japanese companies were third rate. Top enough for Apple to have copied them. Everyone copied Sony and Honda. We would not be getting such high quality products if not for these two.
 
AlienTech said:
There were major differences a decade ago between the two. For one enterprise drives cost 3-4 times as much and included SAS/SCSI interfaces and larger caches as well as faster seek times and RPM's. The differences have been getting smaller and smaller now as more and more data companies are going with desktop drives and using raid type setup's to get enterprise speeds and reliability. But from what I have seen, they do start off with enterprise design and start using desktop parts as time goes by and the product becomes stable. These days the differences are only the firmware.

Seagate would be worst company to work with regarding this, they are a marketing company. And considering seagate drives fail more than others, to say their cost is lower.. Well what that proves is they recycle defective drives. They usually send back older used drives even if your new drive was DOA. The refurbished drives will more often than not fail soon after.. Hence they only offer a 3 month warranty on them. I seen people return them three times in a row because they were so bad. I had one drive get reallocated sectors after 10 hours of use. I dont rely on refurbished drives so I just use them as backup secondary devices. Sony and Apple would have much higher costs as we seen that especially with Apple products their service is excellent. You can reliably buy refurbished apple products and get the feeling they are like new. I would ask Seagate people the same question. Sony on the other hand was always top rate in quality ever since I have heard of them, even when other Japanese companies were third rate. Top enough for Apple to have copied them. Everyone copied Sony and Honda. We would not be getting such high quality products if not for these two.
Click to expand...


Right... that's what the article, and picture illustrated :rolleyes:
 
It's far from being just firmware but the differences don't really matter to most people I guess.

And for that matter when I RMA'd a failing WD blue with bad sectors I got a refurbished (but flawless mind you) drive instead. Even if I don't like Seagate it's not just them sending refurbished products when you do a RMA :p

Still better than my buddy who has a Seagate and received back the EXACT same drive that suffered from bad sectors. They just formated it or something and thankfully it has been behaving until now but still, if I were him I would have refused and asked for a refund or a fresh drive as I'd never trust a drive that has previously failed. SMART data clearly shows that it's exactly the same drive as before, with the bad sectors records still showing up.
 
There is no way for you to easily know if it was a perviously failed drive for the fact that they clear out the smart values. The drive bios still has the original data but you need special programs to access that and for that you need to know someone who used to work in the tech department of the company. There were PD programs before that allowed anyone to read these data but you need knowledge to understand what the values are and if we have rouble finding out smart values, it would be impossible to get that kind of internal data. From the few people who I read abotu who have done it, they have all got back failed drives which were just formatted and sector checked to map out the bad blocks and smart cleared. I suppose if they find the drive still has any free sectors left for realloation then that drive goes into the bin to be shipped out. Which just means the drive is mostly on life support.. Once a drive starts developing problems in the field, it means more than likely there is something wrong with it. I have a seagate drive with over 30,000 reallocated sectors and it passes all segate tools tests...
 
AlienTech said:
There is no way for you to easily know if it was a perviously failed drive for the fact that they clear out the smart values. The drive bios still has the original data but you need special programs to access that and for that you need to know someone who used to work in the tech department of the company. There were PD programs before that allowed anyone to read these data but you need knowledge to understand what the values are and if we have rouble finding out smart values, it would be impossible to get that kind of internal data. From the few people who I read abotu who have done it, they have all got back failed drives which were just formatted and sector checked to map out the bad blocks and smart cleared. I suppose if they find the drive still has any free sectors left for realloation then that drive goes into the bin to be shipped out. Which just means the drive is mostly on life support.. Once a drive starts developing problems in the field, it means more than likely there is something wrong with it. I have a seagate drive with over 30,000 reallocated sectors and it passes all segate tools tests...
Click to expand...

Well for my mate's Seagate they didn't bother clearing the SMART values I can tell you as much. For my WB blue it's a completely different drive (different sticker, serial number and everything, it's even black instead of blue which is must be a mistake as it's absolutely not a "black" drive inside) and the SMART readings are clean yes (maybe "cleared" but I don't know and don't care anymore as it's been flawless for a year and isn't holding any important data).
 
kalston said:
Even if I don't like Seagate it's not just them sending refurbished products when you do a RMA :p
Click to expand...

I just RMA'd a Seagate drive and I did not get back a refurbished HDD at last as far as I can tell. How would I know?
 
They usually have a label that is clearly marked "Certified Repaired". Although the monthly stream of RMAs has settled down for the first time in 5+ years. My last RMA was in winter..
 
Yeah, mine has no such label mentioning anything about "Repaired" or anything similar like that.

It looks just like the one I sent in, except with a different serial number and stuff.
 
Ye, my WD drive clearly said "refurbished" on it, in bold letters (I still have the packaging in fact). That's how I know.

The Seagate drive I can't remember, I just remember when we unpacked it we got suspicious and the SMART readings gave it away.

I haven't really RMA'd too many products other than that, couple of Logitech mice maybe but they always sent me a new one before even receiving my broken one lol. The very few computers parts I've had dying on me did so long after the warranty period was over. My WD drive went bonkers after only 3-4 months of use.
 
Enterprise HDD factor's that drive up price are a better warranty, true support for RAID, higher MTBF, may be 10K or 15k RPM, and may have SAS connectors.

In the case of storage systems like Storage Area Networks and some servers, the system will require drives that have a specific firmware on them that is specific to that manufacturer. These types of drives are incredibly expensive ($1,500 for 2TB, for example for EMC).

When it comes to enterprise grade SSDs you'll see the same cost expenses as with HDDs but also enterprise grade SSD's use SLC or eMLC NAND for longer write longevity compared to MLC or TLC in consumer grade. They may also include more over-provisioned NAND for better wear leveling.
 
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