I need some cheap RAID-5 disks

[InorganicMatter]

Well, the last Maxtor drive in my hodge-podge RAID-5 array finally died. I'm never buying a Maxtor drive again, every single one that was originally in this array died, and the WD ones are still going strong!

Anyway, right now I've got a mix of 300, 400, and 500 GB disks that are slopped together in a RAID-5 on an awesome Intel SAS card that I got free from work. I want to put a few nice disks on here that will cut the power usage, heat output, noise creation, etc.

I figure that 3x1TB disks gets me way more space than I have now, and cuts the number of disks in here from 7 to 3. But I dunno anything about disks any more because I haven't kept up with the tech. Do 1TB disks have the best $$$/GB ratio right now? Better ideas? I was looking at these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...96 1035424340 1035507776 4027&name=$75 - $100

That seems to get me a 2TB array for around $250, and I can expand it up to 7TB in the future by adding more disks. Is there a better route?

 

[DonDon]

I am running the WD GP 1 TB drives in my Thecus N5200 NAS box. I bought the desktop version and turned TLER on to use them in a RAID 5 array. They are quiet, run cool, and are similarly priced to the drives in your link. They are plenty fast for serving files. I would not use on as an OS drive though.

I know that Samsung has a line called the Eco Green drives. The other OEMs prolly have similar models also.

Don

 

[AreEss]

RAID5 is for 4+1 + Hotspare. Not 2+1. Ever. 2+1 sucks, is stupid, and frankly is an invention of the idiots at Dell. If you aren't going to put 5 disks in it, don't bother with RAID5.

That said, I'd go 5 x Hitachi 500's or 750's, or Samsung 750's.
Under no circumstances use anything advertised as "multi RPM," or this new "dual processor" garbage from the scum at Western Digital. They are incompatible with RAID, period. If you want things powered down, investigate MAID and spindown functionality for your card. If a drive takes that initiative on it's own? Your array just went to degraded, then dead.

 

[silent-circuit]

...I've got a RAID 0 set up with two WD 640 Blacks that are "dual processor" and seem to work fine. So... incompatible period. Over-generalize much?

 

[AreEss]

...I've got a RAID 0 set up with two WD 640 Blacks that are "dual processor" and seem to work fine. So... incompatible period. Over-generalize much?

Oops. I omitted "real."
Congratulations on buying into a gimmick that has no basis in fact, though.

 

[Rembrandt]

I am happy that I have never taken any of your advice on any Raid system AreEss. You are so far off base with your remark in your first post that it almost looks like a Troll post. It is only my respect for many of your other posts that I do not report your post. The major factor in what drives work is the controller card. All controller cards are not created equal and some will just not work with certain drives. My 3Ware 9650 works flawlessly with “non-raid” drives and works well with "dual processor" drives.

 

[AreEss]

I am happy that I have never taken any of your advice on any Raid system AreEss. You are so far off base with your remark in your first post that it almost looks like a Troll post. It is only my respect for many of your other posts that I do not report your post. The major factor in what drives work is the controller card. All controller cards are not created equal and some will just not work with certain drives. My 3Ware 9650 works flawlessly with “non-raid” drives and works well with "dual processor" drives.

Which one of us didn't didn't check the official compatibility list? (Hint: it's not me.)

I bring to you, the 3Ware 9650SE Compatibility List for Disk Drives:
http://www.3ware.com/products/pdf/Drive_compatibility_list_9650SE_900-0019-02RevP.pdf
You will note, no FALS (Black Edition) drives are on this list. And those lists are the ultimate unquestioned arbiter of support and compatibility. No manufacturer supports the Black Editions on any RAID controller at this point; the soonest any drive gets on these is 1-2 months after general availability. Nobody has had time to test and certify these drives.
Oh, and I'll point out I didn't say anything about the controller card not being a factor. What I did say is that with his RAID controller, which I am familiar with, those type of drives are incompatible.

As for it being a gimmick with no basis in fact, I give unto you what people who already purchased the drive have said. Or rather, graphed:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1355778
As you can see very clearly, performance "gains" over AAKS? Nonexistent. I had to look four times to be sure they were different drives. That should tell you something right there.

So, you have the combination of not on the compatible list, and other people showing that performance gains outside of cache simply don't exist. Now, I'm wrong about 3Ware's compatibility list and other people's benchmarks agreeing with me how?

EDIT:
Here's the compatibility list for the Intel SAS4MFI RAID controller...
http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/sasmf8i/sb/sasmf8i_thol_6_0.pdf
And here's the compatibility list for the Intel SRCSAS18E RAID controller...
http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/srcsas18e/sb/srcsas18e_thol_10_0.pdf
And to save time, here's the page for all of Intel's current SAS/SATA RAID controllers. You'll find supported disks in the Support -> Tested Hardware and Software PDFs.
http://www.intel.com/products/server/raid/index.htm

 

[InorganicMatter]

Wow, this thread was less than useful. Big thanks to DonDon for actually helping. The rest of you, go back to 4chan.