Question about the new HDs and Raid problem

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Cbshahji

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I'm reading lots of reviews on internet about many of new drives not build for raid 0 and/or failing on raid 0, i'm not sure but i never tried raid more than once, and when i bought the drive i never paid any attention at it being raid compatible and it was running my OS but now i read this reviews of them not being raid so is it technology or just regular stuff that i never noticed before? planning on getting 7200rpm drives and putting them in raid 0 for installing games in my desktop. PC specs are in Sig.

Thanks
CB
 
scbjmshpv said:
I'm reading lots of reviews on internet about many of new drives not build for raid 0 and/or failing on raid 0, i'm not sure but i never tried raid more than once, and when i bought the drive i never paid any attention at it being raid compatible and it was running my OS but now i read this reviews of them not being raid so is it technology or just regular stuff that i never noticed before? planning on getting 7200rpm drives and putting them in raid 0 for installing games in my desktop. PC specs are in Sig.

Thanks
CB
Click to expand...

Basically what happened is that drive manufacturers have decreased the allowed error-recovery time for modern hard drives drives. In everyday drive usage this wouldn't affect most users, however in raid arrays when a drive takes longer than normal to respond, it get's dropped out of the array. This isn't because of bad drive quality or any other factor, it's simply by design. Raid setups with modern drives are hit and miss, some drives work better than others and some raid controllers are more forgiving than others.

For example, I'm running 5x750GB Seagate 7200.11's in a Raid5 on an Intel ICH10 mobo and I rarely have problems. On the other hand, a buddy of mine ran 3x1TB Caviar Blacks and his Raid5 ICH9 array drops out and resyncs every other week.

I believe certain types of raid arrays are less picky than others (Raid 1, 0 vs Raid 5) but I'm not totally sure on this, I might be totally making that up.

Some drives can be modified so that the error-correction timeout will work with raid controllers, however I'm not sure which models / manufacturers this is for and it would take some research. A sure way to go is to purchase Enterprise-class drives or Raid-edition drives. These are specifically designed for raid volumes and shouldn't ever drop out, unless you actually have a bad drive. I know plenty of people who run raid arrays with standard desktop drives, but IMO it's just not a guarantee any more that you won't have problems.

My two cents, I hope I helped
 
Thanks for the info, both seagate and WD have almost similar reviews regarding raid (Being WD about 10-15 more review on thousand reviews) so i'll try my luck with WD since i never had DOA nor any of my drives have failed from them i'll take the bigger warranty of WD compare to seagate. unless otherwise someone will change my mind before weekend.
 
scbjmshpv said:
Thanks for the info, both seagate and WD have almost similar reviews regarding raid (Being WD about 10-15 more review on thousand reviews) so i'll try my luck with WD since i never had DOA nor any of my drives have failed from them i'll take the bigger warranty of WD compare to seagate. unless otherwise someone will change my mind before weekend.
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I'm a big WD fan myself, and will only buy their drives now. Do you think you'll go raid edition? or try your luck with standard drives?
 
I believe certain types of raid arrays are less picky than others (Raid 1, 0 vs Raid 5) but I'm not totally sure on this
Click to expand...
You guys are basically discussing TLER (Time-Limited Error Recovery).

TLER only becomes a concern when the RAID array involves parity information like RAID5.

It's not a concern in RAID0 or 1.
 
Old Hippie said:
You guys are basically discussing TLER (Time-Limited Error Recovery).

TLER only becomes a concern when the RAID array involves parity information like RAID5.

It's not a concern in RAID0 or 1.
Click to expand...


Thanks :) that's exactly what I was talking about but simply couldn't remember the exact terminology.

Sweet so my hunch was right, I should trust myself more often :)

So let me ask you this Old Hippie: if this is the case with modern drives and parity sets, how are people able to do 20+ TB Raid 6 arrays with desktop caviar greens? Are they modded? Or just damn lucky :p
 
how are people able to do 20+ TB Raid 6 arrays with desktop caviar greens?
Click to expand...
I don't pay attention to those monster storage threads so I can't answer that one.
 
techobrien said:
So let me ask you this Old Hippie: if this is the case with modern drives and parity sets, how are people able to do 20+ TB Raid 6 arrays with desktop caviar greens? Are they modded? Or just damn lucky :p
Click to expand...
Which people are you referring to?

Anyway a few reasons:
- They have older Green drives that didn't have the TLER capability disabled.
- They managed to get their hands on some newer Green drives that could have TLER enabled via a hack or so
- They're using a Linux or FreeBSD or some other open-source software based RAID 5 engine that can ignore the lack of TLER
- They're using an older RAID controller that was more forgiving when it came to TLER
- You're mistaken and those people were actually using Samsung or Hitachi low RPM and low power drives, not desktop caviar greens. Samsung and Hitachi drives works just fine with many RAID controllers out there due to the inclusion of a similar feature to TLER. CCTL IIRC (always get some of those acronyms confused).

Basically if you're gonna use a fakeRAID (like the ICH10R) or true hardware RAID controller for RAID 5 or any other RAID with parity data nowadays, you're better off with using a Hitachi or Samsung drive.
 
i'm too cheap to go all out, i try to get best of both world so i'll try luck with standard drives, i'll check online and see if there is a good deal i can find. best i can find is to choose http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533 hoping it'll will be backward compatible with SATA II, which it should. if not i'll go for the 1.5TB version of SATA II prices are not bad, but will wait week or two for good price up here or somewhere else. Will never ever buy Hitachi, all the drives i had started having problem after year or two, one of them actually broke the damn SATA attachment out of no where didn't notice year or two after i open the case to upgread the sound card. had it used another two year with duct tape and now it's wondering "what's that clicking noise"
 
scbjmshpv said:
i'm too cheap to go all out, i try to get best of both world so i'll try luck with standard drives, i'll check online and see if there is a good deal i can find. best i can find is to choose http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533 hoping it'll will be backward compatible with SATA II, which it should. if not i'll go for the 1.5TB version of SATA II prices are not bad, but will wait week or two for good price up here or somewhere else. Will never ever buy Hitachi, all the drives i had started having problem after year or two, one of them actually broke the damn SATA attachment out of no where didn't notice year or two after i open the case to upgread the sound card. had it used another two year with duct tape and now it's wondering "what's that clicking noise"
Click to expand...
Despite the inclusion of the SATA 6.0Gb/s interface, that WD 1TB Black drive still isn't a good deal when you can get the similar performing Samsung F3 1TB drive for $20 less:
$70 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

$20 less AND same performance? I'd say it's worth it.
 
Danny Bui said:
Despite the inclusion of the SATA 6.0Gb/s interface, that WD 1TB Black drive still isn't a good deal when you can get the similar performing Samsung F3 1TB drive for $20 less:
Click to expand...

I did check the spec sheet on WD's HD and the max transfer rate for both (SATA II and III) is same none the less, however the F3 you are talking about doesn't show any warranty for the product and the other F3R they have has 5 year warranty with just one review so too early to tell. Has anyone bought it and know what is the warranty period on those regular F3.

also i might just being greedy, but does 64mb catch make difference compare to 32mb? if little difference, then in raid will this difference be lower or higher (2x32mb in raid vs 2x64mb in raid?) or is it not that important?

Thanks
CB
 
but does 64mb catch make difference compare to 32mb? if little difference, then in raid will this difference be lower or higher (2x32mb in raid vs 2x64mb in raid?) or is it not that important?
Click to expand...
No difference and not important.
 
ive got an HP p400 that im trying to run an 8 drive raid 6 on w/ 2TB drives... should I splurge for the Seagate ES drives or just pick up some samsung f4's/hitachi's ?

I figure TLER/ERC/whatever its called should be an issue since its raid 6... If these things are dropping off im gonna be pissed and I have little desire to buy a 600 dollar areca or adaptec card... I only need to be able to stream BD movies..
 
scbjmshpv said:
I did check the spec sheet on WD's HD and the max transfer rate for both (SATA II and III) is same none the less, however the F3 you are talking about doesn't show any warranty for the product and the other F3R they have has 5 year warranty with just one review so too early to tell. Has anyone bought it and know what is the warranty period on those regular F3.

also i might just being greedy, but does 64mb catch make difference compare to 32mb? if little difference, then in raid will this difference be lower or higher (2x32mb in raid vs 2x64mb in raid?) or is it not that important?

Thanks
CB
Click to expand...

The Samsung F3 has a 3 year warranty. The cache doesn't make that much of a difference.
 
Danny Bui said:
Which people are you referring to?

Anyway a few reasons:
- They have older Green drives that didn't have the TLER capability disabled.
- They managed to get their hands on some newer Green drives that could have TLER enabled via a hack or so
- They're using a Linux or FreeBSD or some other open-source software based RAID 5 engine that can ignore the lack of TLER
- They're using an older RAID controller that was more forgiving when it came to TLER
- You're mistaken and those people were actually using Samsung or Hitachi low RPM and low power drives, not desktop caviar greens. Samsung and Hitachi drives works just fine with many RAID controllers out there due to the inclusion of a similar feature to TLER. CCTL IIRC (always get some of those acronyms confused).

Basically if you're gonna use a fakeRAID (like the ICH10R) or true hardware RAID controller for RAID 5 or any other RAID with parity data nowadays, you're better off with using a Hitachi or Samsung drive.
Click to expand...

Good to know thanks for the info. As far as people who have done this, many in the 10+ TB sticky. The #1 position box by Treadstone (http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1512972) uses what looks like regular old WD20EADS Caviar Green 2TB drives (56 of them to be exact) on an Areca ARC-1680i controller.
Is that controller just very forgiving? I can't seem to find anything alluding that he's modded the drives.
 
As I recall he flashed them to the RE$ GP firmware. Either that or he enabled TLER.
Actually, he's using FlexRAID so it doesn't matter.
 
S-F said:
As I recall he flashed them to the RE$ GP firmware. Either that or he enabled TLER.
Click to expand...

Would that damage the HD (flashing with those firmware?) will that void the warranty from WD doing either of that or it's simple click flash/enable TLER that WD won't mind in case of drive failure.

EDIT: I'm not talking about improper flashing as i would say he/she is very capable of doing that without screwing up, i mean the data of the flash?
 
scbjmshpv said:
Would that damage the HD (flashing with those firmware?) will that void the warranty from WD doing either of that or it's simple click flash/enable TLER that WD won't mind in case of drive failure.

EDIT: I'm not talking about improper flashing as i would say he/she is very capable of doing that without screwing up, i mean the data of the flash?
Click to expand...

This would be an ideal win-win situation. Cheap, large drives, good performance, decent warranties, and stability in raid...:D
 
techobrien said:
This would be an ideal win-win situation. Cheap, large drives, good performance, decent warranties, and stability in raid...:D
Click to expand...

:confused: sorry put a full stop instead of question mark. that was a question. i'm wondering if it would be allowed.
 
scbjmshpv said:
:confused: sorry put a full stop instead of question mark. that was a question. i'm wondering if it would be allowed.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I'm not sure either :p I was just saying it would be awesome if this was possible. Anybody know if this is realistic?
 
scbjmshpv said:
Would that damage the HD (flashing with those firmware?) will that void the warranty from WD doing either of that or it's simple click flash/enable TLER that WD won't mind in case of drive failure.
Click to expand...

take a wild guess what WD is going to think about somebody flashing a GP drive with RE firmware, assuming its even possible (i've read claims about people doing it, but don't know, don't care).

even if it is possible and it works, if you're then also worried about warranty then cross-flashing clearly isn't for you.
 
odditory said:
even if it is possible and it works, if you're then also worried about warranty then cross-flashing clearly isn't for you.
Click to expand...

well majority of the forum user here has least one or two parts of their PC overclocked/hacked other devices (iphone/ipod and DVD drives with region free firmware) so not worried but rather curious since both of the firmware are from WD, thanks for reply i got the answer but curiosity couldn't stop my mind from sending messages to figures. :)
 
Danny Bui said:
Basically if you're gonna use a fakeRAID (like the ICH10R) or true hardware RAID controller for RAID 5 or any other RAID with parity data nowadays, you're better off with using a Hitachi or Samsung drive.
Click to expand...

Is this info based on any research or just a hunch. Do the Samsung HD204UI's work with RAID without any CCTL being set (not sure I've seen any utils for setting CCTL on a Samsung but happy to be shown otherwise).
 
Methanoid said:
Is this info based on any research or just a hunch. Do the Samsung HD204UI's work with RAID without any CCTL being set (not sure I've seen any utils for setting CCTL on a Samsung but happy to be shown otherwise).
Click to expand...

No it's based on some research. If you take a look at a majority of any thread that remotely discusses which drives to use in a RAID array, a good majority of those recommendations will be for Samsung and Hitachi drives. This is something I've noted over the past year or so.

Not sure about that specific Samsung drive.
 
Speaking of which, with the Hitachi 2TB 7K2000 (and presumably) the 3TB 7K3000s, I assume their timeout setting is 2 minutes, when you set this via smartctl or via the vendor-utility (e.g., to 7 seconds), does it 'stick' after reboot/shutdown/bootup/etc?
 
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