RE or SE?

[Justintoxicated]

Well it comes down to it....

I don't know if I will be using raid or not, but def not right away.

So then what do I get the RE or SE drives?

WD recomends SE, but I like the RE's warranty. I don't want to loose my data because it did not stop to fix some error or something though.

Which drive will work better in my system for a storage drive?

 

[TheDoucheMan]

Well it comes down to it....

I don't know if I will be using raid or not, but def not right away.

So then what do I get the RE or SE drives?

WD recomends SE, but I like the RE's warranty. I don't want to loose my data because it did not stop to fix some error or something though.

Which drive will work better in my system for a storage drive?

read the other thread. Exact same situation.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1023001

 

[Justintoxicated]

Yea I thought Simplifying the Q some would help.

Screw it I'm going with the RE drive, hell thats what my rappy is anyways so what is the difference.!

All it took was some alcahol to decide

 

[feigned]

Yea I thought Simplifying the Q some would help.

Screw it I'm going with the RE drive, hell thats what my rappy is anyways so what is the difference.!

All it took was some alcahol to decide

I'll post the link for you again: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1023001

What a wise decision choosing the wrong product for your needs. Your Raptor is not an RE disk. The RE disks have a 5 year warranty...doesn't make them any more durable than an SE, just more expensive from the get-go. Admittedly the cost isn't much more but if you're only using one disk it's kind of pointless to pay the extra dollars for a feature that you will never use.

 

[TheDoucheMan]

Yea I thought Simplifying the Q some would help.

Screw it I'm going with the RE drive, hell thats what my rappy is anyways so what is the difference.!

All it took was some alcahol to decide

You didn't simplify the question. It is the exact SAME question that has already been answered. He was planning on going raid in the future and wanted to know if RE drives would be fine in the meantime. You didn't know if you were going to go raid, but wanted to know if RE drives would be fine in the meantime. Sound familiar?

 

[Justintoxicated]

Well my Raptor has the SAME feature that they put in the RE2 drives that are making them so controversial. it is an ENTERPRISE drive the same as the RE's so I guess you should NOT run single raptors then either right?

The price difference right now is 5% not much for a longer warranty....

And the question was never clearly answered in that post other than some people tend to think it will cause errors. However, my raptor uses the same TLER tech....So it makes no sense to me why it would be bad for the 7200 RPM drive and ok on a raptor.

so if the RE2 drive is the WRONG drive for my computer and is going to cause problems, then so will the Raptor 150 everyone recomended.

Yea real CLEAR answer there...I still have no idea on which drive to get and rebate is only good on newegg for another day or so.

 

[DougLite]

As feigned points out, there really isn't that much of a difference in terms of reliability between RE and SE. Think about this - if the difference in "reliability" was really that great, wouldn't the price difference between two otherwise equal RE and SE drives be bigger? The truth is that they will both likely server for three years plus, yet neither can be trusted to hold data without backups.

Also, the WD1500 does support TLER...however it ships off. A utility from WD must be used to enable it for environments htat require the feature, so you're in no immediate danger of falling victim to the TLER bug on a WD1500. This policy may have also been applied to RE Caviars, however, I am not certain of that.

 

[Justintoxicated]

So what large drive can be trusted to store data without backups?

I know you should always backup but from what your saying these drives do not store data very well?

I have always used RAID in the past and may go back to it in the future, for now it will jsut be a single drive. If there is not much difference than I figure I may as well get the RE drive as it would be more useful should I decide to upgrade.

Would the 250gb drive be more reliable for holding data?


The question regarding the RE drives shipping with TLER enabled or disabled is what was questioned in the other thread that was linked and recieved 2 different responses! So who really knows....

 

[UICompE02]

So what large drive can be trusted to store data without backups?

None!

There's probably not a huge difference in reliability between manufacturers recently. Honestly, disk drives are very reliable considering how complex they are. However, being mechanical in nature and their complexity makes it hard to create a drive that will never fail. Only in the case that you absolutely don't care about losing your data can you get away without some sort of backup system.

 

[Justintoxicated]

yea I do back stuff up, it's not like I neglect it compleatly, right now I just need to transfer data off another PC so I can give it to my parents and I don't want to put it all on the quick little rappy.

Maybe I will just get the SE drive, I ended up not ordering the RE. I had my finger on transaction key. I just hope it will work well in Raid in the future.

Hell right now im tempted to just get the 250 gig SE drive and call it a day, probably more space than I need, but in a year or 2....., still pretty decent space though, I can't even convince them to get me a HD over 30GB at work on a build machine (with no backup)!

 

[Justintoxicated]

if I do raid it will likely be Raid-5 or Raid-1 Would getting the SE drive now be a bad idea? Will it still work?

 

[feigned]

if I do raid it will likely be Raid-5 or Raid-1 Would getting the SE drive now be a bad idea? Will it still work?

I just put my two 2500KS SE16's in RAID1 last night.

Working just fine, and will continue to work just fine unless one of them flakes out. Even then I still backup the important stuff.

 

[The_Mage18]

I have 5 RE drives in two removable drive cages running 24x7 in my Datatank right now and have yet to have a problem.

I specifically went with these for the warranty, not for the features or specs. Granted I will most likely upgrade the drives before 5 years runs out but the additional warranty ensures that I'm not going to have to shell out for replacements for failed drives any time soon.

 

[Justintoxicated]

I cantacted WD about using an RE drive in a non raid setup and they did not email me back. I heard ost RE drives actualy only have about a 3 year warranty if you check the serial and you have to go through hell with them, showing purchase date etc if you want to get it re-set to 5 years.

I'm thinking I might jsut buy another brand HD so I can get one that works will in raid or without raid. So as not have to worry about losing data due to drive specificaly made for non raid or raid setups!

Sale ends sunday ont he WD drives and it does not like I will be able to find an answer as to wether or not an RE2 drive will work reliably in non raid setup.

I guess the raptors have the feater to help with raid but it is shipped disabled where as teh RE2 drives the TLER feature CANNOT be disabled, thats all I have found so far after hours of searching. A bit disapointing that I can't jsut simply buy a Hard drive these days.


I may end up getting another raptor for Data storage since TLER can later be enabled if I choose to do raid, it actualy sounds like the only hard drive that will work in my situation and the storage capacity blows....

 

[Justintoxicated]

I found this on storagereview.com

"1. First, the WD4000YR (that is, the “Raid Edition 2”) enjoys a 24-hour factory burn-in period versus the WD4000KD (the “Special Edition 16”)’s 8-hour test. The longer validation cycle increases the chances that a drive destined to suffer an “infant mortality” of sorts is caught at the factory before it enters distribution.

2. Next, the YR features a longer 5-year warranty more typical of enterprise-oriented drives such as WD’s own Raptor or Seagate’s Cheetah series rather than the shorter 3-year coverage that backs the KD.

3. Finally, the RE2, living up to its moniker, ships with the firm’s “Time Limited Error Recovery” (TLER) feature enabled while the SE16 does not. This oft-confusing feature permits a drive to gracefully surrender error recovery features after an 8-second window of attempts rather than stubbornly continuing onwards with the assumption that an array’s redundancy features will cover the error and avoid data corruption. For drives that find themselves in a setup that features redundancy (anything other than RAID 0), this is a plus. For disks that don’t, it’s not. "

It does not say wether or not TLER is a bad thing for a non raid drive, it only says it is a good thing for Raid drive. It also says TLER is not good for Raid-0

Interesting though that the only rate the SE drive at 1/2 the life expectancy as the RE drive!

 

[Justintoxicated]

Ended up getting the SE drive for now....

Luckily Newegg is very close (I believe about 15-30 miles from here) so hopefully it wont come in a banged up box like my raptor! Im kind of afraid of my raptor crapping out early in the condition it was recieved...

Interestingly when I was compleating my order there was a notice that I can subscribe to PC magazine for free (a $10 value) or request a refund for the value.

So along with the rebate I will be sending the Refund request That brings teh price down to $170 less shipping and tax (tax was $15 for me but at least I know it is not shipping from far away and will arrive on monday). Usualy I get package the very next day, although every now and then it takes 2 days..

5 year warranty is overkill for me, although I would have paid the extra $10 for that and the extended burn in. MTBF sounds like a bunch of BS to me since the drive are identical in mechanics..Warranties are nice but not as nice as the drive not crapping out in the first place!