WD + Seagate in RAID1

[Syndacate]

Basically what the title says:
If a 7200.12 craps out, can it be replaced with a WD Caviar Black?

Both have similar specs, both are 1TB drives (or can be), both 3Gb/s SATA II, 32MB cache, 7200RPM, etc.

Would it be a problem? Or would I be better off getting another 7200.12. Reason I ask is quite simply Seagate's drives have gone so far down hill in the last few years or so, I've had more problems than I like, and the complaints about them and especially the 1.5TB drives on newegg, especially from reliability (not even DOA which can be the fault of the shipper) are horrible. I used to be Seagate loyal, now I'm giving Seagate two thumbs down.

As for the RAID replacement (this is if one drive fails, I don't plan on swapping one out for no reason) - will it work? Anything I need to know about that? As far as I can tell the only "obstacle" is the enterprise features such as TLER but those are only on the RE3's.

 

[novadude]

It might be possible, depending on the drive's actual size once formatted in bytes. Each 1tb drive model can be slightly different between brands and generations, so you might have to adjust the partition size so that the drives match exactly.
You'd be much safer just getting the same brand and model drive to replace a failed drive with.

Ignore the Newegg reviews; most of those are people bitching about possible problems with the 1.5tb drives or premature failures that are likely the result of shipping damage either to newegg from the distributer or from newegg to the user.

 

[Syndacate]

Typically I'd agree but this is the second drive I've sent back to seagate in a year, I've had the first drive I sent back (a 7200.11 1TB) about 4 months or so ago, and maybe 1 month or so ago one of the new (not even 6mo old) 7200.12 1TB's started pulling some dead-locking shit with multiple OS's/formats and I had to send that back.

I used to be such a Seagate fanboy because I loved maxtor drives - never died for me, ever. Now I've had too many failures with Seagate for me to stay loyal, and their curr gens (the 1.5TB 7200.12's) are looking even worse than the last gens. Not sure I wanna be a seagate guy anymore, losing 1TB of shit takes its toll on you pretty damn hard .