[ale] Do all new large SATA drives suck?

[James Sumners]

I refuse to buy Seagate anymore after they 1) shipped me the wrong
size drive under RMA (refurbished to boot) and 2) the drive they sent
to replace that one with the correct size started making bird chirping
noises as soon as I turned it on.

I haven't had any problems with Western Digitals. But I also haven't
dipped down into their "Blue" line, either. I get their "Green" drives
for my DVR and the "Black" drives for my other systems.

On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 11:18, Neal Rhodes <neal at mnopltd.com> wrote:
> I've gone ahead and ordered an HP core i3 system to be our next Centos
> home/office server.
>
> It's  got a 1.5TB drive; normally on these off-lease units I'd buy two brand
> new drives and mirror them.  Or that's what we've done with the last 3 linux
> servers.     All of which are still technically functioning since Fedora
> core 1.
>
> This drive is likely about a year old, so I'm thinking I'll just buy a new
> 1.5TB drive and install Centos to mirror the primary.
>
> When I look at the crop of 1 - 1.5TB drives on TigerDirect and read the
> reviews, they seem to be uniformly terrible - DOA,  failed after 3 weeks,
> replacement failed after a week, etc.  Seagate seems to be the worst,
> although WD not too far behind.
>
> Ummm, isn't one of the primary selling features of a disk drive that it's
> not supposed to blow up and take down all your data with it?    Has there
> been a massive quality slip in the last couple years since I last bought
> drives?    Seriously -  I can lose a power supply, a motherboard, a display
> - you name it, and once I replace it I can expect to still have the data.
> Yes, I should do backups, and I do, and yes, I should mirror the drives, and
> I do.    I should do SMARTD monitoring and I do.  But isn't this like
> selling tires that tend to shred randomly?    Isn't not blowing up
> catastrophically with no warning beforehand a basic selling point for disk
> drives?    What's the point of mirroring if the odds are good that both
> drives will fail completely the same week?   What's the point of SMARTD
> monitoring if the darn drive quits without warning?
>
> Does anybody make a decent drive in that size range?
>
> I'm thinking that not even considering economy,  my old theory of buying a
> pair of new identical drives may not be wise anymore, and sticking with one
> drive that has lasted over a year and one new drive is a better plan.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Neal
>
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-- 
James Sumners
http://james.roomfullofmirrors.com/

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts
pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it
is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become
drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto)
CH:D 59