Due to the current popularity of NAS/SAN devices providing a huge capacity of hard drive storage/backup to companies using the lower cost sata drives, did you not expect release of Enterprise class SATA HDDs.
Well, Western Digital have released them and promise SCSI reliability at significantly lower cost than SCSI. So what does that really mean? are SCSI prices artificially high?
or is this just marketing bs.
Problems
1. It is dissapointing to see buffer to disk transfer rates to be limited to 61-72MB/s. The sata150 spec is still seriously limited by the hard disk. Then if you have gigabit lan it is limited again by the hard disk. But anyway if you look at a 10.000rpm seagate cheetah scsi320 it has 78mb/s internal rate (but scsi is using some voodoo to serve multiple users faster)
2. 74gb or 34,7gb capacity is so laughable these days for the enterprise sata models. these capacities are only useful on multiple disk raid arrays.
3. Taking point 2 into account agreed that the raid edition sata model is available in up to 250gb capacity but why is it a different model name and not also called an Enterprise SATA. (I find this strange, i hope it is just bad marketing because those will be the drives used in large NAS/SAN systems.)
4. 8mb cache. We have had this for years now.
5. 5 year warranty. Did you notice that Samsung and Seagate started with 5 year warranty this year. Is it such a big deal now for WD to offer 5 years with these drives. I think 5+ years is pretty dodgy for any mission critical hdd to be in service anyway.
It is kinda interesting anyway. I can see enterprise standards for sata drives 250mb going over well in the NAS/SAN installations. But i am seeing offers for devices using 300gb drives from competitors (it is purely for reasons of marketing, comparison of products to competitors on model spec). WD would be missing out in those models offering only a 250gb.
The 74, 34,7gb for the "enterprise sata" models is not interesting at all. It it just the raptors remarketed? I can see server manufacturers going for this to save money on the scsi controllers though.
"Western Digital's Enterprise Serial ATA hard drive, WD Raptor, delivers enterprise-class performance and reliability at a price that is a third lower than SCSI hard drives." <----only a third???
i am sold for my home workstation though. i fancy a 250mbx3 10.000rpm sata raid-5 array. It is a pity the 3ware sata raid controller 4 port 8506-4LP is $330-400. Nice cards i have heard.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=65
Anyway check it out. HDDs are the future (or rather ram disks are the future). I have given up tapes in my backup solutions (too slow and unreliable). We are using periodic disk imaging for os and for data using a software called backup magic.
http://www.moonsoftware.com/bmagic.asp
it will compare two directories and copy the changed or new files. you can set it with windows scheduler or just click on a batch file. using a hdd in a removable caddy you can send the files to the hdd and then take it to offsite location to again use backup magic to copy the files to the backup hdds. Then periodic DVD burning for archive. I have tried using usb hard drives but it is slow and i have had dissapointing experience. much cheaper and reliable to use caddys with direct ide or sata connection. the speed is so fast and convenient and it is convenience which makes backups happen on a regular basis.
Well, Western Digital have released them and promise SCSI reliability at significantly lower cost than SCSI. So what does that really mean? are SCSI prices artificially high?
or is this just marketing bs.Problems
1. It is dissapointing to see buffer to disk transfer rates to be limited to 61-72MB/s. The sata150 spec is still seriously limited by the hard disk. Then if you have gigabit lan it is limited again by the hard disk. But anyway if you look at a 10.000rpm seagate cheetah scsi320 it has 78mb/s internal rate (but scsi is using some voodoo to serve multiple users faster)
2. 74gb or 34,7gb capacity is so laughable these days for the enterprise sata models. these capacities are only useful on multiple disk raid arrays.
3. Taking point 2 into account agreed that the raid edition sata model is available in up to 250gb capacity but why is it a different model name and not also called an Enterprise SATA. (I find this strange, i hope it is just bad marketing because those will be the drives used in large NAS/SAN systems.)
4. 8mb cache. We have had this for years now.
5. 5 year warranty. Did you notice that Samsung and Seagate started with 5 year warranty this year. Is it such a big deal now for WD to offer 5 years with these drives. I think 5+ years is pretty dodgy for any mission critical hdd to be in service anyway.
It is kinda interesting anyway. I can see enterprise standards for sata drives 250mb going over well in the NAS/SAN installations. But i am seeing offers for devices using 300gb drives from competitors (it is purely for reasons of marketing, comparison of products to competitors on model spec). WD would be missing out in those models offering only a 250gb.
The 74, 34,7gb for the "enterprise sata" models is not interesting at all. It it just the raptors remarketed? I can see server manufacturers going for this to save money on the scsi controllers though.
"Western Digital's Enterprise Serial ATA hard drive, WD Raptor, delivers enterprise-class performance and reliability at a price that is a third lower than SCSI hard drives." <----only a third???
i am sold for my home workstation though. i fancy a 250mbx3 10.000rpm sata raid-5 array. It is a pity the 3ware sata raid controller 4 port 8506-4LP is $330-400. Nice cards i have heard.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=65
Anyway check it out. HDDs are the future (or rather ram disks are the future). I have given up tapes in my backup solutions (too slow and unreliable). We are using periodic disk imaging for os and for data using a software called backup magic.
http://www.moonsoftware.com/bmagic.asp
it will compare two directories and copy the changed or new files. you can set it with windows scheduler or just click on a batch file. using a hdd in a removable caddy you can send the files to the hdd and then take it to offsite location to again use backup magic to copy the files to the backup hdds. Then periodic DVD burning for archive. I have tried using usb hard drives but it is slow and i have had dissapointing experience. much cheaper and reliable to use caddys with direct ide or sata connection. the speed is so fast and convenient and it is convenience which makes backups happen on a regular basis.
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