RANT: Modern technology

[mariushm]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

accidental double post, read my previous two posts.

[Shocker]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

Are they 11 random drives?

They are.

• 1 x ST380011A
• 2 x ST340014A
• 1 x ST3250820A
• 1 x ST3250620AS
• 1 x ST3320620A
• 1 x WD800BB-00JHC0
• 4 x WD800JD-00LSA0

Are they 11 DEAD drives?

Not the ones I tested (which excludes the 7200.10s).

Tin whiskers can form due to overheating or stresses that are caused by other possible failures.

Only one drive (the ST380011A) ran outside the specified temperature range, and only to 67°C (which is low by the standards of many semiconductors).

That's why I didn't even reply to your previous comment, because it was a stupid comment - a normal person reading it would come to that conclusion, that statistically the fact that you found 9 tin whiskers in 11 drives (again, who knows what state and how they were abused) is irrelevant.
It doesn't mean CRAP.

How they were abused??? If they can make HDDs that survive the abuse, then shouldn't they use SOLDER that can, too???

Do some research about Faraday cage and its principles and the electromagnetic permeability of various materials. Simply put, the plastic in most cases it's on TOP of a mesh of metal that basically forms a Faraday cage shielding the system. You're talking out of your ass.

It doesn't matter. I thought you meant plastic cases being less robust, which was how I responded.

How about windowed cases??? Do THEY comply with the rules??? Probably not.

Some research papers say multitasking decreases productivity BUT the person actually feels better overall, so while productivity at a particular moment is worse, the person would enjoy and keep working at something for a longer time. Without enjoyment, the productivity would slowly decrease, in time. So it's up to you as a human person to determine what's the best compromise between those.
You want to be a soulless drone in a cubicle? By all means refuse multitasking.

You can start from here if you want: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_multitasking

Screw that, it shouldn't have been brought up in the first place...

Maybe you're thinking I'm just stupid because I started the thread at 3PM, not 3AM, but that's because I've got the two backwards.

And watching YouTube while listening to music has me plain confused.

For example look up DAT tapes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Tape

DAT isn't VHS. It's obvious from looking at pictures alone.

You're forgetting the part about hard drives changing from IDE to EIDE, from ATA33 to ATA 66, 100, 133, FROM SCSI to ATA, from ATA to SATA, from SATA to SAS, Fiber Channel ... there are A LOT of standards used with hard drives.

The difference I'm talking about is between standards (interface and form factor) and non-standards (platter geometry).

That's because you're not looking anywhere. You're only looking in the same place, expecting people to shove in your face something. If you don't bother to search and read about IT and keep yourself informed about innovations, you shouldn't complain all the time.

You try telling the two apart without knowing the model number, checking the capacity, running a performance test, or doing a disk-intensive task.

Can anyone send this thread to the trashcan??? Because it's become nothing but a flame war.

Are you really that ignorant? We're going back to the point that if it's too expensive, then that thing doesn't exist for you. You like 7200 rpm therefore everything should be made around 7200 rpm and anything else is bad.

And did you ever stop to think WHY would manufacturers not change the RPM speed from Barracuda to the 3 TB monster? Have you bothered to think that perhaps it's a problem of physics, a limitation of how the drives are designed, and the manufacturers are not just there to screw you?

I was responding to your post saying lower RPM being one of the reasons why the old drives lasted longer.

A simple hack for hard drives would be to simply put 4 axles with heads in each corner of the hard drive, and synchronize all four axles to read each a part of a circular track, buffer it and send it to a processor which recomposes the track into a continuous track.

Conner actually made a drive with twin actuators (the "Chinook"), but it was a commercial failure.

Seagate did something somewhat similar, but simpler, with the Barracuda 2HP, which read from both sides of the platter simultaneously.

The sad thing is such innovation would cost millions of dollars in custom chips, but you'd still complain it costs too much or that it's not 7200rpm, ignoring the actual technologic advances INSIDE the hard drive. Just like you're complaining about SSDs.

Well...whatever...I'm complaining more about quality than innovation.

Like I said before, you don't really care about reliability. If you did care about reliability you'd use datacenter hard drives, raid, daily backups etc ... knowing full well nothing is 100% reliable.

I had an ST31000528AS, ST31500341AS, ST31000524AS, and ST31000333AS.

Only the first survived - so had I done RAID 1 on any random pair of drives, there's only a 50% chance my data would have survived.

And c_hegge's comments that I quoted WERE about enterprise drives, though used in desktop PCs.

What am I supposed to believe if my old "consumer" drives hold up 100X better???

It's not technologically efficient anymore to do what you want... low capacity platters, chips and controllers produced at large micron size (the sillicon wafers cost too much and the productions costs would be too much and the companies making the chips obsoleted those production lines or upgraded them to lower micron manufacturing), the platters are cheaper to be made in volume and at high data density, everything is better in volume to keep costs down.

I'm not asking for old HDDs per se. I want reliable HDDs and that's why I use old HDDs - because new HDDs are unreliable.

The WD Raptor could very well generate more heat than older drives, but this heat is dissipated faster into the environment compared to older drives.

Measuring the power at the INPUT immediately disproves that.

I'll agree with you here, I re-read the review and they said it's more silent without the heatsink. So I was wrong when I said it's more silent - it does dampen the vibrations but it's not more silent.

FINALLY. An apology.

EDIT: Oh, by the way, what I need myself is faster internet, not a faster computer. Of course it happens that I can get a faster computer, but not faster internet.

[Shocker]

How to be a friend, not an enemy

Normally I would have kept quiet but I have quite a few things to say.

Insulting people is not going to fly and you have to stop doing it to me if you want me to play nice with you, especially for things that are not my field or where your opinion is the minority.

I stumbled upon something that's most likely news to you. Road signs do more harm than good.

You have to accept the fact that common sense isn't always right.

Shielding: I have seen things that should be shielded (at least in theory) but aren't, so there's an element of truth in my statement, though I'll admit the "shouldn't be plastic" part isn't quite right.

Multitasking: I read that one in a book, though I can't be bothered finding it, but the explanation given seemed reasonable, and I remember it mentioning:

• shifting attention between the tasks, instead of actually doing them simultaneously
• reduced quality of work as a result

Which makes sense to me. Blaming me for going by that, in something that isn't my field, is like hitting me for stealing candy.

Again, though, "bad for you" probably wasn't the right choice of words.

If I was saying bad caps didn't exist, then I was, genuinely, asking for "you're stupid" comments, but it's ASUS who said that, not me.

The RPM thing was sarcastic, though I understand it's harder to tell the presence of sarcasm in text, but at least try to figure out whether it makes sense before using it on me.

We might have to agree to disagree on HDD reliability, but before doing so, think about this - if you don't abuse the drives, how do you know their durability???

You seem to be suspicious of everything possible, things that only a complete moron would have ignored:

maybe some cola or some water or maybe the cat peed or something.

Groundwater contamination??? Stop dumping electronics. Since when is landfilling sustainable???

But even so, I'm not bothered by your opinion so much as your response to my opinion - which is the one that everyone else here agrees with. If it's the standard opinion, calling people idiots for it is absolutely pathetic.

You telling me off for not doing the research??? Pot. Kettle. Black. Read what I said about transfer rates on old HDDs, for a start.

But your most bothersome statement is the one saying that I shouldn't be complaining because 70-80% of the market (as you said) has those capabilities. That still leaves 20-30% that don't. Honestly, is it okay to ignore 1 in 5 users???

A final note: I don't think playing music in the background can be that hard on the PC.

I'll sum it up:

• Common sense isn't always right and you have to accept that.
• Don't take every statement literally.
• Treating people like fools isn't cool. Nor is the "suspicious of everything" attitude.
• If you disagree with the majority of people, don't say they're stupid.
• You can't be angry at people for doing something stupid when you've done so yourself.

And don't say "stupid" again.

[Hondaman]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

I'll chime in here:

1. Screen resolution -- I'm running a 27" Viewsonic LCD at 1920 x 1080. Looks good to me. If I could go to a higher resolution, I'm not sure I would. The "other" computer (Mom has it in Cincinnati) has a 24" with that same resolution. She chooses a lower resolution.

2. BGA packages -- A friend re-flowed his iPhone and restored wireless capability -- but not everybody can do that. For desktop PCs, I'll use more fans, and not turn the PC on and off as often. I hung a 120mm fan near my passive video card (Gigabyte w/Radeon 6770 chip, fins like a motorcycle). The bridge chip and/or VRMs near my CPU get quite hot, maybe I should put a 40mm or 60mm fan there.....

Interesting about equal-length traces. I noticed some traces curving back and forth 20 times or more as they go to their destination, now I know why.

3. Hard drives might not be as reliable. (Note: ALSO DVD BURNERS!) But with cloud storage and old IDE drives that I can put into USB enclosures, again, I can mitigate the effects of failure. Have you ever wasted $400 or so on Travan-4 tapes and drives? I have. Enough said.

4. CPU power going to bloatware? How about GPU power? I prefer simpler stuff too, like Windows 98 or Linux with KDE 3. I did notice the slowdown with modern GUIs. But getting older, "slimmer" OSes to work with newer chips can be impossible or nearly so (older Linux and the Broadcom 8192 wireless chip, for example).

I'm with the OP. Things do change for the worse sometimes. Change to the extent you are comfortable with.

(Personally, I'm going to stop with Mageia 1. Later linux seems to make it impossible to boot to the command line, then type "startx". Display manager daemon or other changes were done.)

I'm with you, Shocker, I feel your pain. Adapt only as much as you want to. Then fill your life with other pleasures -- family, working in a garden, music and the arts, literature, TV, sports, whatever.

(Oh, yeah. Slashdot did a story a couple of years ago: "Multitasking makes you stupid and slow". I think they quoted some study somewhere. When I try to multitask, I do feel I get tired faster.)

[Time2Retire]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

But getting older, "slimmer" OSes to work with newer chips can be impossible or nearly so (older Linux and the Broadcom 8192 wireless chip, for example).

Maybe your troubles are related to the fact that the 8192 is not a Broadcom chip, but a Realtek chip.

There are several versions of the driver for this chip, depending on which exact version you have:

http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Dr...upported_Chips

You can also get the driver directly from Realtek (I think I linked to all versions):

http://www.realtek.com.tw/Downloads/...&GetDown=false

http://www.realtek.com.tw/Downloads/...&GetDown=false

http://www.realtek.com.tw/Downloads/...&GetDown=false

It is true, that you may not get the most recent versions to compile on an older kernel. For that you may need to find an older version of the driver. Some of those can be found here (these are packages with ALL wireless drivers):

http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Download/stable/

Also, I have downloaded the driver for my unsupported Ralink based AE1000 USB wireless, and added my device ID to the driver before compiling it. It works like a charm!

[eccerr0r]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

If there's anything I don't like about modern technology, it's not that it hasn't gotten better - it's how it's gotten WORSE. Such as you can't fix things when they break. DRM to prohibit you from doing things you want to do with your computer. Cheaply made items to reduce cost (and then you can't fix them when they break). Heat generation. EULAs and NDA's. BGA chips are evil.

Surprisingly I don't care too much about screen resolutions, that's fine by me. It would be nice but I'm not at all unhappy with resolutions, after all, I had 128x48 graphics on a 10" CRT at one point...

[Wester547]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

Heat generation. EULAs and NDA's. BGA chips are evil..

Well, BGA chips and equally shoddy packages, I think, are a two-faced ordeal, or were, anyway: it seems that despite BGA packages being less tolerant to heat and thermal cycles because, for one, of the solder balls having shorter leads (or legs/leads that aren't discrete, so to speak) and less ability to "flex", that the use of high enough lead can make such packages perform almost as well as better ones. The problem often with BGA chips needing to be reflowed, I think, as I said in another thread recently, is poor soldering alloys and low quality lead. The fact that all solder in today's electronics is lead free, however, means that heat tolerance is essentially gone in electronics and that doesn't even go into the expedited rise of tin whiskers.

However, I say the above because I noticed a huge augmentation in reports of boards needing to be reballed or reflowed after RoHS/lead free solder surfaced. Coincidence that lead is gone from electronics and BGA chips perform much worse on a large scale? I think not.

3. Hard drives might not be as reliable. (Note: ALSO DVD BURNERS!) But with cloud storage and old IDE drives that I can put into USB enclosures, again, I can mitigate the effects of failure. Have you ever wasted $400 or so on Travan-4 tapes and drives? I have. Enough said.

Hard drives aren't as reliable because it's planned obselence. There is a barrage of reasons, one being perpendicular recording technology, but I actually think that there are other factors that make it worse, such as just not being built to the same standard and probably not even tested to the same standard. Mariushm posted about a WD4000AAKS that has 37,000+ ON hours (24/7 usage, I think) in the hard drive failure thread and I believe that uses perpendicular recording. Not power cycling a drive probably helps, but my stance remains. I've also seen Seagate 320GB 7200.10s (the first Seagates to use perpendicular recording technology) last 20,000+ hours too...

And while they were always somewhat unreliable and delicate devices it's become worse in favor of bringing growth to storage and speed rather than dependability, the latter being much more important, but when making money is involved as with all such cheap devices...

Another thing, someone on this forum stated (sorry that I don't recall your name at the moment) that the disadvantage of using drives in a USB enclosure is that if a bad sector arises in the wrong place that it will be stuck in an infinite loop when booting. That might be a problem.

We might have to agree to disagree on HDD reliability, but before doing so, think about this - if you don't abuse the drives, how do you know their durability???

Abusing a hard drive is something I would recommend against. They aren't meant to be abused to begin with, and the amount of unpredictable failures from them vindicates that, from all hard drives, not only modern ones.

Then fill your life with other pleasures -- family, working in a garden, music and the arts, literature, TV, sports, whatever.

Yes, I agree. Not a huge fan of sports but nothing against it either. Sad that thought and creativity has gone from "modern" music in an attempt to turn profits and appeal to that of the mainstream, though, but that's for another thread.

[shovenose]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

Hard drives are not getting less reliable. Consumers are simply demanding lower prices for more GB of storage.

If you find an "old" HP laptop from an average halfway-clueless computer uses with Windows Vista and a 160GB hard drive, and actually investigate the disk usage, you will notice as follows:
-The disk is almost full
-HP restore partition eats 10GB
-10GB of crap in recycle bin they thought was deleted but sits there
-5 random browser toolbars
-3 random "anti virus" programs
-tons of photos, documents, strewn everywhere with multiple duplicates, old versions, etc.
-20 printers installed as the person bought a new printer and never uninstalled old software
-a 5GB downloads folder

Let's say that user is complaining their disk is full. There is no way in hell a normal person is using up an entire 160GB disk.
So we run CCleaner, remove unneccesary programs, uninstall adware toolbars, uninstall old printer and device drivers, etc. Remove the restore partition, resize the drive, WOW suddenly the disk is 1/2 empty again. We just gained 70+ GB of free space!

This is not much of an exaggeration. You tidy it up and clean it out, and you do not need 3TB drives!!

I use my desktop computer a lot. I'm not organized. I never remove anything from it. I've got a bunch of music. Yet, I somehow use less than 100GB of disk on my 500GB drive?

my point is, if people knew how to take care of their computer, we would not need 3TB drives. There is a market for them, for people like movie editors, DJs, etc. but it's still more space than almost anybody would need!

Moving on now...

Not sure why all your drives are failing. hard drives hardly ever die on me. A lot of my servers run pre-owned "used" drives. Well, I have not had a failure in the entire last year!

Usually when I retire a drive it's because I want to use a faster one, not because I'm out of space or because it's broken. 10K and 15K enterprise drives are even more reliable, even though they generate more heat and are usually stressed more. why? Because they're well built and expensive! VelociRaptors and the old Raptops are also super reliable. Once again, they are expensive!

You get what you pay for. When a 3TB disk is $100 do you seriously expect quality? No, you shouldn't, and you shouldn't complain about the fact you go through 5 of them by the time the warranty is over.

As for screen resolution, on my desktop I've got 3x 22" LCDs running at 1680x1050. That is nice and fine, but I'm constantly frustrated at the 1366x768 screen on my laptop. Big disappointment.

I think my next laptop is going to be a Lenovo Yoga. Check it out just google it... and you'll see it's got a higher resolution screen!

tl;dr:
want to use slow and small old 80GB IDE seagate drives? Go ahead, nobody is stopping you! But if you want a bigger or faster drive then I guess you'll have to use an "inferior" new drive. Oh, nevermind, you're probably still using a Pentium 4 CPU and an nVidia 8800GT! Darn, I'll sit here with my "power hungry" Dual Xeon Mac Pro that uses less power than your shitty P4 and enjoy playing Minecraft and watching an HD youtube video at the same time as I live chat with two hosting customers. Let me know when your P4 with a lousy old disk can do that.
Oh, and I almost forgot, since you're complaining about power consumption of modern computers you must be trying to save power by only using a single 256MB DDR stick... right??

[lti]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

So we run CCleaner, remove unneccesary programs, uninstall adware toolbars, uninstall old printer and device drivers, etc. Remove the restore partition, resize the drive, WOW suddenly the disk is 1/2 empty again. We just gained 70+ GB of free space!

I wouldn't use CCleaner. It tries to remove too much with its default settings. If you make sure to never let it clean the registry, it will be okay. I think the place Toshiba sent my laptop to ran CCleaner because all of the error logs were removed (something that CCleaner does) and Windows was completely screwed (something that every registry cleaner in existence does).

I use my desktop computer a lot. I'm not organized. I never remove anything from it. I've got a bunch of music. Yet, I somehow use less than 100GB of disk on my 500GB drive?

I only have 41.5GB used on my 500GB hard drive. I wouldn't have any problem using a "tiny" 160GB hard drive, but I wouldn't install Windows 7 on an 80GB drive without a separate storage drive.

you're probably still using a Pentium 4 CPU and an nVidia 8800GT!

8800GT? My parents still use a Pentium 4 and a GeForce 4 MX 420. It can't play YouTube videos full-screen, but that seems more like a driver issue that makes the CPU scale the video to fill the screen instead of the graphics card. Of course, installing the driver makes the computer run like it has 64MB of RAM and prevents them from running their widescreen monitor at its native resolution.

[shovenose]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

I wouldn't use CCleaner. It tries to remove too much with its default settings. If you make sure to never let it clean the registry, it will be okay. I think the place Toshiba sent my laptop to ran CCleaner because all of the error logs were removed (something that CCleaner does) and Windows was completely screwed (something that every registry cleaner in existence does).

I only have 41.5GB used on my 500GB hard drive. I wouldn't have any problem using a "tiny" 160GB hard drive, but I wouldn't install Windows 7 on an 80GB drive without a separate storage drive.

8800GT? My parents still use a Pentium 4 and a GeForce 4 MX 420. It can't play YouTube videos full-screen, but that seems more like a driver issue that makes the CPU scale the video to fill the screen instead of the graphics card. Of course, installing the driver makes the computer run like it has 64MB of RAM and prevents them from running their widescreen monitor at its native resolution.

Some drivers just suck.

[Shocker]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

I actually think that there are other factors that make it worse, such as just not being built to the same standard and probably not even tested to the same standard. Mariushm posted about a WD4000AAKS that has 37,000+ ON hours (24/7 usage, I think) in the hard drive failure thread and I believe that uses perpendicular recording. Not power cycling a drive probably helps, but my stance remains. I've also seen Seagate 320GB 7200.10s (the first Seagates to use perpendicular recording technology) last 20,000+ hours too...

Well, a subjective weight comparison of an ST3120026A and an ST3250820A suggests that the latter is actually slightly heavier, so we may be onto something here.

However, in my limited experience 7200.10s vibrate a LOT more than Barracuda ATA IVs or 7200.7s.

• 1 x ST3250820A - 37 bad sectors, also has ST µC
• 1 x ST3250620AS - 5 bad sectors
• 1 x ST3320620A - less vibration (but still higher than the older models), 0 bad sectors

That last one also has something odd - no discrete RAM chip. And yes, I did check both sides of the PCB.

All of them have SMOOTH chips though.

My discovery (from looking on the web):

• 7200.8/9/10 all have the same structure for 2/3 platters.
• 7200.9/10 use a different structure for 4 platters, which (presumably) isn't as robust.
• 7200.9 has it different again for the single-platter (normal height) model.
• And then there's the slimline 7200.9/10, which are way lighter than the normal-height models.

Not having a 7200.8 or 7200.9, I've yet to compare the vibration levels of those.

Abusing a hard drive is something I would recommend against. They aren't meant to be abused to begin with, and the amount of unpredictable failures from them vindicates that, from all hard drives, not only modern ones.

I know what you're saying, but two words: It's inevitable.

For the record, besides the weight I didn't find any major indication in the specifications that the 7200.14 (the current generation) is less durable. But as if they weren't bad enough already, this one has a head-park timer .

They just recently launched an "enterprise" version called the Constellation CS, with a 3-year warranty. This one actually does have two 1TB platters in the 2TB model. Presumably the head-park timer is disabled too.

[Hondaman]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

Maybe your troubles are related to the fact that the 8192 is not a Broadcom chip, but a Realtek chip.

Was the 8192ce a Realtek? Oops.

I suggest the real problem is that compiling code doesn't work and cannot be done. At least by me. I've tried compiling things more than a few times, and it always fails.

I have about the same chance of compiling code myself as I did of beating cancer by myself. Absolutely none. And with compiling code, I feel stupid, every time. With the cancer I only threw up half a dozen times and then my hair came back.

If I did try again, like over Christmas break, could someone guide me through it? Preferably somebody running Mageia 1 64-bit?

[Shocker]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

Well, really, nothing is "meant" to be abused.

The lightest desktop drive I've seen was a (2-platter) 850MB Quantum Trailblazer. Of course, it didn't work properly .

I was mistaken about the weight/reliability difference being between 8-series and 9-series Maxtors. The change actually happened partway through the 9-series. I have a 90288D2 and 90340D2, which both look like the 84320D4 I had before. These ones only have 1 platter, but are still heavier than the Failblazer.

I'll add this link (e-mailed to me) to stop mariushm flaming me about RoHS - for good:
http://www.sigcon.com/Pubs/news/10_01.htm

Another problem I thought of is it prevents them from reusing older components with leaded plating.

I'll quickly theorise that the further the mixture is from 63/37, the higher the risk of whiskering. Since (slightly cheaper) 60/40 solder was also common, you can't be 100% safe.

I'm all for the environment but you need a sense of sanity. NEVER ASSume we will find a substitute during the changeover period. RoHS

[Time2Retire]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

Was the 8192ce a Realtek? Oops.

I suggest the real problem is that compiling code doesn't work and cannot be done. At least by me. I've tried compiling things more than a few times, and it always fails.

I have about the same chance of compiling code myself as I did of beating cancer by myself. Absolutely none. And with compiling code, I feel stupid, every time. With the cancer I only threw up half a dozen times and then my hair came back.

If I did try again, like over Christmas break, could someone guide me through it? Preferably somebody running Mageia 1 64-bit?

I will help, but I'm not very familiar with Mageia. Compiling a driver module should be the same no matter what version of Linux you use. It is the required software, or rather what each Linux distro names it, that is different.

Roughly, this is what you need to install:

libc6-source (devel)
gcc
g++
make
kernel-headers
kernel-source (devel)

Maybe follow what this thread says you need to install:

https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2883

Let me know when you are going to attempt it (PM).

[Shocker]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

Consumers are simply demanding lower prices for more GB of storage.

Because they're cheap bastards.

Not sure why all your drives are failing. hard drives hardly ever die on me. A lot of my servers run pre-owned "used" drives. Well, I have not had a failure in the entire last year!

About 80-90% of the time the working and broken drives are different models.

The things that I really noticed are:

• Heavier drives being more reliable (already mentioned)
• The popular opinion of ST doesn't go together with reality.
• I have a few drives (including a Seagate Medalist) with Cirrus logic chips that produce repeatable read errors, so those are out too.
• My limited experience suggests that newer Quantums are noisier.

Usually when I retire a drive it's because I want to use a faster one, not because I'm out of space or because it's broken.

I never truly stop using them until failure strikes.

And to be honest, do you actually need faster drives???

Remember the environment???

When a 3TB disk is $100 do you seriously expect quality? No, you shouldn't, and you shouldn't complain about the fact you go through 5 of them by the time the warranty is over.

Less that 5 months per drive??? How unacceptable!!!!!

want to use slow and small old 80GB IDE seagate drives? Go ahead, nobody is stopping you!

Actually, the PC I'm using now has Western Digital SATA drives, but they're still 80GB and still almost seven years old. For the record, only one of my Seagates is both 80GB and PATA.

I could put three of those Western Digital drives (I actually got a batch of identical PCs with them) in RAID-0 and together they'd be about as fast as a modern drive. Do you think they'd be more reliable???

But if you want a bigger or faster drive then I guess you'll have to use an "inferior" new drive.

I actually have one.

since you're complaining about power consumption of modern computers you must be trying to save power by only using a single 256MB DDR stick... right??

I'm not silly enough to do that.

.

No prizes for guessing what PSU was in the PC I got that ST3120026A from.

My signature is better than yours.

I disagree.

[kc8adu]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

urinary olympics?

[shovenose]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

Raid 0 is super unreliable. If a single drive fails all your data is screwed.

[Shocker]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

I know it doesn't provide any protection, but my experience suggests that a single new HDD would be a lot less reliable than three old HDDs together.

Of course, that's assuming I choose the right type of drive - because I never said I like all old HDDs. Here are a few I've had trouble with:

• Drives from any manufacturer with Cirrus Logic chips (including, but not limited to, EVERY Fujitsu I've seen).
• Seagate 7200.7s with the Suicidal Trash chips. Otherwise they're reliable. I don't know if the later models are also affected.
• Those old, lightweight, ugly Maxtors seem to be a good example of "heavier is better".

So if I set an array up as mentioned, will I be okay???

[Shocker]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

I'll add that I wasn't actually intending on doing it, just showing that it doesn't take that many old drives to get the same transfer rate as a new one.

[mariushm]

Re: RANT: Modern technology

Here's the hard drive that gives Shocker wet dreams.. certainly no lead free solder in this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBjoW...feature=g-high

Shame of RoHS and similar laws for making this hard drive illegal to use or produce now (and not because of solder).