Greg, Great information! Thanks. Your description of the potential problem with spin down makes perfect sense for the green drives I have been using for mass storage. I notice a perceptible delay when accessing one of the drives that has been idle for a while. I can understand how this could create havoc if several drives are tied together in a RAID.
Question - is this less of a problem for a software RAID? I am now wondering if I should convert a Sans Digital enclosure to RAID to accomplish the aim of reducing the number of drives/partitions and automatic backup. Right now, I simply use them as five separate disks. And this is not mission critical stuff. It is a HTPC with recorded TV, Blu-ray and DVD rips for whole house access. Your comment about not having a favorite manufacturer at the moment mirrors my frustration looking at the options and specs available. I have been very happy with the WD Black Caviar line for system disks (and even own several 750 GB WD Black Caviar Enterprise units) and the Samsung EcoGreen for mass storage. I have several older Hitachi and Seagate that have given great service. But it seems that the newer reviews for Seagate (at least at NewEgg, and I know you tend to get more negative reviews because happy people don't complain) and their short warranty do not leave me with a warm fuzzy feeling. Maybe I need to delay implementation and see if the prices come down later in the summer. I will look closer at the units you recommend and see what I can find. Again, I really appreciate the great information and insight. Thanks, Jim [email protected] > -----Original Message----- > From: Greg Sevart > If you're going behind a real RAID controller, of which the Areca 1223 > qualifies, you will either need to buy Hitachi drives (becoming harder to find > now that WD has swallowed them), or enterprise/RAID edition units from > other manufacturers. As has been brought up on other responses, consumer > class drives do not implement TLER (WD-specific) or more generically ERC > (Error Recovery Control). Some may say the risk is small - but it WILL happen > eventually, and it will happen at the worst possible time and could very well > result in total data loss. Green drives are especially notorious, as they have a > tendency to spin down regardless of OS-level power management options, > and will appear to hang when you access them. There are some RAID- > friendly "green" drives - the HGST 5Kxxxx series have worked well for me, > and WD has a specific RE4-GP line - but avoid all others, especially WD's > regular green drives, or the Samsung EcoGreens. > > I don't have a favorite HD manufacturer at the moment. I used to like WD, > but then they went out of their way to cripple their desktop-class drives for > RAID. Hitachi has been superb on this front, but now they are a part of WD. > Seagates haven't had a great reliability picture for a while and are less > predictable in RAID, and Samsung has been mostly absorbed into them now. > Some HGST manufacturing and design capability was divested to Toshiba as > part of the approval conditions from various regulatory entities, so we could > see new Toshiba 3.5" offerings at some point. > > Short version: If you can find Hitachi 7K3000 units, use those. The 5K3000's > would be fine too, but are almost impossible to find anymore. Failing that, > use enterprise class drives or you're putting your data at risk. Or, don't use a > RAID controller.
