On Sunday October 5 2003 09:18 am, Anne Wilson wrote:
> > It's the new drives that do have the CRC checking shortcuts.
> > Prior to August 1998, WD's did proper CRC checks, were some of
> > the best drives.
>
> Now you've really confused me, Tom. I posted Civileme
> explanation to another list and they said that it was old hat -
> no longer a problem. I guess the answer is if you've got one try
> it, if you haven't, steer clear, to be safe.
>
> Anne
Here's the whole story. Overclockers long favored WD, Quantum,
and IBM IDE drives, particularly WD's. Mainly because they did much
better on off-spec PCI buses (anything SCSI has problems on an
off-spec bus). Often necessary to overclock Intel cpu's of the era.
In the fall of '98, many started complaining of problems and
failures of WD IDE drives. Research by the more knowledgable
overclocking gurus, soon revealed that WD had lowered their drive
specs (8/98). AFAIK their current specs are the same or even lower.
OTOH, many HDD manufacturers have lowered their specs over the last
several years, and consequently, their warranty periods.
While Civileme was/is certainly an authoritative source, an even
better source, the final answer for the WD-CRC checking situation
is the linux kernel mailing list. It was the kernel hackers that
discovered the WD problem, and AFAIK, the improper CRC checking is
still the situation with WD drives. Your research may vary,
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel
I've just avoided WD since '98, but maybe the kernel gurus have
found a work around for WD's. I doubt it tho (I lurk on lkml),
since the problem was WD drives depend on (Windoze) software for
CRC checking rather than including the needed hardware and firmware
on their drives. It made their drives slightly cheaper and a little
faster than their competitors drives. For windoze users (and system
OEM's), this was seen as a Good Thing (and probly why WD did it).
IMO tho, I'd worry more about tainting a Linux system with
closed source software and drivers, or other forms of win-hardware,
before I'd replace a perfectly good working WD drive. IOW's, for
those with WD drives and no problems with them, or traceable to
them, I wouldn't give this WD-CRC deal another thought. Bottom line
is, keep backups, all drives today are lesser quality than they use
to be.
--
Tom Brinkman Corpus Christi, Texas
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
