Re: [ccp4bb] Hardware question
I've been told by my (frighteningly geek-competent) colleague that the platters are identical, but the cheaper ones are those at the bottom of the Quality Control pile, which are therefore spun more slowly, and don't get any claims of reliability. (Have you checked the disk rotation speed? I imagine the Dell ones go much faster.) phx On 27/10/2010 02:52, Edward A. Berry wrote: Another question about computer hardware- If I configure a computer at the Dell site, it costs about $700 to add a 2TB SATA drive. On amazon.com or Staples or such, a 2TB drive costs ~$110. to $200 depending on brand. Are the Dell-installed drives much faster, or more reliable, or have a better warranty? After all, RAID is supposed to stand for redundant array of inexpensive disks, and we could afford a lot more redundancy at the Amazon.com price. And, are there any brands or models that should be avoided due to known reliability issues? Thanks, eab
[ccp4bb] Hardware question
Another question about computer hardware- If I configure a computer at the Dell site, it costs about $700 to add a 2TB SATA drive. On amazon.com or Staples or such, a 2TB drive costs ~$110. to $200 depending on brand. Are the Dell-installed drives much faster, or more reliable, or have a better warranty? After all, RAID is supposed to stand for redundant array of inexpensive disks, and we could afford a lot more redundancy at the Amazon.com price. And, are there any brands or models that should be avoided due to known reliability issues? Thanks, eab
Re: [ccp4bb] Hardware question
Don't get ripped off by Dell! Their drives aren't any faster or better quality than the competition (IMHO they're probably slower and/or lower quality). If you're looking for a 2 terabyte drive, I have seven Hitachi 7K2000 2 TB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145298) drives in a RAID6 array inside a Thecus 7700 NAS ( http://www.thecus.com/products_over.php?cid=11pid=82set_language=english) for 10 terabytes of storage where 2 of the drives can simultaneously fail and still retain all the data.I have had the drives installed for over a year now and not a single problem. On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 9:52 PM, Edward A. Berry ber...@upstate.edu wrote: Another question about computer hardware- If I configure a computer at the Dell site, it costs about $700 to add a 2TB SATA drive. On amazon.com or Staples or such, a 2TB drive costs ~$110. to $200 depending on brand. Are the Dell-installed drives much faster, or more reliable, or have a better warranty? After all, RAID is supposed to stand for redundant array of inexpensive disks, and we could afford a lot more redundancy at the Amazon.com price. And, are there any brands or models that should be avoided due to known reliability issues? Thanks, eab -- Jim Fairman, Ph D. Post-Doctoral Fellow National Institutes of Health - NIDDK Lab: 1-301-594-9229 E-mail: fairman@gmail.com james.fair...@nih.gov
Re: [ccp4bb] Hardware question
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 09:52:51PM -0400, Edward A. Berry wrote: Another question about computer hardware- If I configure a computer at the Dell site, it costs about $700 to add a 2TB SATA drive. On amazon.com or Staples or such, a 2TB drive costs ~$110. to $200 depending on brand. Are the Dell-installed drives much faster No. or more reliable No. or have a better warranty? No. In fact they frequently have a worse warranty than the exact same retail product with a non-Dell part number. One of the ways that Dell keeps costs down is to negotiate a bulk deal with the hard drive OEMs where they provide Dell the exact same drives they sell in the retail channel, but with a shorter warranty, typically 1 year instead of 3 or 5 years. After all, RAID is supposed to stand for redundant array of inexpensive disks, and we could afford a lot more redundancy at the Amazon.com price. RAID is good for performance and uptime reasons, but it is _not_ a replacement for backups. You probably knew that, but I'll mention it for the audience playing along at home. And, are there any brands or models that should be avoided due to known reliability issues? Not really. Seagate had some firmware issues with their first 1.5 TB models, but they were worked out fairly quickly. I think any of the major vendors are going to be fairly competitve when it comes to reliability. The important thing is to look at the drive warranty. The lower-end drives will have 3 year or shorter warranties, and the higher-end drives will have 5 year warranties. Buy a model with a 5 year warranty. -ben -- | Ben Eisenbraun | Software Sysadmin | | Structural Biology Grid | http://sbgrid.org | | Harvard Medical School | http://hms.harvard.edu |
Re: [ccp4bb] Hardware question
Hi Ed, I have four of those http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136514 and would now buy these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136764 DELLete it, I mean the quote you have and shop somewhere else. Jürgen - Jürgen Bosch Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Department of Biochemistry Molecular Biology Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute 615 North Wolfe Street, W8708 Baltimore, MD 21205 Phone: +1-410-614-4742 Lab: +1-410-614-4894 Fax: +1-410-955-3655 http://web.mac.com/bosch_lab/ On Oct 26, 2010, at 9:52 PM, Edward A. Berry wrote: Another question about computer hardware- If I configure a computer at the Dell site, it costs about $700 to add a 2TB SATA drive. On amazon.com or Staples or such, a 2TB drive costs ~$110. to $200 depending on brand. Are the Dell-installed drives much faster, or more reliable, or have a better warranty? After all, RAID is supposed to stand for redundant array of inexpensive disks, and we could afford a lot more redundancy at the Amazon.com price. And, are there any brands or models that should be avoided due to known reliability issues? Thanks, eab
