Certainly, SCSI or FC-AL drives are more reliable than IDE drives (or we can say that more engineering goes into the high-performance drives that holds the possibility of better reliability). And they are more expensive.
Every drive manufacturer has had batches of bad drives. We tend to see them as failures in design or in manufacturing -- both problems can occur. But the problem can be from something as simple as shipping.
I used to work in the monitor biz and trying to ship a delicate monitor across the country in one piece was difficult. Boxes get dropped, hit by a forklift, etc. Drives should be more robust. Still, as capacities grow and more data is packed on the platter, the drive is more vulnerable to mechanical alighnment problems.
On the RAID issue: uunless you're using a hardware RAID controller that requires the drives to have the same capacities, there's no reason you couldn't have a 30GB and 40GB drive in an array.
I agree with the thrust of this article in that it appears to be mostly a matter of semantics in the warranty.
However, there has been a serious problem with the 30 GB version of the deskstar series from IBM. Notice that they are no longer available at the retail level. I've personally lost one and my employer has lost dozens. IBM was quick to lay off the blame onto a Windows quirk but given the way they fail, it is most likely drive error.
Yes, they do honor their warranty by shipping you a new 30 GB drive within about a month. Which means for most end consumer, you have to buy a new drive in the mean time.
So, I think to myself, if I have to have two new drives, I'd like them to be the same so I can set up a RAID. Since you can't buy the 30 GB drives, will they replace it with a 40 GB if I pay the difference?
Absolutely not!
If service is the defining factor between a host of otherwise comparable products... IBM is failing horribly.
Time to opt for SCSI drives, I think. Nothing but good to say for Seagate's Cheetah X15 drives.
Good point
Certainly, SCSI or FC-AL drives are more reliable than IDE drives (or we can say that more engineering goes into the high-performance drives that holds the possibility of better reliability). And they are more expensive.
Every drive manufacturer has had batches of bad drives. We tend to see them as failures in design or in manufacturing -- both problems can occur. But the problem can be from something as simple as shipping.
I used to work in the monitor biz and trying to ship a delicate monitor across the country in one piece was difficult. Boxes get dropped, hit by a forklift, etc. Drives should be more robust. Still, as capacities grow and more data is packed on the platter, the drive is more vulnerable to mechanical alighnment problems.
On the RAID issue: uunless you're using a hardware RAID controller that requires the drives to have the same capacities, there's no reason you couldn't have a 30GB and 40GB drive in an array.
daviD m.
Bigger scam is with 75GXP 30GB hdd's
I agree with the thrust of this article in that it appears to be mostly a matter of semantics in the warranty.
However, there has been a serious problem with the 30 GB version of the deskstar series from IBM. Notice that they are no longer available at the retail level. I've personally lost one and my employer has lost dozens. IBM was quick to lay off the blame onto a Windows quirk but given the way they fail, it is most likely drive error.
Yes, they do honor their warranty by shipping you a new 30 GB drive within about a month. Which means for most end consumer, you have to buy a new drive in the mean time.
So, I think to myself, if I have to have two new drives, I'd like them to be the same so I can set up a RAID. Since you can't buy the 30 GB drives, will they replace it with a 40 GB if I pay the difference?
Absolutely not!
If service is the defining factor between a host of otherwise comparable products... IBM is failing horribly.
Time to opt for SCSI drives, I think. Nothing but good to say for Seagate's Cheetah X15 drives.