[LAU] Which SATA drive? Size? [Was: Re: partition table]

[Fernando Lopez-Lezcano]

On 12/24/2010 05:49 PM, Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote:
> On 12/25/2010 01:03 AM, Mark Knecht wrote
>> Or choose a different WD drive that doesn't have the problem. I went
>> for 500GB RAID Edition drives. Faster, WAY longer lifetime, all the
>> features required for RAID, but a bit more expensive and less space.
> what on earth is "raid edition"? makes all my BS indicators flash red...
> i can't imagine any special hardware feature "required for raid".

Different firmware. And spec'ed for 24x7 operation (maybe just tested 
better?). I think I remember some timeouts are different so that a drive 
will not "hang" an array while it tries to recalibrate or something like 
that.

Once I had 8 WD 500G "server level" drives in a raid array. Every once 
in a while one would just drop from the array. No reason. Went nuts 
trying to figure out what was wrong. A power cycle of the drive and it 
would work as new. Ended up being a firmware problem in the drive (!). 
WD's response was pathetic. Server drives, consumer drives, I think it 
is just a matter of having luck with the right fabrication batch and 
firmware - I never buy the latest model.

-- Fernando