Best drives for ide RAID?

[funsoul]

Hi again folks

OK...now that I'm getting a refund on the Seagates...am looking for opinions on the best 80gig hardrives for running RAID0 (promise fastrack100 controller).

Suggestions?

[KRSESQ]

I like Maxtors. Check out their DiamondMax Plus line. 7200 RPM, 8.5ms average seek time, ATA133. Good prices.

Kevin

[Sciascia]

Re: Best drives for ide RAID?

Originally posted by funsoul
Hi again folks

OK...now that I'm getting a refund on the Seagates...am looking for opinions on the best 80gig hardrives for running RAID0 (promise fastrack100 controller).

Suggestions?

WD, Maxtor, IBM...all of them are fine with IBM probably the most highly regarded.

But the best drive you can get is the biggest fastest one for the best price.

[Dr Mordrid]

I would most definitely NOT recommend IBM drives at this juncture. They've been having major quality control issues and have recently downgraded their recommended service hours/day to only 11. Read here for more info on this;

http://forums.storagereview.net/viewtopic.php?t=1797

They are applying the same limitations on all their current models new spec sheets.

I'd go with the Maxtor D740X drives for several reasons. First they're fast as hell.

Secondly Maxtor has a very responsive replacement policy and WILL cross ship.

Third their new drives are Quantum designs.

Dr. Mordrid

[mits]

I will totally agree with Doc.
Also, on an article that i had read there was a graph giving an indication how the transfer rate on a hd behaves when moving from the outer tracks to the inner tracks . There was a comparison between the techniques IBM and Maxtor have followed; while IBM disks had higher transfer on the outer tracks it was going down fast while it was moving to the inner tracks, on the other hand Maxtor disks had slightly lower transfer rate than the IBM ones on the outer tracks but better on the inner tracks, resulting in a more consistent performance (ie no big differences between innner & outer tracks. Anyway the decision is yours.
Good luck

[Brian Ellis]

I'm in the process of setting up two Maxtors 60 Mb ATA 7200 on a Raid O system. So far, everything is OK and I'm currently doing the long job (ScanDisk thorough, 3.6 megaclusters)

[Dr Mordrid]

1. if a Fasttrak install the FastCheck tool and turn off S.M.A.R.T. in it's Options tab.

2. be aware of the write verification being turned on for 10 powerup cycles.

Dr. Mordrid

[Brian Ellis]

Doc

Now you've got me flummoxed. I've disabled the S.M.A.R.T. function, as you suggest and clicked Apply. However, if I click on either drive in either the Array or Controller tabs, it says the Status is functional.

Can you please explain the 10 start-up cycles? I can't seem to find any reference to that in the book.

Otherwise, everything seems hunky-dory. Sandra, clever girl, is telling me that the write and read transfer rates is about 80% better than before, even the random ones. I've done a small capture and it seems fine.

[Hpar_]

why not a pair of the WD1200jb drives with the 8megs of cache or even the WD1200bb for that matter? what is the best raid controller now a days?

[Brian Ellis]

IMHO, 2 or 8 Mb of cache is not going to make any difference when you have Gb of file length. What counts for video is the sustained sequential transfer rate and no amount of cache is going to change that. Western Digital generally has not been a favourite drive maker for videoists. Up to a couple of years ago, IBM was considered good, but they have done something to lose their reputation. This is why I went for Maxtor.

I haven't tried any other, but the Promise Fasttrak TX series seem OK for RAID striping. They have an 82 page hard copy instruction manual, quite rare nowadays but is indicative of a company that cares whether their product is used correctly, instead of relying on intuition and a vague, badly written on-line set of FAQs as instructions.

[Dr Mordrid]

You won't find the write verification stuff in the book for the Fasttrak as it's a "feature" of the Maxtor drives themselves.

Maxtor does this with all their ATA100 and faster models, God knows why though. At any rate the MAXTOR download page has the WVSET.EXE tool for turning it off manually;

MAXTOR Write Verification info page

SANDRA is a rather useful girl, isn't she?

Dr. Mordrid

[funsoul]

What do you folks think about the Western Digital WD800BB drives? I've read a couple decent reviews but figure those no substitute for checking with the folks here before buying anything.

[miya]

Gotta love Sandra.

[Marshmallowman]

yeah very sad about IBM, great perfomance...dodgy reliability on some drives, and they issue a big disclaimer.
its a real pity, they have some EXTRA functions straight out of there scsi linup to optimise perfomance in RAID and shared channel setups.

but if you cheack the competeing products from other manufacturers you will see the same type of disclaimer just they don't publisize it.

warentee period/MTBF = ???

my last 4 drives have been IBM's, the next one won't
(have not had any problems either, I just don't like big disclaimers)

[Marshmallowman]

if they did not issue the big cop out, I probably have bought an IBM again