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New HD?



 
 
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  #1  
Old August 27th 15, 02:42 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
philo
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,309
Default New HD?

A friend wants me to add a new SATA HD to his system. He's a
photographer, so it will be used for storing hi-res images.


Have not ordered in a while and now I see there are so many options.


Just wondering why some drives are marketed as being for NAS, security
systems, etc


What difference could it make?
  #2  
Old August 27th 15, 04:02 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 13,364
Default New HD?

philo wrote:
A friend wants me to add a new SATA HD to his system. He's a
photographer, so it will be used for storing hi-res images.


Have not ordered in a while and now I see there are so many options.


Just wondering why some drives are marketed as being for NAS, security
systems, etc


What difference could it make?


ST3000DM001

Economically priced. $90
512e type (4096 physical sectors, addressable as 512 byte sectors)
About 200MB/sec at the start of the drive.
3TB capacity.

I bought this, thinking it would be
nothing but trouble, but it's been
perfectly well behaved. Doesn't thrash like
some other products. Seems quiet and
well balanced (not much "hum" in the
chassis).

The weird part is, reviews give it 3 of 5 stars.
I don't know if the root cause is the handling
of the drives when shipped, or what the problem
might be.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA5AD2TW2217

The flying height on these drives now, is quite low,
and it is to be expected the surface will "wear" in
areas where the head spends most of its time. There
are patent applications for "3nm flying height", which
gives absolutely no room for error. And to top it off,
the head uses a heater on writes. Heat is applied to
the head, to push the write head slightly closer to the
platter. So when they need a small displacement actuator,
they used heat to do it. I guess a piezoelectric actuator
would have cost too much.

The part that doesn't make sense, is if there was actual
contact between the heads and the platter, there should
be some sound effects. And I'm not hearing anything. So,
like with all drives, it's a wait and see.

Because of the bad reviews, in good conscience I could
only recommend buying a pair of those, rather than just
a single drive. And then cloning the "live" disk to
a backup disk at regular intervals. Leave the backup disk
disconnected from the computer (most of the time), so there
is no excuse for wear-limited life. (A lot of people leave
their backup disk powered all the time.)

My previous era of Seagate DM 500GB disks, I was getting about
1 year of operation from them (daily usage), before the
reallocations started to show in SMART. And as I was looking
back at my records, I was shocked to find the drives
were behaving like toilet paper (expendable). Four in a
row lasting one year each. I hope to see
this new one still clean as a whistle in Aug 2016.

Seagate can make good drives. Back when the flying
height was a bit higher perhaps. The ST3500418AS in
the machine right now, has 25,100 power-on-hours
on it, according to SMART. Which is well past
what I was getting from the new DM drives.

*******

Now, I didn't answer your question as to "what do all
the colors mean" and "what does a designation of NAS
or DVR recorder mean". Some drives do seem to have
more "terabytes per year of writes" stated as a limitation,
implying their operating life is a function of what
you do with them. So that seems to be some sort of
quality metric. But if you look at the web sites
now, the two companies offer *nothing* in the way
of technical information. Even some things I thought
would be trivial to discover (512n, 512e, 4Kn sector
size info), I actually ended up looking for DMESG output
from Linux articles, for the particular disk model
numbers I was interested in. There were no technical
datasheets available at all. Just the ones that
state "dimensions, power consumption" and other
light-weight baloney. So you can't even "learn" about
their marketing bumpf at all. The colors and titles
aren't explained to my satisfaction. Their marketing
department, they might as well fire all the staff.
They're not doing anything.

Paul
  #3  
Old August 27th 15, 06:02 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
tumppiw[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10
Default New HD?

27.8.2015, 6:02, Paul kirjoitti:
philo wrote:

--snipped
Seagate can make good drives. Back when the flying
height was a bit higher perhaps. The ST3500418AS in
the machine right now, has 25,100 power-on-hours
on it, according to SMART. Which is well past
what I was getting from the new DM drives.
Paul

--end snip

I've usually got good results with Seagate drives so I'm not counting
the off when going for my next HD

If this link is working, it looks like I've got 23kh + on my ST3000DM001
I bought oct.2013 (watch for wordwrap)

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi...nt=photo%2cJPG



--
-----------------------------------------------------
Thomas Wendell
Helsinki, Finland
Translation to/from FI/SWE not always accurate
-----------------------------------------------------
  #4  
Old August 27th 15, 07:09 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
Peter Jason
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 160
Default New HD?

On Wed, 26 Aug 2015 20:42:52 -0500, philo wrote:

A friend wants me to add a new SATA HD to his system. He's a
photographer, so it will be used for storing hi-res images.


Have not ordered in a while and now I see there are so many options.


Just wondering why some drives are marketed as being for NAS, security
systems, etc


What difference could it make?


You will need 1TB min for hi-rez (RAW) images and this will fill up
quickly.
For CCTV where the HDD runs 24/7 then a "surveillance" type is better
(and about 30% more expensive.)
  #5  
Old August 27th 15, 09:19 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
philo
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,309
Default New HD? Thanks

To all who replied, thank you


Guess I will just buy a 3Tb in his price range, he already knows he must
keep all images stored on more than 1 HD...


One year he lost a lot of HD's but after I told him NOT to let his
machine run 24/7 he's not lost any
  #6  
Old September 4th 15, 02:24 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
~misfit~[_16_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 158
Default New HD?

Once upon a time on usenet Paul wrote:
philo wrote:
A friend wants me to add a new SATA HD to his system. He's a
photographer, so it will be used for storing hi-res images.


Have not ordered in a while and now I see there are so many options.


Just wondering why some drives are marketed as being for NAS,
security systems, etc


What difference could it make?


ST3000DM001

Economically priced. $90
512e type (4096 physical sectors, addressable as 512 byte sectors)
About 200MB/sec at the start of the drive.
3TB capacity.

I bought this, thinking it would be
nothing but trouble, but it's been
perfectly well behaved. Doesn't thrash like
some other products. Seems quiet and
well balanced (not much "hum" in the
chassis).

The weird part is, reviews give it 3 of 5 stars.
I don't know if the root cause is the handling
of the drives when shipped, or what the problem
might be.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA5AD2TW2217

The flying height on these drives now, is quite low,
and it is to be expected the surface will "wear" in
areas where the head spends most of its time. There
are patent applications for "3nm flying height", which
gives absolutely no room for error. And to top it off,
the head uses a heater on writes. Heat is applied to
the head, to push the write head slightly closer to the
platter. So when they need a small displacement actuator,
they used heat to do it. I guess a piezoelectric actuator
would have cost too much.

The part that doesn't make sense, is if there was actual
contact between the heads and the platter, there should
be some sound effects. And I'm not hearing anything. So,
like with all drives, it's a wait and see.

Because of the bad reviews, in good conscience I could
only recommend buying a pair of those, rather than just
a single drive. And then cloning the "live" disk to
a backup disk at regular intervals. Leave the backup disk
disconnected from the computer (most of the time), so there
is no excuse for wear-limited life. (A lot of people leave
their backup disk powered all the time.)

My previous era of Seagate DM 500GB disks, I was getting about
1 year of operation from them (daily usage), before the
reallocations started to show in SMART. And as I was looking
back at my records, I was shocked to find the drives
were behaving like toilet paper (expendable). Four in a
row lasting one year each. I hope to see
this new one still clean as a whistle in Aug 2016.

Seagate can make good drives. Back when the flying
height was a bit higher perhaps. The ST3500418AS in
the machine right now, has 25,100 power-on-hours
on it, according to SMART. Which is well past
what I was getting from the new DM drives.


Interesting, thanks for that Paul. My experience with Seagate of late has
been bad, really bad. I've lost three drives (out of eight or so) in the
last year. One just out of warranty, one replaced with a new drive and one
was replaced with a 'refurbished' drive which started showing bad /
reallocated sectors within a week. (I've never got the whole 'refurbished
drive' thing - it seems they test and if the drive doesn't throw bad sectors
within a week wipe SMART data, swtick on a green-edged label and call it
reburbished. You end up with someone else's problem handed along.)

Annoyingly although Seagate say a replacement drive is covered by the
original drive warranty for the original period I've been unsuccessful in
getting another replacement for that one. Their software refuses to generate
an RMA for me using either the serial number of the refurbished drive or of
the new drive, it simply says not found.

So when a friend asked me to check what was going on in a computer where the
(internal) data drive wasn't showing up, after checking then swapping cables
etc. I wasn't surprised to find that the (Seagate 2TB) drive was completely
dead. It was out of warranty by a week (I remember when the warranties were
much longer than they are now - yet I mever needed to use them). I tried
tapping the side (the drive just sat there and buzzed every five or so
seconds) with no luck.

In desperation I tried freezing it overnight in a ziplock bag then opening
the bag just enough to hook up the wires (keeping condensation to a
minimum), a trick that's worked twice for me before. However that didn't
work either. I suggested she get a Western Digital drive as a replacement
as, although only ~25% of my drives are WD I haven't had one fail in nearly
a decade.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)


  #7  
Old September 5th 15, 12:24 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware
philo
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,309
Default New HD?

On 09/03/2015 08:24 PM, ~misfit~ wrote:


snipped
Interesting, thanks for that Paul. My experience with Seagate of late has
been bad, really bad. I've lost three drives (out of eight or so) in the
last year. One just out of warranty, one replaced with a new drive and one
was replaced with a 'refurbished' drive which started showing bad /
reallocated sectors within a week. (I've never got the whole 'refurbished
drive' thing - it seems they test and if the drive doesn't throw bad sectors
within a week wipe SMART data, swtick on a green-edged label and call it
reburbished. You end up with someone else's problem handed along.)

Annoyingly although Seagate say a replacement drive is covered by the
original drive warranty for the original period I've been unsuccessful in
getting another replacement for that one. Their software refuses to generate
an RMA for me using either the serial number of the refurbished drive or of
the new drive, it simply says not found.

So when a friend asked me to check what was going on in a computer where the
(internal) data drive wasn't showing up, after checking then swapping cables
etc. I wasn't surprised to find that the (Seagate 2TB) drive was completely
dead. It was out of warranty by a week (I remember when the warranties were
much longer than they are now - yet I mever needed to use them). I tried
tapping the side (the drive just sat there and buzzed every five or so
seconds) with no luck.

In desperation I tried freezing it overnight in a ziplock bag then opening
the bag just enough to hook up the wires (keeping condensation to a
minimum), a trick that's worked twice for me before. However that didn't
work either. I suggested she get a Western Digital drive as a replacement
as, although only ~25% of my drives are WD I haven't had one fail in nearly
a decade.




I ended up buying a 4TB Seagate drive. The person knows they need to
have back ups. Will install it early next week.


One year, the guy went through at least 3 or 4 hard drives.
One of them was a Seagate and failed after 6 weeks. The warranty
replacement was fine though. Other than that, no problems with Seagate.

As a matter of fact other than those notorious IBM Desk Star
drives...there is no brand that stands out in my mind as being generally
bad.


Since he no longer keeps his machine on 24/7 none have failed
  #8  
Old September 13th 15, 02:25 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
~misfit~[_16_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 158
Default New HD?

Once upon a time on usenet philo wrote:
On 09/03/2015 08:24 PM, ~misfit~ wrote:


snipped
Interesting, thanks for that Paul. My experience with Seagate of
late has been bad, really bad. I've lost three drives (out of eight
or so) in the last year. One just out of warranty, one replaced with
a new drive and one was replaced with a 'refurbished' drive which
started showing bad / reallocated sectors within a week. (I've never
got the whole 'refurbished drive' thing - it seems they test and if
the drive doesn't throw bad sectors within a week wipe SMART data,
swtick on a green-edged label and call it reburbished. You end up
with someone else's problem handed along.) Annoyingly although Seagate
say a replacement drive is covered by the
original drive warranty for the original period I've been
unsuccessful in getting another replacement for that one. Their
software refuses to generate an RMA for me using either the serial
number of the refurbished drive or of the new drive, it simply says
not found. So when a friend asked me to check what was going on in a
computer
where the (internal) data drive wasn't showing up, after checking
then swapping cables etc. I wasn't surprised to find that the
(Seagate 2TB) drive was completely dead. It was out of warranty by a
week (I remember when the warranties were much longer than they are
now - yet I mever needed to use them). I tried tapping the side (the
drive just sat there and buzzed every five or so seconds) with no
luck. In desperation I tried freezing it overnight in a ziplock bag then
opening the bag just enough to hook up the wires (keeping
condensation to a minimum), a trick that's worked twice for me
before. However that didn't work either. I suggested she get a
Western Digital drive as a replacement as, although only ~25% of my
drives are WD I haven't had one fail in nearly a decade.


I ended up buying a 4TB Seagate drive. The person knows they need to
have back ups. Will install it early next week.

One year, the guy went through at least 3 or 4 hard drives.
One of them was a Seagate and failed after 6 weeks. The warranty
replacement was fine though. Other than that, no problems with
Seagate.
As a matter of fact other than those notorious IBM Desk Star
drives...there is no brand that stands out in my mind as being
generally bad.

Since he no longer keeps his machine on 24/7 none have failed


In my experience keeping the computer on 24/7 doesn't hurt the drives one
whit - unless you've left the 'power plane' settings to spin down the drive
if not used for 10 minutes (or similar - Damn Windows!!!).

If you leave it spinning constantly I find it doesn't shorten its life -
maybe even the opposite. I have drives here out of ex-corporate workstations
(that were obviously left on 24/7 going by the stop/start counts) with over
1,500 days use on them and no bad sectors or other issues. When I compare
those to drives that have more stop/start cycles than hours logged the error
rate is much higher in the latter.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)


  #9  
Old September 13th 15, 11:00 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
philo
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,309
Default New HD?

On 09/12/2015 08:25 PM, ~misfit~ wrote:


I ended up buying a 4TB Seagate drive. The person knows they need to
have back ups. Will install it early next week.

One year, the guy went through at least 3 or 4 hard drives.
One of them was a Seagate and failed after 6 weeks. The warranty
replacement was fine though. Other than that, no problems with
Seagate.
As a matter of fact other than those notorious IBM Desk Star
drives...there is no brand that stands out in my mind as being
generally bad.

Since he no longer keeps his machine on 24/7 none have failed


In my experience keeping the computer on 24/7 doesn't hurt the drives one
whit - unless you've left the 'power plane' settings to spin down the drive
if not used for 10 minutes (or similar - Damn Windows!!!).

If you leave it spinning constantly I find it doesn't shorten its life -
maybe even the opposite. I have drives here out of ex-corporate workstations
(that were obviously left on 24/7 going by the stop/start counts) with over
1,500 days use on them and no bad sectors or other issues. When I compare
those to drives that have more stop/start cycles than hours logged the error
rate is much higher in the latter.




I agree that leaving a drive on 24/7 should not hurt anything if they
are spun down when not in use...but doggone it he lost...I think four
drives in one year...but since he shuts his machine down when not in
use...never again lost a drive in the last ten years or so.
 




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