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Tom Womack ([personal profile] fivemack) wrote2008-10-26 09:43 am
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Hard disc confusopoly

I have run out of disc space; I have a spare hot-swap disc bay in my computer; I'd like to put a 1TB disc in it.

www.scan.co.uk list thirteen models of 1TB SATA hard disc, ranging in price from £77 to £165, with no idea as to what differentiates them. I currently have three Seagate drives and a WD drive, so diversification suggests the cheaper Hitachi one, but that's a justification not much better than writing down the list and using a pin.

Given my curse, I wonder if I should buy two 1TB drives from different manufacturers and keep them as a RAID1.
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[identity profile] dave [earth.li] (from livejournal.com) 2008-10-26 12:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Wot, no 1.5TB drive :)

The WD Green Power ones will save you 2-3 quid/year in electricity costs I think. They definitely use less, and when you have half a dozen in a server it's a noticeable change.

Shame they don't do 1.5TB yet.

[identity profile] arnhem.livejournal.com 2008-10-26 01:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Seagate (and probably the others) now differentiate between their usual range of disks, and their "server" models (usually about 10% more expensive) which are allegedly designed for continuous uptime.

[identity profile] randwolf.livejournal.com 2008-10-26 04:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Speed, physical size, reliability. Some drives automatically recalibrate themselves at inconvenient moments and interfere with video editing. Look for "media capable" or similar phrases if this is an issue. Some drives have IBM's SMART failure early-warning system. Depends what you're doing with the drive.

[identity profile] fivemack.livejournal.com 2008-10-26 10:52 pm (UTC)(link)
It seems that the Samsung drive is the highest-tech (334GB platters) and also the cheapest, but there are a lot of complaints on the Internet about its reliability. The Hitachi is the first one that came out, and has five platters (in the tradition of largest-capacity Deskstars) where many of the competitors have four. The Maxtor looks quite promising.

I'm a bit surprised that none of the usual-suspects hardware sites have done a round-up review of terabyte discs.

[identity profile] stevegreen.livejournal.com 2008-11-11 09:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Fast as memory technology develops, it's continually outstripped by our ability to fill computers full of data. It's a new spin on Parkinson's Law.
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