[vox-tech] External vs. Bare Drive/Case

[Alex Mandel]

On 09/01/2010 09:45 PM, Bill Broadley wrote:
> On 09/01/2010 01:56 PM, Nick Schmalenberger wrote:
>> I've often heard that the highest capacity drives available
>> usually have the most platters and so are less reliable because
>> of more moving parts
> 
> Sort of.  The parts of a multiple platter drive are bigger and heavier 
> than those of a single platter drive.  But there's the same number of 
> them.  So there's basically the moving parts are 1-N platters, 1 motor, 
> 1 actuator, and one head assembly.
> 
>> , and they are more expensive. I wish newegg
>> would list the number of platters a drive has
> 
> I don't see why people would care, nor have I seen any difference in 
> reliability.  You are assuming that there's constant engineering and 
> instead I'll claim that disk companies put in enough engineering to 
> maximize profit... this includes being reliable enough to protect their 
> hard won reputation.  So yes a 5 platter drive has additional 
> engineering... or reduced performance goals, but the same reliability goal.
> 
>> , supposedly 4 or 5
>> is alot and 2 or 3 is a good amount. Sometimes you can find out
>> from other sites like http://www.storagereview.com/ and
>> http://www.redhill.net.au/ also has a lot of cool info about hard
>> drives.
> 
> The google paper analyzed 1000s of drives and I don't recall any 
> correlation between platters and reliability.
> 
> Pretty much all brands have cyclic reliability.  Not sure if it's random 
> chance, or some kind of build the brand reputation, then sell 
> substandard drives to extract profit from the reputation.  In any case 
> maxtor used to be great... then not.  IBM used to be great... then not. 
>   Seagate used to be great... then not.  At least for now it seems like 
> WD is pretty good.  I've been using quite a few lately (around 100) 
> without problem.
> 
> If you want a 2TB for backup purposes I'd consider:
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136344
> 
> It has 391 reviews with an average rating of 4 of 5 stars.  That's 
> pretty good, especially since it seems like people are 10x as likely to 
> fill out a review for a bad drive as they are when they expect and 
> receive a reliable drive.
> 
> I've seen seagate (which hit bottom about 6 months or so ago) with much 
> worse reviews, but they seem to be on the road to recovery, for instance 
> (286 reviews 3 stars)
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148413
> 
> I know samsung has some major issues.  The drives tended to be much 
> heavier and much more fragile as they were working the kinks out of 
> their new glass/ceramic platters. Looks like they have gotten better 
> though, the reviews look similar to WD (4 stars 279 reviews):
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152202
> 
> So currenty I'd rate WD as the more conservative bet, and seagate as the 
> one that is likely cheaper and likely to be fine as well.  Can't really 
> comment too much on samsung because I haven't bought any recently.
> 
> With backups the more copies the better.  So if you can afford 2 1TB 
> drives instead of 1 2TB you might be better off (depending on how much 
> you need to backup).  I'm particularly happy with a portable drive I 
> recently bought:
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136477
> 
> I expect 2.5" drives designed for laptops to be a bit better in shock 
> resistance and to be designed for an increased number of start/stop 
> cycles (I.e. a laptop with aggressive power conservation).  It's very 
> quiet, rather small (fits in a shirt pocket), sleeps when not in use 
> (automatically).  The reviews are 3 stars out of 5, but that seems to be 
> mostly related to some crapware that comes preinstalled but is 
> removable.  I've seen it on sale for $99, and was around that on sale at 
> costco recently (which is where I bought it).
> 
> All good options, I find it kind of shocking how reliable drives are 
> these days.

While I like the 2.5" drive option, I don't see them having the capacity
I need and I'm not sure if I can find as good of external cases for them
(need to look more). 2x 1TB drives just seems to double the number of
cases, usb ports, power ports etc... I'll have to price it to see if
makes sense, just seems like a lot of extra cordage.

I am thinking about 2x 2TB actually, one on-site and one offsite cloned
with something like drbd. Since I always seem to be expanding my photos
and science data, I easily see the need for additional 2 TB drives in a
couple of years (another reason why starting with 1 TB might be a nuisance)

I agree seagate seems to have hit bottom lately (that was my historical
brand). Maybe for kicks I'll get one Samsung and one WD and see which
one dies first.

Thanks,
Alex