Re: [gentoo-user] Are those "green" drives any good?

[Mick]

On Thursday 10 May 2012 00:58:47 Dale wrote:
> Mark Knecht wrote:
> > On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 3:24 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com> wrote:
> >> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > <SNIP>
> >
> >>> My thoughts these days is that nobody really makes a bad drive anymore.
> >>> Like cars[1], they're all good and do what it says on the box. Same
> >>> with bikes[2].
> >>>
> >>> A manufacturer may have some bad luck and a product range is less than
> >>> perfect, but even that is quite rare and most stuff ups can be fixed
> >>> with new firmware. So it's all good.
> >>
> >> That's my thoughts too.  It doesn't matter what brand you go with, they
> >> all have some sort of failure at some point.  They are not built to last
> >> forever and there is always the random failure, even when a week old.
> >> It's usually the loss of important data and not having a backup that
> >> makes it sooooo bad.  I'm not real picky on brand as long as it is a
> >> company I have heard of.
> >
> > One thing to keep in mind is statistics. For a single drive by itself
> > it hardly matters anymore what you buy. You cannot predict the
> > failure. However if you buy multiple identical drives at the same time
> > then most likely you will either get all good drives or (possibly) a
> > bunch of drives that suffer from similar defects and all start failing
> > at the same point in their life cycle.  For RAID arrays it's
> > measurably best to buy drives that come from different manufacturing
> > lots, better from different factories, and maybe even from different
> > companies. Then, if a drive fails, assuming the failure is really the
> > fault of the drive and not some local issue like power sources or ESD
> > events, etc., it's less likely other drives in the box will fail at
> > the same time.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Mark
>
> You make a good point too.  I had a headlight to go out on my car once
> long ago.  I, not thinking, replaced them both since the new ones were
> brighter.  Guess what, when one of the bulbs blew out, the other was out
> VERY soon after.  Now, I replace them but NOT at the same time.  Keep in
> mind, just like a hard drive, when one headlight is on, so is the other
> one.  When we turn our computers on, all the drives spin up together so
> they are basically all getting the same wear and tear effect.

Unless you're driving something out of the 60's before halogen bulbs came out, 
you didn't by any chance touched them with your greasy fingers - did you?  
Because that's a promoter of early failure (unequal temperature tension caused 
by impurities on the glass).

It's better to use a clean tissue or the foam wrapper they are packed in and 
take care not to touch them with your fingers at all.  Should you 
inadvertently do so, then you'll need to clean them with meths or similar 
degreaser.
-- 
Regards,
Mick