5 years warranty for seagate HDs

[Umfriend]

Schomfest,

AFAIK, the Cheetahs have microcode aimed at server applications wheras the raptors supposedly are optimised for desktop usage.

I think I read something to that extent a while ago at www.storagereview.com

On their main poage there is interesting stuff about whether t stripe or not as well. Have a look I would suggest.

[schmosef]

Thanks for the link. A good read.

[VJ]

Originally posted by Umfriend
Schomfest,

AFAIK, the Cheetahs have microcode aimed at server applications wheras the raptors supposedly are optimised for desktop usage.

I have a Seagate Cheetah 10K.6 in my workstation. The SeaTools software allow one to adjust parameters to set the drive optimally for server or for workstation use. (it mainly concerns the principles of the cache)


Jörg

[leech]

While on the subject of hard drives... I have an External enclosure... well, this is my second one, actually. The first one was USB2 only, and while it worked great, anytime I connected another USB2 hard drive, my hard drive would 'disappear'. So then I thought at first it was due to the Device ID or something conflicting (the first time I tried it, the enclosures were of the same type) but then I tried it with different enclosures and got the same thing...

So now the second enclosure I have, is Firewire/USB2... but when I have it connected to the USB2, I have the same problem as I did before... as soon another USB2 drive is plugged in, this one disappears... so then I plug it into the Firewire port on my Audigy 2. The problem is, when I try to transfer over a large file (either copying to or copying from.. I think both, but maybe it's just when I copy it from another hard drive to this one) then it freaks out and times out then the drive disappears again.. and the busy light goes continuous until I turn it off and reboot the drive.

Any ideas? It uses the Prolific chip. (PL 3507) I found a forum about Firmware updates, but no site has them, and the people that say "email me for the firmware" never replied... or couldn't email me the file (and they didn't explain very well... probably due to lack of being native english speakers)

Leech

[Sasq]

Leech, try here http://member.newsguy.com/~siccos/PL3507%20Firmware.htm

or here...

http://cluso.net/files/fw3507-707.rar.zip

[Johnny Ray]

Hey, my harddrives have always had five-year warranties. There are advantages to SCSI, other than just the lightening of the wallet.

[xortam]

I've always been strictly SCSI but I finally went with ATA in my brand new PC. Video is just too consuming and I would never spend the money on SCSI for multiple terabytes. I'll be chewing through 100 GB/week for a while so I'm going for big ATA drives on sale and throw them in my removable rack. It also gets hard to pony up for backups of multiple terabytes.

[Wombat]

At those volumes, have you considered tape backup?

[Dr Mordrid]

Tape has a big disadvantage with large volumes of data: speed, or lack of same. HDD backups are much faster, particularly of large projects like archiving video projects or DVD images.

For a busy videographer how long it takes to move all that data off the RAID so he can start new projects is no small deal.

Dr. Mordrid

[xortam]

... also HDD costs have come down so much and capacities increased so much that tape has lost a lot of its appeal. The current market of < $0.75/GB price on large HDDs means that it's the right solution now. It gets difficult managing terabytes of data. DLT isn't even adequate without a large jukebox which isn't practical in most homes. Image backup to HDD is also more prevalent these days in the Enterprise.

I just plop in a new HDD into my removable rack and I'm good to go for archiving or system backup. The aluminum rack has a S-ATA/P-ATA converter which provides for the S-ATA interface. This allows for use of the smaller cables for good airflow and it also operates at S-SATAs 150 vs. 133 transfer speed while taking advantage of the lower P-ATA HDD price. Just store the HDDs in an appropriate location and you've got yourself some high density storage of your video library. I'll be putting it all on-line when I start buying the terabyte NAS boxes (JBOD and RAID).

[Wombat]

The speeds I see at work aren't too bad. The tape drives I develop for perform read/write at 50-120MB/second sustained. The drive cost may be high, but the tapes themselves are about 20-40 cents/GB.

[xortam]

Originally posted by Wombat
The speeds I see at work aren't too bad. The tape drives I develop for perform read/write at 50-120MB/second sustained. The drive cost may be high, but the tapes themselves are about 20-40 cents/GB.

I'm not quite up on the latest in Enterprise tape systems as I've been essentially retired for over five years now. What are the tape capacities these days? I'm pretty much getting completely away from tape and l look forward to archiving any worthwhile content off of the old S-VHS tapes so I can get them out of here. Tape has too many drawbacks and I need the random access and high capacity/transfer rates from HDD for my video applications.

BTW ... I didn't know you went back to work. How long have you been re-employed? What are you doing if I may ask?

[Wombat]

LTO tech. is 200/400GB native/compressed. LTO-2 is on the horizon and should double that. Sony's SAIT is 500/1300GB.

[agallag]

Unfortunately, the drives start at about $3-4000. That puts them out of reach of home users.

Anyway, for long term archiving, tapes are still the best bet for the enterprise, but for near-line backup hard disks can't be beat.

[Wombat]

There's still the 8mm market. I'm playing with some nifty stuff there, too. Generally much cheaper.