Michael Mol wrote:
On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 1:30 PM, Dale<rdalek1...@gmail.com> wrote:
Looks like some good info. I just need a GOOD sale and some extra money to
spend. Maybe in a couple weeks or so. Hopefully. ;-)
As for heat in my case, I have a Cooler Master HAF-932 case. It has those
huge 230mm fans. Heat is not a problem.
I just wonder how much data they will be able to pack into a 3.5" drive tho.
Hmmmmm. Surely they will run out of room at some point. I mean, the heads
have got to have a little room to work with.
Just don't buy a SAMSUNG drive. I know, I know, everyone has their pet
"Don't Buy Hard Drives Made By $x" experience.
Here's mine.
I bought a 1TB SAMSUNG drive for cheap from Newegg at a Black Friday
sale a couple years ago. It failed on me. Around the same time, I
identified some flaws in the firmware which I considered severe[2].
I RMA'd the drive, including a full report on the failure and the bugs
I'd found in the firmware. I received the new drive in the mail. Same
exact model. Same exact firmware revision.[1] It failed on me within
three months. I attempted another RMA, the drive's serial number was
rejected by their system, and I never heard back.
So, I recommend not buying SAMSUNG drives for a combination of:
1) Historical evidence of poor firmware design. (reference smartctl's
man page; SAMSUNG is the only manufacturer I know of to get two
user-selectable workarounds in smartctl.)
2) I received a failed drive, which was RMA'd, the subsequent drive
failed shortly thereafter, and couldn't be RMA'd using normal
channels.
3) No acknowledgement (or even denial) of the firmware issue.
[1] Ok, sure, there's no way they'd be able to whip out a new firmware
revision in time for an RMA. That wouldn't make sense. But they might
have sent me a drive with a different firmware revision. Or a
different model. As it stood, they sent me back a device I'd already
identified as systemically defective.
[2] It claimed to support logging, but any failed test didn't get
appended to the log, but erased and replaced it. I can probably dig up
nearly all the details, but not quickly, since I'm at work. However,
since you're on the cusp of making a purchase, I thought I'd give you
fair warning...
To late now:
root@fireball / # hdparm -i /dev/sdc
/dev/sdc:
Model=SAMSUNG HD753LJ, FwRev=1AA01117, SerialNo=S1PWJ1KS305193
Config={ Fixed }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=34902, SectSize=554, ECCbytes=4
BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=unknown, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=off
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=1465149168
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255) WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: unknown: ATA/ATAPI-3,4,5,6,7
* signifies the current active mode
root@fireball / #
I got this one about 2 years or so ago. I did have random lockups a
while back but I think it was a file system error. I moved everything
off the drive, reformatted it and it has worked fine ever since. If I
get me a new drive, the one above will be a backup sort of thing.
I seem to have good luck with WD and Maxtor myself. Like you said tho,
everyone has their horror story. It is bad that they didn't give some
sort of explanation on the second failure. I have noticed that some
things, car parts for example, have what they call a "limited
warranty." That means exchange once and then you are on your own if it
fails. Maybe they are doing that with their drives. That would explain
a lot too.
Dale
:-) :-)
