Re: 1Tb Drives *IN STOCK*...

[Jim Noble <yahoo-groups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Phil Harris wrote:
> "RAID Edition" drives are supposed to be better able to
handle a permanently
> "on" life as well as being tweaked to handle the externally
generated
> vibrations of other drives. They also may have data caching and data
> transfer algorithms that are better suited to the typical access
patterns
> found in RAID storage systems than domestic use.
>

There's one other difference that could cause a problem. The WD Caviar
"RAID edition" drives, for example, are set up to not to spend
much time
trying to fix read errors - when used in a RAID array, the assumption is
that the RAID controller will take care of filling in the blank from
elsewhere in the RAID set (this is called Time Limited Error Recovery -
TLER). Thus if you're not using it in a RAID array you might experience
some data corruption if a read error is encountered and not resolved
quickly enough.

That said, the last drive I bought was a 500Gb Seagate Barracuda ES
which I don't use in a RAID array. It has a similar feature (Error
Recovery Control), but the timeout is 12 seconds in stead of the 7
seconds used in the WD drives. I've not had any (noticeable!) problems
with it...

Jim