The better of two hard drives

[danball1976]

Which of these two hard drives would be better in a RAID 0 config:

SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822152052)
Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5000YS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822136032)

Now, I know the Western Digital is an enterprise drive built specifically for RAID environments, and has a MTBF of 1.2 million hours, the Samsung has just half that of 600,000 hours. So I would imagine the WD is better? What do you guys think?

[shwaip]

600,000 hours is 68 years. Just sayin'.

[Thrax]

I imagine that it doesn't really matter, in the long run.

[danball1976]

I don't know. The way I see it, the SATA Power and legacy molex power connector on the WD drives are an unnecessary redundancy.

The Samsung drives seem to be pretty good, and I would imagine the T series drives are a higher end version than the P series drives.

Do you know of any other brand that might be better?

[nonstop301]

Have you considered 10,000 rpm danball ? The prices of the ones you have selected there almost match the 150Gb WD Raptor.

If your main focus is the 500 Gb capacity however, then I would imagine the Samsung is suitable.

I have to say I'm not sure about the details of RAID configurations and whether RAID 0 will require similar hard disks in terms of cache, rpm and SATA for optimum performance

[danball1976]

RAID 0 requires identical discs for optimal performance.

[Leonardo]

Bordering on off topic here --

Maybe it's just my experience, but over the last three years Western Digital drives have been the least reliable for me. Two have died on me during that period, out of a total of three WD drives. Seagate - no failures, Hitachi (Deskstar) - no failures, Samsung - no failures - Maxtor one failure out of two drives. WD was Previously my favorite. I don't think WD has the same quality control or manufacturing standards they previously had. I have become a true believer in Seagate - quiet, competitively fast, reliable, and a five year warranty for their retail drives. WD's warranty abruptly fell from three years to one. Hmm

[danball1976]

I've (or my parents) had the following Western Digital drives:
A 17.2GB bought early 2000
A 20.5GB bought around mid 2001, gave to someone after buying the first 120GB Maxtor. Apparently it died a few months after giving it to him.
My parents bought a 40GB drive around mid 2002 to replace the 17.2GB

I've (or my parents) had the following Maxtor drives:
A 60GB in Nov 2002
Two 120GB Maxtor drives, one around Dec 2003 and one Jan 2004.
A 80GB in my parents computer bought back in Nov 2004 to replace the 40GB WD that died.

It seems my experience mirrors yours. All the Western Digital Drives died while my Maxtors are still going strong.

I guess this experience suggests I should buy a Maxtor, but they have a 250GB, a 300, 400 and 500GB drives for SATA II 3Gb/s, but no 160GB drive.

Western Digital does have a 5 year limited warranty for their Enterprise drives and the Raptor, but for no mention of a warranty for their desktop drives (SE, SE16, or regular Caviar)

[Leonardo]

I've heard rumblings about WD drive reliability not being up to their former standard. I am not advocating against them, as I don't have enough evidence to call them poor quality. But, based on my experience alone, I can wholeheartedly recommend Seagate and Hitachi. I haven't had my Samsung drives long enough yet to make a recommendation, but so far, they run very nicely (one desktop internal and one laptop internal).

[danball1976]

Is there any sort of performance gain with a 16MB cache vs a 8MB cache on SATA II 3.0Gb/s?

I do need to say that my intent here is to have a single 120GB to 250GB drive for the OS, and the two 500GB drives for storage in RAID 0

[Leonardo]

I don't know, but it just seems like a larger cache would help any drive. More buffer space to manage the flow data.