Do you trust 3TB hard drives?

[ssnapier 0]

I have been using 1 and 2TB drives for a while now, but I am not so sure I trust drives much bigger than that. Do you guys think that a 3TB SATA drive could be reliable enough to run RAID 5 or RAID 10 in a critical data environment? I have to say that 2TB drives made me a bit nervous at first too, and we did have a few failures but overall they have proven a solid option.

 

EDIT: I am specifically talking about SATA III drives with a 6GB/s transfer rate.

[survtech 0]

Conflicting opinions here. On the one hand, there have been many concerns about larger hard drives' potential reliability going all the way back to 130GB IDE versus MFM/RLL. I myself was concerned when they switched from linear recording to perpendicular recording. In addition, manufacturers have stumbled on occasion. WD had many problems with their early 300GB and 400GB drives, as well as with their early RAID Edition and (apparently) their "green" drives. Seagate had problems with their Barracuda 7200.11 firmware and occasional problems with other drives.

 

On the other hand, there are no inherent problems with the 3TB factor that I can see. For RAID, it is always best to wait for controller manufacturers to certify any given drive but other than that, I don't see any major concerns.

[ssnapier 0]

Hitachi has a 5 platter, 7200 rpm, 3tb drive that seems to be quite robust. It is approved by QNAP and I think by Drobo for use in their enterprise class NAS devices, and I like the way they have kept the density down by adding an extra platter, it just makes more sense to be than cramming things into 4 platters.

 

Here is a data sheet for the one I am looking at: http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/EC6D440C3F64DBCC8825782300026498/$file/US7K3000_ds.pdf

[dustmop 0]

For a RAID 5, I *personally* wouldn't trust a 3TB enterprise drive. In RAID 6 or 10, I would have to see a real-world application that has successfully rebuilt after a drive failure to be satisfied with it. Possibly a few rebuilds over several boxes, just for that "warm and fuzzy".

 

I use 500gb, 1tb, and 2tb drives in my RAID 6 arrays (depends on when the boxes were purchased). So far, I have never had a second drive drop out during a rebuild. And rebuilds do happen quite a bit; most of my 1TB drives are Seagate ES.2 from the batch with the bad firmware. In fact, 2 dropped last night due to SMART errors.

[ssnapier 0]

Well that brings up another interesting question. What value do you place on the compatibility lists from a manufacturer? I have never considered how much reliability testing they do before that put a device on those lists... hmmm.

[dustmop 0]

If I am building a raid array myself, and not purchasing a pre-built box, I do check the compatibility lists, but I am looking for drives known to NOT work. I will only use enterprise grade drives (e.g. WD RE/RE4, Seagate ES/ES.2), just for their proven reliability/warranty.

 

Cheap/no-name RAID controllers are also a VERY bad idea. LSI (owns 3ware) and Areca are what I use both professionally and personally, and get my vote. Never used an Adaptec RAID controller, but do use their various SCSI and Fiber Channel cards. Highpoint is questionable.

[ssnapier 0]

Ok, I will be using the TS-EC1279U-RP from QNAP. I have used their gear in several installs and they have proven quite reliable. This particular device is an enterprise class NAS device and the hard drive I am looking is on their compatibility list.

[ssnapier 0]

Wow... these floods in Thailand are really screwing with hard drive prices! I can only order 15 at a time, and the price is changing DAILY! The issue is that I need 86 of them!