Discussion Forums > Technology
WD HDD Industry Will Be Supply Constrained Due to Thailand Flooding
CharredChar:
For data across multiple platters, yes it would work just like SSDs that have multiple chip boards.
--- Quote from: Freedom Kira on November 23, 2011, 08:57:36 AM ---Well, the point was more for the storage space, not really the reliability. Obviously, the savvy would keep their critical data off of drives like those. It'd probably be good for keeping a cheap backup for non-critical data.
--- End quote ---
I would never and dont know anyone else either that would buy a drive that large if it didnt have a higher reliability of 3.5" drives equaling the same space. And if youre buying a bunch of 3.5" drives or even another 5.25" drive just for backup of a unreliable drive, whats the point? Id rather spend the money on the more reliable ones in the first place.
Of course, if you can keep the reliability the same or better and lower the price? Im all for that, but that is a Really hard thing to do. Id think the reason the industry stuck with the 3.5" drives is because its a good mix between reliability, memory size, and price.
Honestly, why wouldnt they keep making 5.25" just for data servers then if it didnt run a higher risk of issues? Im sure it would be cheaper for a admin to run half as many physical drives for the same space. Moreso when...
Pentium100:
RAID controllers are expensive because they need to calculate checksums very fast or the controller itself becomes the bottleneck. Same thing would happen if you move the controller to the drive itself. It would still need to calculate the checksums. Yes, the controller on the drive could be a bit slower but then the read/write circuitry would have to be multiplied so all the platters could be written at once (since if you only wrote with one head at a time, it would be slower than a regular drive writing sequentially, also, regular drive does not need to write checksums). You also need another platter, so even if the electronics were free, a 2TB RAID drive would cost as much as a 3TB drive because of the additional platter.
All that to save the data in case of a very unlikely event - a platter or a head fails, but the rest of the drive works normally. It would be better to just use more error correction so a bad sector can be recovered.
--- Quote from: CharredChar on November 24, 2011, 05:48:02 AM ---Im all for that, but that is a Really hard thing to do. Id think the reason the industry stuck with the 3.5" drives is because its a good mix between reliability, memory size, and price.
--- End quote ---
Because 5.25" drives are slow when random access is needed. 3.5" drives are faster, that's why they are the industry standard. However, when SSDs become cheaper and take over the "fast drive" function, then, I think, 5.25" drives will come back as the "slow, but big and cheap" drives.
As for reliability - I do not know what the statistics are, but my drive is probably 20 years old and is still working perfectly (zero grown defects).
CharredChar:
--- Quote from: Pentium100 on November 24, 2011, 06:23:46 AM ---Because 5.25" drives are slow when random access is needed. 3.5" drives are faster, that's why they are the industry standard. However, when SSDs become cheaper and take over the "fast drive" function, then, I think, 5.25" drives will come back as the "slow, but big and cheap" drives.
As for reliability - I do not know what the statistics are, but my drive is probably 20 years old and is still working perfectly (zero grown defects).
--- End quote ---
Just like a DVD, the larger diameter of the disk/platter would cause slower read/write speeds at the outer edge, yes, but a 10,000rpm drive (lol Would that even be possible with such a large platter?) would limit that as being the bottleneck.
Youre already seeing slower drives being used as a "big cheap drive", almost all larger drives are 5,400RPM. They use less power, produce less heat, and I can only assume are generally more reliable than the same drive running at a higher RPM. I myself only use 10,000RPM drives or SSDs in all my PCs, even the server, for system drives. As for storage I just RAID the large 5,400RPM drives on the server.
Read that link I posted before, it would also explain why older, smaller drives have a better MTBF.
fohfoh:
I've personally had more issues with 5400rpm HDDs than 7200rpm ones.
Never used a 10000rpm one, and my SSD is chugging along ok. But too early to really say anything about reliability.
AnimeJanai:
I have that nasty feeling that 5900rpm and 5400rpm platters are the ones that failed to qualify at 7200rpm but were still good enough to work at the lower speed. No proof, but when thinking about what the chinese factories do with their 7200rpm failures and I cannot envision them throwing it away just because it has too much vibration jitter to work at 7200rpm. The chinese places have fairly unethical prosperity practices in my opinion. But ethical practices just cannot compete with the low-priced seller and I can only assume that eventually the lowest common denominator pulls the other competitors down into the muck as well.
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