Decline of the hard drive - thanks China [Archive]

kdm

01-03-2009, 02:25 PM

Well, I have yet another hard drive dying. I think that makes 5 in the past year alone. Prior to that, I had lost 1 drive in 10 years. Literally.

Reviews on even Western Digital enterprise drives on Newegg aren't promising, so I don't think it matters whether it's rated as a "consumer/desktop" drive or not. These are all SATA 3Gb/s drives btw - varying sizes from 250G to 500G. I use mostly Seagate and Western Digital drives. I've lost equal numbers of each now.

Manufacturers need to stop outsourcing to the Chinese. Everything from China is absolute crap. No quality, no reliability, no consistency - just cheap crap.

I'm about convinced there are no reliable drive manufacturers left.

I am completely convinced that China is the single biggest cause of declining reliability and quality in many industries' products now. Hard drives aren't the only product to suffer - I could list quite a few other industries as well..... :mad:

Animus

01-03-2009, 02:49 PM

I agree. I have been a big Seagate user for the past 12 years and for the past 2 years I have see the quality of their drives get progressively worse. I think I read they have moved most their manufacturing to Thailand now. Very disappointed. All my drives are mirrored at all times so I am pretty safe but still...

kdm

01-03-2009, 03:01 PM

I moved to WD after having to return two Seagate drives in a row, but I've had to return a WD, and now the drive dying is a WD. No other options left it seems.

The problem I'm running into is that I need so many drives on the main system (system, audio, samples (2 minimum), video playback, and external backup), I don't have enough ports to mirror anything. Even my external SATA chassis died a couple of months ago, and I got it for the purpose of creating a mirrored main samples drive, or at least removable backup drives. But I really need 2-3 samples drives now..... It's really getting ridiculous.

This is why I'm adding more farm PCs and dividing up the sample libraries, eventually all on mirrored raids, with backup drives, but that's about $2000-$3000 down the road....

So today, instead of working, I'm backing up this failing drive and moving to another. Great way to kill 1-2 hours....

I should just bite the bullet and order about 10 drives just for backup/replacements... maybe 4 of them will actually last more than 6 months.

Animus

01-03-2009, 03:09 PM

Here's what I do kdm. I use fxteleport. Basically I have two machines networked. Both these machines are identical in configuration: same amount of drives and size, same drive letters; same thing installed on each in terms of sample libaries and plugins. I keep both updated and the drives mirrored exactly. If one drive fails on one I simply pop in a new drive and copy from the other mirrored drive. I also keep Ghost backups of both boot drives. And then I have Retrospect doing incremental backups of my Nuendo Project folders. Then my mac is doing incremental remote ftp backups of the same Projects folder and also do occasional dvd backups. I am pretty paranoid yes. :)

kdm

01-03-2009, 03:28 PM

Paranoid? No, I think that's a wise approach. I have 5 networked PCs at the moment, so I almost need an IT assistant to manage backups.... lol.

TAFKAT

01-03-2009, 05:24 PM

Reviews on even Western Digital enterprise drives on Newegg aren't promising, so I don't think it matters whether it's rated as a "consumer/desktop" drive or not. These are all SATA 3Gb/s drives btw - varying sizes from 250G to 500G. I use mostly Seagate and Western Digital drives. I've lost equal numbers of each now.

Out of interest ..

What "Color" are the drives designated, Green, Blue or Black ?

There are 3 different models, Green for Power Efficiency - no go for audio as they alter spindle speeds, Blue was the old Standard Drive, Black are new and have the Larger Cache .

I am also concerned with the HD failures, but toucjiong wood I haven't had the run you are having. I moved off Seagate a while back, very inconsistent in regards to noise levels and vibration , and I have been hearing of a spate of returns recently from some sources here . WD have been way better up until now, lets hope its not a trend.

LEX

01-03-2009, 05:27 PM

I am only WD, and have only had 1 drive fail out of about 200.

My assistant didn't format it with zero's first to see if there were an bad sectors and after it was finished backing up, it wouldn't mount anymore.

LEX

kdm

01-03-2009, 05:59 PM

Most of mine are OEMs/non- retail I get from Newegg (bare drive only, no kit). I think the WD was a black. Seems most of the failed drives lately have in fact been Seagates. I just checked this one and it was a refurb. Not really sure how I got a refurb when I've never ordered anything but new drives... may have been a warranty return that I forgot about. Might explain it. Refurb anything in the hard drive, motherboard, etc realm is tempting fate imho.

My new system from Sonica has WD Caviar Black 640G drives in it. Iirc, the 640s have better reviews on Newegg than 500s. Maybe there is a general design issue with 500s and how the platters are setup. Then again, it could just be that Seagate now sucks.

Lex - do you always low level format new drives? I used to, but stopped recently due to time involved with larger drives and just do a quick format (I need an assistant for this stuff soon).

TAFKAT

01-03-2009, 06:09 PM

My new system from Sonica has WD Caviar Black 640G drives in it. Iirc, the 640s have better reviews on Newegg than 500s. Maybe there is a general design issue with 500s and how the platters are setup.

I think the new 500's are different to the earlier to be honest.

I have had a great run with the 500 GB WD's.

The 500's have only recently moved to the Blue branding here locally, and I have only ever had one of the old 500's fail, but not in a system , but in a Medigate Medi Player, which was probably due to the crap USB controller on it than anything else.

I am moving all new systems to the Black 640's as well..

So what were the WD 500's with the bad reviews at New Egg ?

Re getting a refurb, say what ?

TerryG

01-03-2009, 06:30 PM

My old trusty Asus P2B-DS from 1998 has been running 8 72GB SCSI LVD drives for a decade now... 5,000,000 hour lifespan... 40 years to go.
The only drag is that they sound like a jet on takeoff... ;)

I've been non-scsi for the first time ever during past couple of months in my new box, running WD Sata 3's... wow... now I know what quiet sounds like.

Don't worry guys, we'll all move to Solid State with no moving parts when it's reasonably affordable in the next couple of years.
No seek time... instant GO. You just might be thanking China for how fast it becomes a reality.

It's a double-edged sword...
Our greed-driven corporations have gone multinational and created the conditions that exist in todays world. The US is no longer an industrial nation, we have become a peasant level service economy where 90% of the population can only afford to go into debt buying foreign goods built with even cheaper labor.
Middlemen with no inherant technical skills (Banking, Sales, Real Estate and Insurance industries) are the leeches who bridge the very rich to everyone else.
Executives draw $20,000,000 annual salaries/bonuses to play golf twice a week while they bitch about paying US factory workers $50,000 a year... so, they take advantage of other governments whose top politicians and executives make themselves rich while providing no human rights and paying their workers $0.40 a day. The US executive could draw $500,000 a year and employ another 390 journeyman here if he cared for preserving anything besides his off-shore tax exempt bank account in The Caymans.
But, I digress...

kdm

01-03-2009, 07:25 PM

So what were the WD 500's with the bad reviews at New Egg ?

Not sure. I looked through a lot of reviews - the NewEgg reviews may have been the 320Gs - not overly bad, just 1/5 reporting a dead drive on arrival or quick death. When I went looking specifically at the enterprise category on other sites, I found similar reports - 1/5 or so reporting dead drives or quick failures. Of course, those are user reviews and subject to most successes never being reported.

I'll probably stick to Caviar black 640s for now.

Re getting a refurb, say what ?

Looking at my drives in that system as I was trying to figure out which was which (samples, audio, etc), the dying Seagate had a sticker on it saying it was "repaired". It had to be one I sent back dead (under warranty) a year ago or so.

Terry - I can't begin to tell you how much I agree with your assessment of corporate America, but I would be adding to the digression creating a hyper-inflated digression ;-)

TerryG

01-03-2009, 08:02 PM

Mind you, this is secondhand... so pardon the pun. ;)
I've heard that New Egg sells refurb drives badged as OEM's specifically for their reduced warranty liability of 90 day survival.

Softy

01-03-2009, 09:26 PM

Terry - I can't begin to tell you how much I agree with your assessment of corporate America, but I would be adding to the digression creating a hyper-inflated digression ;-)

It's a good thing that there are a few of us Gung Ho free market types here (wait - are there any others besides me?) to try to balance you pinkos eh? The funny thing is, I'll bet every one of you anti-corporate America types has a 401K or other paper investment portfolio with which you fund the very bastards you rant on about.

[Oops, I see them coming to drag this to the Thunderdome]

TAFKAT

01-03-2009, 09:38 PM

Mind you, this is secondhand... so pardon the pun. ;)
I've heard that New Egg sells refurb drives badged as OEM's specifically for their reduced warranty liability of 90 day survival.

OEM HD's are sold with 90 warranties in the US ?

I purchase nothing but OEM HD's, and the warranty is the full 3/5 years.

If I received a refurbished HD on a new purchase, I would thriow it back at them at head height, and with great force... ;-)

TAFKAT

01-03-2009, 09:41 PM

kdm

01-03-2009, 09:58 PM

It's a good thing that there are a few of us Gung Ho free market types here (wait - are there any others besides me?) to try to balance you pinkos eh? The funny thing is, I'll bet every one of you anti-corporate America types has a 401K or other paper investment portfolio with which you fund the very bastards you rant on about.

[Oops, I see them coming to drag this to the Thunderdome]

Good grief. First, calling people names is against forum rules, so ease up there softy. "Pinkos"? Really? Are you asking to be the first banning from this forum, despite our aversion to doing so?

I'm all for free market economics, but apparently unlike you, am opposed to short term profit goals that sacrifice quality, integrity, and the trust of the customer.

I run my business with a high standard of quality, ethics and integrity and expect the same of other businesses, whether they are single owner vendors or international corporations. That's simply smart business.

Failing hard drives are costing me money. Seagate's quality was excellent before they moved most of their manufacturing overseas. Now it sucks. You do the math. It's that simple.

kdm

01-03-2009, 10:02 PM

OEM HD's are sold with 90 warranties in the US ?

I purchase nothing but OEM HD's, and the warranty is the full 3/5 years.

If I received a refurbished HD on a new purchase, I would thriow it back at them at head height, and with great force... ;-)

All of the OEM drives I've bought from Newegg have full manufacturer warranties. Newegg has a 30 day return policy on them as well.

Jonesy

01-03-2009, 11:38 PM

Out of interest ..

What "Color" are the drives designated, Green, Blue or Black ?

There are 3 different models, Green for Power Efficiency - no go for audio as they alter spindle speeds, Blue was the old Standard Drive, Black are new and have the Larger Cache .

I am also concerned with the HD failures, but toucjiong wood I haven't had the run you are having. I moved off Seagate a while back, very inconsistent in regards to noise levels and vibration , and I have been hearing of a spate of returns recently from some sources here . WD have been way better up until now, lets hope its not a trend.

Vin, where do you look to find the colour designation on a drive?

LEX

01-04-2009, 12:25 AM

Interesting:

http://www.deadharddrive.com/

LEX

Jonesy

01-04-2009, 01:02 AM

I am completely convinced that China is the single biggest cause of declining reliability and quality in many industries' products now. Hard drives aren't the only product to suffer - I could list quite a few other industries as well..... :mad:

I agree completely. The combination of Chinese manufacturing and lead-free solder has put reliability of electronics and high-tolerance mechanicals onto a downward curve. I hope that China follows the path that Japan did and takes QC and innovation forward in the future.

TAFKAT

01-04-2009, 01:05 AM

Vin, where do you look to find the colour designation on a drive?

Hey Steve,

Its only on the newest WD stocks here in Oz , and its pretty obvious, as the labels are colored either Green , Blue or Black.

TerryG

01-04-2009, 01:19 AM

TerryG

01-04-2009, 01:25 AM

kdm

01-04-2009, 01:49 AM

As for my secondhand OEM comment (that came from a warehouse employee), I wouldn't assume it applies to every drive they sell labelled as an OEM. Put it this way, like many things with great prices bought online, sometimes "refurbished" is missing from the item description.

Probably wise to take the possibility into consideration regardless of the warranties and guarantees the retailers make. OEMs have to come from somewhere, and refurbs are a common source for other product lines.

I just assumed Newegg's OEM/barebones drives were from large quantity wholesale orders where retail units just get a box - not wise of me to assume though.

TerryG

01-04-2009, 02:49 AM

You never know when a box can get shuffled in a warehouse...

In any case, there's nothing saying a refurb won't last 10 years.
Another optomistic consideration: when an OEM from China fails, I doubt it's shipped back... it's most likely remanufactured here in the US.

... at least that's the case for big screen TV's... :rolleyes:

Softy

01-04-2009, 10:21 AM

Good grief. First, calling people names is against forum rules, so ease up there softy. "Pinkos"? Really? Are you asking to be the first banning from this forum, despite our aversion to doing so?

I'm all for free market economics, but apparently unlike you, am opposed to short term profit goals that sacrifice quality, integrity, and the trust of the customer.

I run my business with a high standard of quality, ethics and integrity and expect the same of other businesses, whether they are single owner vendors or international corporations. That's simply smart business.

Failing hard drives are costing me money. Seagate's quality was excellent before they moved most of their manufacturing overseas. Now it sucks. You do the math. It's that simple.

Oh come on, that was intended to be funny. I was addressing the "I hate Capitalism" stuff, not anything to do with bad hard drives hurting business. I'm sure you run your business with high standards. I have the utmost respect for you. I just can't let a stupid "I hate Capitalism" comment slip by here without comment.

As for banning me, go ahead. I'd enjoy being the first one banned here. But I must warn you. If you do, I'll come back as multiple personalities (what was it that Obi-Wan Kenobi said to Darth Vader just before being killed by him?).

Softy

01-04-2009, 10:28 AM

This is going to be good , Give me a mo.... http://img.fropper.com/zones-images/smileys/eating_popcorn.gif

O.K, I'm good, carry on... :-)

It could have been eh? Some people here have no sense of humor.

How can someone post something like "I hate Capitalism by the way" or quote that (agreeing with it), and then not expect someone to chime in on it?

kdm

01-04-2009, 01:49 PM

Oh come on, that was intended to be funny. I was addressing the "I hate Capitalism" stuff, not anything to do with bad hard drives hurting business. I'm sure you run your business with high standards. I have the utmost respect for you. I just can't let a stupid "I hate Capitalism" comment slip by here without comment.

As for banning me, go ahead. I'd enjoy being the first one banned here. But I must warn you. If you do, I'll come back as multiple personalities (what was it that Obi-Wan Kenobi said to Darth Vader just before being killed by him?).

Softy, if your comment was humorous, it would help to at least add a smilicon to make that apparent - it wasn't.

I only asked if you were trying to get banned. We have no intention of banning anyone unless personal verbal abuse or threats require that we do so.

No one said "I hate capitalism". You extrapolated that from comments we made about greed in corporate business practices that lead companies to outsource cheap labor and create unreliable products.

I would strongly suggest reading posts for what they are, and asking questions if you don't have a clear picture of the poster's intent or reasoning, rather than jumping to far flung, and completely wrong conclusions.

And for what it's worth, Terry hit on some of the key factors/problems that are in fact *destroying* what makes capitalism and free market economy work for the benefit of consumers and innovation, not just the corporate bottom line.

The decline of hard drives from a company that once held a high degree of quality and customer respect, is one example of this.

Who really benefits from declining quality?

kdm

01-04-2009, 01:57 PM

I should also add, you are perfectly free to disagree as much as you like, and express your opinions. Just be a bit slower on the draw.

More often than not, we all may have common ground, even if our perspectives or means of expressing them may differ.

TAFKAT

01-04-2009, 05:50 PM

As for banning me, go ahead. I'd enjoy being the first one banned here. But I must warn you. If you do, I'll come back as multiple personalities (what was it that Obi-Wan Kenobi said to Darth Vader just before being killed by him?).

Good grief,

What in farks name is your problem Mate ?? !!

You have already reached the point of threatening the administrators of this forum.. ?? What would coming back as multiple personalities achieve exactly ?

I think you may have missed the spirit that this forum space has been created in, maybe it would be better to head back to Fredo.com and hang out with more like minded.. !

Re the whole pinko slur, right, I just laughed my head off.., I just thought to myself - "typical head up his own arse American who thinks that the good ole USA version of social structure is a role model for the rest of the World , and anyone who dares pose a differing view is a commie.. " Priceless.

Now what were we talking about again, oh yeh hard drives..

kdm

01-04-2009, 08:55 PM

"typical head up his own arse American "

Heh. I don't think that mentality is typically American, or typical of even most Americans, but it certainly is far more prevalent than it should be. There isn't anything wrong with our basis for economy and society - it's the execution that sucks in too many cases.

Now if only China and Thailand would see that quality does matter and just making a quick buck isn't building a strong economic foundation. US corporations (or German, British, Australian, Canadian, etc) farming out production is only half the problem after all... there are manufacturing facilities with poor quality control and cheap parts suppliers on the other end.

TerryG

01-04-2009, 09:39 PM

TAFKAT

01-04-2009, 09:48 PM

Heh. I don't think that mentality is typically American, or typical of even most Americans, but it certainly is far more prevalent than it should be.

Shite did I say that out loud.. Dohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

You know me well enough to know I didn't mean it as a catch all statement, just a brain fart in the heat of the moment. I have some American friends that I hold in the highest esteem, and have the utmost respect for , you being one of them... :-)

Now if only China and Thailand would see that quality does matter and just making a quick buck isn't building a strong economic foundation. US corporations (or German, British, Australian, Canadian, etc) farming out production is only half the problem after all... there are manufacturing facilities with poor quality control and cheap parts suppliers on the other end.

If the recent escalation is due to the relaxing of the quality control , it is disturbing, especially in regards to storage mediums such as Hard Drives.

I don't think anyone of us want to relive the IBM Deathstar saga again... :-(

I can't see the manufacturing being moved elsewhere in the short to medium term if at all, so the Chinese arms of the corporates need to get their shite sorted and fast.

One well know motherboard manufacturer is suffering from the same QC issues atm, with their failure rate reaching plague proportions since shifting the main production to mainland china..

Animus

01-04-2009, 09:48 PM

You guys know Oz was a penile colony right?

TerryG

01-04-2009, 09:52 PM

You guys know Oz was a penile colony right?

Yep... Britains best and brightest. ;)

back to the topic...
I'm surprised not a single one of you guys has commented on Solid State drive technology.
It will end your concerns.

TAFKAT

01-04-2009, 09:57 PM

Ya Vin... better watch out tossing all those damned Yankee cliché's around.
Those sterotypes of right-wing bigots are a parody to the average American.

Now, go throw some shrimp on the barbie and call up some sheilas. ;)

Ya right Bro , me bad... :-(

BTW: You forgot to ask me to get ya a can of piss as well...., and of course the obligitaory "Mate" at the end , to finish the sentence.. get it right. LOL

TerryG

01-04-2009, 10:02 PM

Ya right Bro , me bad... :-(

BTW: You forgot to ask me to get ya a can of piss as well...., and of course the obligitaory "Mate" at the end , to finish the sentence.. get it right. LOL

It's the farking c*nt you blokes toss into every sentence that throws me, mate!

I get emails from a guy down there that I can't even read!

UntamedSpirit

01-04-2009, 10:30 PM

You guys know Oz was a penile colony right?

maybe that's why there are so many Dickheads there ;)

or did you mean penal colony?

TAFKAT

01-04-2009, 10:30 PM

ROTFLMFAO..

That brings back memories of when I was living in L.A in 1989, and the first time we dropped the c word in front of some of our Californian friends..

The look of horror is something I will never forget, while we Aussies just rolled around on the floor. I remeber trying to explain to the stunned mass, relax dude , some of my best friends are Caahnts...

Man, I was almost dude'd to death that year... , but I digress..

maybe that's why there are so many Dickheads there ;)

or did you mean penal colony?

Oh Man, I missed that one.. ROTFLMFAO.. !!

kdm

01-04-2009, 10:35 PM

Shite did I say that out loud.. Dohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

You know me well enough to know I didn't mean it as a catch all statement, just a brain fart in the heat of the moment. I have some American friends that I hold in the highest esteem, and have the utmost respect for , you being one of them... :-)

Absolutely, and of course you know I never would have called you on it otherwise. :-)

I think one significant benefit of the increase, and ease of international communication is that we see just how much alike we all are, and learn from the differences. Well, we don't have an accent when we speak like you Aussies do. ;-)) lol (plenty of irony there of course)

If the recent escalation is due to the relaxing of the quality control , it is disturbing, especially in regards to storage mediums such as Hard Drives.

It gets worse, at least here as that isn't the only affected industry. Clothing is a crap shoot now. I can buy two pairs, same size of the same style of blue jeans, and one may be too small and one too large. Even within the same brand, sizes can and often do vary widely. That never used to be the case when most of our clothing was made here. My home state of North Carolina was one of the main textile/clothing producing states in the US, but those factories closed up long ago - almost nothing left in that industry there - many towns nearly shut down as a result.

I guess we don't even need to mention Behringer, or Chinese mics.....

kdm

01-04-2009, 10:38 PM

Btw - in North Carolina, "shag" is a dance, with a verb tense as well.... not quite the same thing in the UK. ;-))

Animus

01-04-2009, 10:51 PM

maybe that's why there are so many Dickheads there ;)

or did you mean penal colony?

oh shoot! Freudian slip of course! :D

Animus

01-04-2009, 10:52 PM

Btw - in North Carolina, "shag" is a dance, with a verb tense as well.... not quite the same thing in the UK. ;-))

yeeehaaa! Yeah, shagging. Pig pickings. NASCAR. College basketball. wohooo! yip yip!

kdm

01-04-2009, 11:01 PM

yeeehaaa! Yeah, shagging. Pig pickings. NASCAR. College basketball. wohooo! yip yip!

Mmmm - pig pickings. I miss those. Did have some good Lexington barbecue while back over the holidays. NASCAR... not so much for me. ;-) College basketball... yep, but it depends on which college. NC State is the only real university there..... ;-))

Animus

01-04-2009, 11:05 PM

NC State is the only real university there..... ;-))

Them fighting words around these parts son!
:eek:

kdm

01-05-2009, 12:16 AM

Duke or UNC? ;-)

Animus

01-05-2009, 12:19 AM

I live in Dukeville but honestly I couldn't care less about sports--college or pro. :eek:

dcwave

01-05-2009, 12:45 AM

It gets worse, at least here as that isn't the only affected industry. Clothing is a crap shoot now. I can buy two pairs, same size of the same style of blue jeans, and one may be too small and one too large.

Speaking of clothes... since its been about 10F degrees here (-12c) I went to buy new gloves. I am an XL hand. After searching through about 50 pair of gloves I found an XL - damn it all, both said XL but only one fit my hand! Went to another store - all the XL gloves where really just L. I guess if I want a pair of leather gloves that fit I'm gonna need to stick my hand up a cows ass and cut around my fingers! :eek: :D

resonator

01-05-2009, 10:24 PM

Executives draw $20,000,000 annual salaries/bonuses to play golf twice a week while they bitch about paying US factory workers $50,000 a year... so, they take advantage of other governments whose top politicians and executives make themselves rich while providing no human rights and paying their workers $0.40 a day. The US executive could draw $500,000 a year and employ another 390 journeyman here if he cared for preserving anything besides his off-shore tax exempt bank account in The Caymans.
But, I digress...

Unfortunatly you're spot on.

But anyway, to get back on topic, while solid state drives aren't quite an option yet I can only advice anybody to pick up a Drobo (www.drobo.com) or anything similar. With drives as cheap as they are now it's almost careless not to use a RAID system. Use a Raid 0+1 for production work, backup to a Drobo and you're good to go, no more lost data (if you're not stupid and delete stuff you still would have needed that is).

John Lance

01-06-2009, 07:13 PM

My old trusty Asus P2B-DS from 1998 has been running 8 72GB SCSI LVD drives for a decade now... 5,000,000 hour lifespan... 40 years to go.
The only drag is that they sound like a jet on takeoff... ;)

In 1981 I remember hard drives that weighed 80 lbs, fit in a 19 inch rack, sounded like a jet taking off, and dimmed the lights in the room while doing it. All for 74 Megabytes. When the heads did significant seeks you would hear quite clear knocking sounds.

John Lance

01-06-2009, 07:19 PM

Heh. I don't think that mentality is typically American, or typical of even most Americans, but it certainly is far more prevalent than it should be. There isn't anything wrong with our basis for economy and society - it's the execution that sucks in too many cases.

It is called greed. It is one thing that makes capitalism fail. Some folks think greed is written into the "law" of capitalism. I think not. It is a choice too many make and teach.

Concerning China: it seems to be about cheaper and mostly functioning for a time. It sure isn't about building something better and more inexpensive at the same time. That is something a lot of the USA and other places used to be about, although a lot less so now. Better while being less expensive.

John Lance

01-06-2009, 07:26 PM

You guys know Oz was a penile colony right?

LMAO. You sure you meant freudian slip there too?

John Lance

01-06-2009, 07:43 PM

With drives as cheap as they are now it's almost careless not to use a RAID system. Use a Raid 0+1 for production work, backup to a Drobo and you're good to go, no more lost data (if you're not stupid and delete stuff you still would have needed that is).

A problem I see here is that you have the same technology and implementation, but with a SCSI interface slapped onto it. The case, platters, heads, drive motor, and servo can remain the same.

My bad. Brain pharrrrrrt. I still think SCSI when I see RAID.

Yeah, we need backups, but if the backup drive quality has slipped precipitously as well, there are overall issues to the entire concept of what we're using for data storage and retrieval.

I don't really see the point of any but a full RAID 5 or higher here with redundancy to the point of where if one drive fails, it can be rebuilt from the others when a new one is put back in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks

01-08-2009, 08:18 AM

You guys know Oz was a penile colony right?

There are penises everywhere! I think you meant to say "Penal". :D

01-08-2009, 08:22 AM

Absolutely, and of course you know I never would have called you on it otherwise. :-)

I think one significant benefit of the increase, and ease of international communication is that we see just how much alike we all are, and learn from the differences. Well, we don't have an accent when we speak like you Aussies do. ;-)) lol (plenty of irony there of course)

It gets worse, at least here as that isn't the only affected industry. Clothing is a crap shoot now. I can buy two pairs, same size of the same style of blue jeans, and one may be too small and one too large. Even within the same brand, sizes can and often do vary widely. That never used to be the case when most of our clothing was made here. My home state of North Carolina was one of the main textile/clothing producing states in the US, but those factories closed up long ago - almost nothing left in that industry there - many towns nearly shut down as a result.

I guess we don't even need to mention Behringer, or Chinese mics.....

I actually own a Chinese mic you'd be happy to have in your arsenal: The Nady RSM-2, modded.

TAFKAT

01-08-2009, 10:31 AM

Getting back to the subject of Hard Drives..

Had a chat to one of my suppliers to get a heads up on the current spate of HD failures, and they reported back that Samsung and Seagates are dropping like flies at the moment, while failure of Western Digital are basically unheard of.

That eased my mind that I have been using WD exclusively for quite a while.. :-)