Server harddisk

[Christian Christmann]

Hi,

in the next days I want to install a Linux server.
This server should run 24/7. One question about
harddisks:
Somebody told me that S-ATA HD are not suitable
for a server because they are not supposed to
be run 24h every day. Instead this person
recommended me to use SCSI HDs which are more
reliable in this case. Is this true?
Or shouldn't I worry about using S-ATA harddisks
for my server?

Thank you for your answer.

Chris

 

[JT]

Hi,

in the next days I want to install a Linux server.
This server should run 24/7. One question about
harddisks:
Somebody told me that S-ATA HD are not suitable
for a server because they are not supposed to
be run 24h every day. Instead this person
recommended me to use SCSI HDs which are more
reliable in this case. Is this true?
Or shouldn't I worry about using S-ATA harddisks
for my server?

Thank you for your answer.

Chris

It depends on the individual disk drives. There are some that are only
speced for consumer/8hr a day use. Most faster, high end SATA are not
speced at only 8hrs/day. Part of the research you need to do when building
a server. There is nothing in the IDE/ATA/SATA standards that state the
usage of a drive. That is up to the individual manufacturers do decide.
Most have SATA drives that are being targeted at servers.

To put it in perspective, most major suppliers of servers are now offering
SATA drives in their budget servers, which are speced at 24/7/365
operation. I have some servers out using the WD Raptors, the current speed
champs of SATA. They are fast, run 24/7, and were less expensive than a
similarly performing SCSI based system.

Sounds like your friend read one review on one drive that had the consumer
spec and tried to generalize that to all SATA drives. Again, look at the
actual drive specs. Not all drives are created or speced equally.

JT

 

[kony]

Hi,

in the next days I want to install a Linux server.
This server should run 24/7. One question about
harddisks:
Somebody told me that S-ATA HD are not suitable
for a server because they are not supposed to
be run 24h every day. Instead this person
recommended me to use SCSI HDs which are more
reliable in this case. Is this true?
Or shouldn't I worry about using S-ATA harddisks
for my server?

Thank you for your answer.

Chris

It would be nice to assume that the great increase in price of SCSI drives
corresponds to a longer life or duty cycle but so far I've seen no
exidence that even the bearings in SCSI drives are any different to the
extent that they would hold up better. There's been unfounded speculation
but never any evidence of it... if someone has real evidence of mechanical
differences that would yield a longer lifespan I encourage them to produce
these details. Otherwise we have to also consider that manufacturers may
be making assumptions about different usage patterns, such as the tendency
of server drives to stay spinning, not be set to spin-down at short
intervals as a "PC's" drives potentially are. The most notable example of
a drive spec'd to only run for 8 hrs/day is that of an IBM Deskstar that
had an excessively high failure rate to begin with... would seem to be
IBM's damage control PR rather than a spec that applies to _all_ PATA or
SATA drives.

Without any evidence that SCSI drives will last longer, we can only focus
on the typical issues, having ample clean power and cooling of the drives.
Further if the drives hold valuable data, you should consider a regular
replacement interval such that when replaced, they still work, else
running in a RAID 1 or other fault-tolerant array... this is assuming you
need continual uptime, that there is significant loss to having system
down for upwards of an hour or longer till a backup is restored to a new
drive.

 

[Bubba]

Christian Christmann's log on stardate 29 tra 2004

in the next days I want to install a Linux server. This server should
run 24/7. One question about harddisks: Somebody told me that S-ATA
HD are not suitable for a server because they are not supposed to
be run 24h every day.

Among other stupidities, such as unshielded cabels and SATA
specifications mess in general, it is not designed to 24/7 work.

Instead this person recommended me to use SCSI HDs which are more
reliable in this case. Is this true?
Exactly.

Or shouldn't I worry about using S-ATA harddisks for my server?

_Don't_ use SATA disks. Especialy not for servers.

 

[Trent©]

Hi,

in the next days I want to install a Linux server.
This server should run 24/7. One question about
harddisks:
Somebody told me that S-ATA HD are not suitable
for a server because they are not supposed to
be run 24h every day. Instead this person
recommended me to use SCSI HDs which are more
reliable in this case. Is this true?

Probably. But that's not the biggest issue. SCSI drives handle data
differently. You should go with a SCSI drive.

Plus...their rotational speed is faster than any current
SATA...including the Raptor.

But their real power is how they accept and process data.

Or shouldn't I worry about using S-ATA harddisks
for my server?

It depends on how many nodes you'll be running from it...and how you
want it to perform.

SCSI is true server architecture. But you may not need this kind of
performance for what you want to do.

Good luck.


Have a nice week...

Trent©

Certified breast self-exam subcontractor.

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

Hi,

in the next days I want to install a Linux server.
This server should run 24/7. One question about
harddisks:
Somebody told me that S-ATA HD are not suitable
for a server because they are not supposed to
be run 24h every day. Instead this person
recommended me to use SCSI HDs which are more
reliable in this case. Is this true?
Or shouldn't I worry about using S-ATA harddisks
for my server?

Thank you for your answer.

Chris

If you are worried about reliablity then you should be using RAID. A 3Ware
controller with SATA drives will give you your biggest bang for the buck.
The 3Ware controller does hardware RAID, it also emulates the SCSI
protocol giving you the other advantage of SCSI which is the ability to
handle multiple transactions at once.