Western Digtial WD1600YS, good drives?

[Frodo]

I've been looking at getting two Western Digital WD1600YS drives for a RAID
0.
The WD1600YS is 160GB, 16MBs cache, 5 year warranty and .2ms faster access
time then other 7200RPM WD drives.
It's about $131 for the two drives, mail order from Newegg.
Which is $10 cheaper then a new WD 74GB Raptor, which is what I was first
looking at for a new boot drive.
Anyone have a experience with the WD1600YS drives?

 

[Rod Speed]

I've been looking at getting two Western Digital WD1600YS drives for a RAID 0.
The WD1600YS is 160GB, 16MBs cache, 5 year warranty and .2ms faster
access time then other 7200RPM WD drives.
It's about $131 for the two drives, mail order from Newegg.
Which is $10 cheaper then a new WD 74GB Raptor, which is what I was
first looking at for a new boot drive.
Anyone have a experience with the WD1600YS drives?

I wouldnt touch a drive where the manufacturer
has to have a special version for RAID.

 

[Frodo]

I guess you would rather have me get Samsung?
Which model?

 

[Jesco Lincke]

I wouldnt touch a drive where the manufacturer
has to have a special version for RAID.

If you check the details you'll find that they don't NEED a special
version for RAID capability, but have merely optimized this drive for
RAID use ("RAID-specific time limited error recovery ").

Whether this is a reason to avoid this manufacturer ist beyond my
knowledge...

 

[Arno Wagner]

If you check the details you'll find that they don't NEED a special
version for RAID capability, but have merely optimized this drive for
RAID use ("RAID-specific time limited error recovery ").

Basically a marketing lie. Their problem was the their standard
drives did produce too many errors to run reliably in a RAID.

Whether this is a reason to avoid this manufacturer ist beyond my
knowledge...

It is. They have some problem with their drives they do not admit.

Arno

 

[Rod Speed]

I guess you would rather have me get Samsung?

I dont care what you get, I just prefer Samsungs myself unless
I need the latest bleeding edge in capacity, Samsungs tend to
be a bit later than some of the others like Seagate.

Which model?

The sata drives have more future now.

 

[Rod Speed]

If you check the details you'll find that they don't NEED a special
version for RAID capability, but have merely optimized this drive for RAID use ("RAID-specific
time limited error recovery ").

Wrong, the non raid versions dont work properly in raid configs.

Whether this is a reason to avoid this manufacturer ist beyond my knowledge...

So is that question of the version suitable for raid.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Woopteedoo.

It's more the other way around.

Basically a marketing lie. Their problem was the their standard
drives did produce too many errors to run reliably in a RAID.

Nonsense. It's just that under the same conditions (errors on a drive)
Raid controllers usually take over bad block control without a problem
with other than WD standard drives.
With WDs, the controllers declare the drive dead because their (the raid
controller's) time limit -in which the drive has to respond- is set too low
for WD drives.
So WD offers drives that don't invoke that particular problem, but these
don't try as hard to get your data back, which is fine if you have RAID.

It is. They have some problem with their drives they do not admit.

Babblebot, clueless as always.
There is no such problem. They optimized their standard drives to retry
longer than other drives to get to data that may otherwise be lost in case
of weak sectors. Unfortunately that makes them unsuitable for RAID use.

However, offering 2 different versions instead of one with switchable
settings has proven to be be an obvious major bad marketing decision.

 

[Frodo]

I'll be ordering the drives Monday morning.
Should only take one day for mail order.
Will post on how well the RAID 0 works.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I'll be ordering the drives Monday morning.
Should only take one day for mail order.

Will post on how well the RAID 0 works.

Technically that isn't even RAID.