Are non fsynced writes hard on drives?<br>The reason I ask is I killed at least 3 drives Torrenting back in the day... At the time the program didn't cache or perform synchronous writes.<br>1 block download = 1 block written... you could literally watch each progression and hear another 'click' of writing...<br>
When I stopped torrenting my drive failures stopped...<br>I think it must be hard on the head.. moving back and forth.<br><br>Also as a side note, when a drive was nearing the end of its operating lifetime or we could hear bearing or excessive head sound... we would load up Eurosoft - it has a great test for head speed... it simply causes the HDD head to move back and forthe... and tells you the average time taken per head sweep... Running this for an hour or two on an already failing drive and absolute failure is just about guaranteed... <br>
<br>Just for fun I have an 8gb Western Digital still in a 400mhz PII running in the corner... I don't really do anything with it, other than test old opengl code on the box occasionally.<br>Its loud, and slow - but still going strong! (12 years old) ... yeah I was 13 when I got the drive... it was hot stuff.<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 5:24 PM, Bob Kline <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bob.kline@gmail.com">bob.kline@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
One problem is that as an individual<div>it's hard to get a sense of the quality</div><div>of a drive unless you read about it.</div><div>For one single drive, if it fails you just</div><div>conclude you were unlucky.</div>
<div><br></div><div>But I remember years ago getting in</div><div>a box of drives at work. Maybe 20.</div><div>And was astounded at how fast they</div><div>died. Maybe half after one year.</div><div><br></div><div>In general, it's hard to get a look at</div>
<div>the bigger picture. Of 10,000 drives,</div><div>what fraction dies after the first year?</div><div>The place selling them probably has</div><div>a good idea, but I suspect that data</div><div>is held close to the vest. No reason</div>
<div>to give the consumer a tip off that the</div><div>particular model of drive is junk - they'll</div><div>want their money back. On a one-by-one</div><div>basis you can play games.</div><div><br></div><div>Fortunately, drives are cheap today,</div>
<div>and the quality does seem to be</div><div>increasing on the whole. </div><div><br></div><font color="#888888"><div> -- Bob</div></font><div><div></div><div class="h5"><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 4:27 PM, Ben DeMott <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ben.demott@gmail.com" target="_blank">ben.demott@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">When I worked in the bowels of a corporate office and did IT work...<br>It was just about guaranteed that the hard drives in the Dell Mini-Towers would fail every 1.5 - 2 years consistently.<br>
I would say about 50% of them did.<br>
<br>Not one replaced drive - (retail purchased) off the shelf ever failed in my time...(except for server 15k rpm drives) -> they failed fairly regularly.<br><br>When I was a young lad, I worked for Geek Squad for awhile... and I noticed that If you inspect OEM drives vs Retail drives you will find that they actually have different Manufacturer origins for most of the HDD Suppliers.<br>
We had to dispose of bad customer drives or give them back... so I've physically taken apart probably 200 drives... The size or fitness of the parts doesn't appear to be different on similar models of similar sizes but they were usually manufactured in a different plant... In fact with Western Digital this is how you determine warranty fitness. The serial number (used to) inform you of the Plant the drive was manufactured in. If the serial number had an 03, 04, 05 in it.. it meant it was OEM -> In the key to the serial number these same digits referenced "MFG Origin" <br>
I'm convinced the drives made for OEM Computer manufacturers are somehow more cheaply built as a whole than drives that come off the retail shelf for consumers.<br><br>Just my conspiratorial thoughts on the topic...<div>
<div></div><div><br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 4:03 PM, John J. Foerch <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jjfoerch@earthlink.net" target="_blank">jjfoerch@earthlink.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>On Tue, Mar 02, 2010 at 03:43:52PM -0500, Bob Kline wrote:<br>
> What's your favorite drive manufacturer?<br>
><br>
> These things float around. Right now I<br>
> prefer WD.<br>
><br>
> -- Bob<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>WD all the way.<br>
<br>
--<br>
<font color="#888888">John Foerch<br>
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