Re: What is best hard drive for Linux?

[Alvin Oga <aoga@ns.Linux-Consulting.com>]

On Sat, 3 Jan 2004, Nate Duehr wrote:

> 
> On Saturday, Jan 3, 2004, at 09:06 America/Denver, Thomas H. George 
> wrote:
> 
> > I just replaced a hard drive.   Thinking this a routine choice I 
> > bought the one with a big rebate,  namely Western Digital.  I wasn.t 
> > too upset that the installation CD was only for Windows and Macintosh 
> > but I was shocked to find the following message at the bottom of the 
> > installation instructions:
> >
> >       Operating Systems Supported
> >       WARNING!
> >       Using an operating system not listed below could result in data 
> > loss.
> >
> > followed by a list of Windows and Macintosh operating systems.
> >
> > If I had known this I would never have purchased the Western Digital 
> > drive and, needless to say, I will never purchase another.  I 
> > proceeded to format it with ext2 partitions using my Debian CD's and 
> > have not noticed any problems.  Why would they say such a thing?  What 
> > should I buy next time?
> >
> > Tom
> 
> I wouldn't worry about it Tom.  Sounds like a clueless person is in 

aint paranoia great ??

be really scared if the disk says...
	hey, you're installing linux,,,  go away.... and it shuts 
	itself down ( trivial to do in actuallity )

	and simillarly for running linux off cdrom ... if the mb/bios
	folks wanna get equally stupidly paranoid

	( howto do it should be a firmware-1 lab experiment )

> charge of paranoia at WD.  I have WD, Maxtor, Seagate, and even a few 
> (shudder...) Quantum drives in the server farms I've worked on and also 
> here at the house.  They all work fine.
> 
> It's just the idiot lawyers and project managers at WD wanting to have 
> a disclaimer for no good reason.  Maybe a good reason to not buy WD is 
> that they are showing their ignorance of how their disks are used, 
> after seeing that, but the drives themselves work fine with Linux or 
> anything else I've ever tried them with.

its to prevent .... "help, linux doesnt work with linux" support calls,
and emails

wd disks are picky about tis cables and jumper settings

nothing to worry abut ... but people do need to able to use the
right cables and jumper settings
	- single master disk on the right connector ( end of the cable )
		with the jumper set accordingly
	- master and slave ... master at the end of the cable
		with the jumper set accordingly

	- cable select on the jumber setting..
		- your master disk based on the cable is the one on the
		end

	- slave only on the cable ...
		no jumper setting ... shoot yourself

- dont mix the cable around ... motherboard sides belongs to the
  motherboard and NOT the disks
	- some disks are picky about which end is which
 
> As far as hardware-reliability goes, the Maxtor's fail quickly if not 
> kept cool, Quantums fail way before their "time" and are the worst 
> brand of drive I've ever encountered, the WD's last a nice long time, 
> and the Seagate's are incredible... I have eight year old Seagate 

all disks fails if not kept coool...

if you can feel the disk being warm ... its too hot for good data
reliability...
	- stick a $5.oo fan to protect the disk against heat
	( its your data and your time if and when the disk fail )

> drives still spinning in various servers with zero problems.  All of 
> the above, the typical failure mode is the loss of the drive bearings, 
> complete with plenty of warning as they start to "whine" prior to dying.

some disks are guaranteed for 3 yrs... some for 5 yrs.. some for 1 yr...
and depends on their rma policy and the rma dude yoou're talking to
if you can get a replacement ofr a failed/bad disks
	- its 10x cheaper to buy a new one ..

	- usually everybody(WD,maxtor,dell,gatway,etc)  recycle returned
	items to other people as a warranty replacment

c ya
alvin