O Canada! > Canadian > Canadian Chat > Hard Drive Deals

reply to elwoodblues

Re: Hard Drive Deals

reply to donoreo
Write block.

reply to elwoodblues
The problem is that there's no such thing as a write block... When one refers to a storage block, one is normally referring to a filesystem block.
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Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org

reply to elwoodblues
Not bad for an 840 even if it isn't the Pro.

»www.ncix.com/products/?sku=77210···oid=1292

FaxCap

reply to elwoodblues
Seagate Barracuda 2TB - $90.00

»www.ncix.com/products/?sku=66010···oid=1292

reply to Guspaz

reply to elwoodblues
Amazon.ca has the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Home 3TB for $108.76.

Reviews aren't that great, but if you want a cheap 3TB drive it seems pretty good, no? Most places want $130+ for a 3TB external these days and this one even has ethernet to use as a NAS.

You can take out the drive inside and place it in your own NAS setup or something.

Don't know which drive is inside however.

»www.amazon.ca/Seagate-FreeAgent-···F8&psc=1

reply to Guspaz
Apologize for not remembering the terminology properly, whenever I install a 'nix distro, or add a new drive to an existing server, I choose an option of some type of file size, up to 4096.
For large multimedia files, does setting this size to a large value increase read/write performance?
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~ Project Hope ~

Are you talking about "sector size" when first configuring a raid set?

If i recall, this was only meant for hardware raids, but that was years ago. I don't think any newer raids (even hardware), use this setting anymore.

I remember seeing it when configuring old HP proliant DL servers in the G1/G2 generation. I don't recall seeing it anymore in the DL series G5/G6/G7 at all.

I believe the sector size thing was about how big a write a sector would be before it started a new one.. meaning if you had a file that was 5kb big being written on a file system using 4kb sectors, it would take up 2 sectors total. You would lose out on the remaining 3kb of space in the sector since it's already in use even at only 1kb.

I think a long time ago, this was important on how fast your raid system would be, but then you would also need to know what kind of files you were actually going to put on said RAID.

Yes! This is what I'm looking for.
I've read this setting can affect performance when dealing with only large (greater than 2 gigs) files.
However, I have strayed off topic, and will perhaps open a new discussion, with proper terminology.
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~ Project Hope ~

reply to elwoodblues
Seagate STBD4000400 4TB 64MB Cache 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

»www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as···326-L04B

$194.99 + Free Shipping with promo code: CEMCXTXP37

This drive is 4 cents/GB, which is flat out amazing. I'm still waiting for some reputable sites to post reviews but for a lower powered, lower spindle speed, high capacity drive I'm ready to pull the trigger. Everything seems to indicate that this is what I've been waiting for, a 4TB with 1TB platters that won't break the bank.

I have the 3TB version of those drives. They're fast.

reply to c2roth

Too bad my Acer H340 is running Windows Home Server v1. I don't believe it can handle that drive.
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Start Communications Forum

reply to Guspaz
Use promo code CEMCXTXP37 to get another 10 bucks off.

Edit : fixed a typo

Where are you seeing that the 4TB Seagate drives are 5900 RPM? The only 5900 RPM drives were the Baracuda LP and Baracuda Green. Seagate discontinued those a while back and replaced them along with the Baracuda XT with a single unified 1TB-per-platter 7200 RPM "Baracuda" line. Seagate made a big deal over the fact that the power savings achieved by a slower rotational speed simply weren't enough to justify the performance hit.

As I said, I have the 3TB drive and it is most absolutely a 7200 RPM drive. And it flies.

Amazon lists it as 5900 RPM in the selector:

»www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/···KIKX0DER

Which Seagate links to directly. Furthermore, the spec sheet shows lower power consumption and lower sustained transfer rates from the 4TB drive versus the 3TB by an amount that looks right for a slower spinning disk.
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Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org

Fair enough. They also seem to have dropped the Baracuda name all together for that line.

What a flip-flop. They discontinued all their 5900 RPM drives saying there's no point, only to introduce a new one. Figures.

reply to elwoodblues
Personally, I prefer the slower ones. My drives are going in a big NAS, and when 15 drives you reach, want loud drives you will not. I live in a one-room 360 sqft apartment, and the file server runs 24/7, so the Green drives I've got in there make a huge difference for noise.

Maybe people don't think there's that big a difference in noise for a single drive (well, my Videotron box's "SPINNING UP PARTICLE ACCELERATOR CAPTAIN!" hard drive begs differ) but when you've got 10 or 15 of them, the noise reduction (particularly the idle noise levels) starts to matter.

Also, the power too. I don't care much about the typical or idle power, because my power is included in my rent, but the startup power matters. 2.0A versus 2.5A spin-up power (what the Seagate ones report) times fifteen drives means a difference in spin-up of 360W versus 450W, so that's starting to get noticeable (I've got a 750W PSU in the system). I think the difference on the Western Digitals for the Green versus Black is bigger, but they don't report startup power.
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Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org