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So I'm thinking of building a new file server (or rebuilding my current one) and saw that WD had this GP model. Says it changes RPMs and stuff to cut down on power and heat.

Since I will be running them in a RAID 5 config speed isnt that big of a deal. Im just worried about that varaible RPM thing making the drive less reliable. Other then that the GP seems like it would be a good thing to have... other then a plain 5400 rpm drive.

I've been looking at these and the RE models too in the 1TB flavor. I am looking to off load my 500GB Drives and upgrade to the TB drives. One thing I read is that the GP drives are picky with RAID controllers so read up before you buy.

do not buy western digital.
all you have to do is lookup disk failure statistics and u will see how quickly most WD's fail

TheSovereign wrote:do not buy western digital.
all you have to do is lookup disk failure statistics and u will see how quickly most WD's fail

aid:

And the RE drives really piss me off because that tells me that WD knows their drives are crap and need improvement. Buy WD at your own risk.

now last time I bought a drive it was a WD.. and that was... umm... 3 years ago? god It has been that long. Any way they are all WD's but thats probably from the time they were the best. So whats good to look at now? looking for most capacity for the buck, SATA. Speed doesnt matter due to it will be in a raid 5 setup.

Thanks

seagate

Seagate

To be honest, I'm not sold on seagate. Sure they have a 5 year warranty, But I've had many drives fail well before that. I had 2 Seagate drives giveing the click of death out of the static bag, and 1 drive fail twice in 2 months (RMA'd, then replacement failed). This is out of 6 drives owned/bought for people. Could have been a bad month for them (all produced around same time, except for the replacement RMA).

I guess I shouldn't drop them from my roof before installing??? JK

It's a crap shoot, but I've had good luck with Seagate the last 5 years. Not one drive has failed, and I also do not over-clock my system. Currently I have a WD Raptor as my boot drive, and a 500g Seagate for everything else.

Well, I've got a mix of just about everything in my system running 24/7 for the last 5 years & no failures from any of the drives (2 Maxtors, 2 WD, 1 Seagate). I had a Maxtor drive fail on me a long while ago, but it was used before I got it & was about 3 years old when I got it. Otherwise, the only real problems I've had with drives were the Deathstars. Oddly though, I still have a 40gb Deskstar that is still running to this day at least 4 hours a day for the last.... what 8 years now. It was a refurb when I bought it, so they must have fixed the problem pretty good. My work computer has been running 24/7 with a 20gb Maxtor since I started back in '02. So, I'm thinking that there are just specific drives to avoid & not necessarily a brand. I sure wish Google had released their statistics on their drive failures that they said they were suprised by. They said something similar.

Also agree with Seagate. I have 4 750GB drives currently running in Raid.

WD drives just aren't the best to look at for standard hard drives. Their notebook drives seem oddly durable for some reason though.

There is always risk for failure, I mean these things do have moving parts. A simple malfunction on the manufacturing line could cause many bad ones to go out before it gets noticed.

All hard drives fail at some point, it is just a matter of how quickly and how badly. That is the reason for Raid and backups.

I've never had problems with WD. I may just be lucky though.

Yeah, they are going into a 24/7 raid 5 array... so as long as 3 dont up and die in one week I will be ok.