2TB horror stories

[Emulex]

newegg just buys the bulk/20 packs and splits them up whaddya expect. now the RE4's they come in this indestructible packaging its hard to describe but i've NEVER seen a consumer drive come with so much packaging ever.

 

[chusteczka]

Your PSU is your hard drive's voltage regulator.

The PSU changes AC to DC current. Given a stable input, yes, the PSU will provide stable output. In a brownout condition, the PSU is not provided with the stable voltage level it needs and the DC voltage it outputs will decrease.

It may depend on the quality of the capacitors in the PSU to handle a brownout condition without decreasing voltage supplied to the computer system.

 

[Texashiker]

Rant about Samsung - ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.

Thank you.

I was looking at buying some samsung drives - 1 for my computer and 1 for my sons - but after reading your post, I think I will stick to western digital and hitachi.

 

[nk215]

The PSU changes AC to DC current. Given a stable input, yes, the PSU will provide stable output. In a brownout condition, the PSU is not provided with the stable voltage level it needs and the DC voltage it outputs will decrease.

It may depend on the quality of the capacitors in the PSU to handle a brownout condition without decreasing voltage supplied to the computer system.

This is why my raid5 computers are on UPS. All of my external HD is also on UPS. I strongly recommend the use of UPS when HD failure is unacceptable.

 

[brandonb]

I just purchased 8 samsung drives 2TB for my fileserver. I wonder how they will end up. I have UPS shipping as well from New Egg. Recipe for disaster, I know, but it will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[Golgatha]

Each "Green" 2TB drive on the market (sans Hitachi's new offering) has some sort of issue. I know because I have almost all of them in my Unraid server:

2TB WD Green- New EARS version is Advanced Format which doesn't work with XP, yet old EADS version is ok (which is confusing). Also I hear it has problems with regular RAID (works with Unraid though).

2TB 5900 RPM Seagate- Bad early firmware, yet most drives are STILL not shipped with newest CC35 firmware. Because of a issue with the updater, you normally have to FORCE the firmware upgrade (unnerving)

2TB Samsung F4 - Older firmware had data loss problems!!!!!!

http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools/wiki/SamsungF4EGBadBlocks

Plus THE SAMSUNG FIRMWARE PATCH DOES NOT CHANGE THE FIRMWARE VERSION NUMBER!!!!!!! (Such a bad problem that I refuse to use this drive)

The 2TB 7200 RPM drives are fine. My 2tb Seagate Barracuda XT is my favorite drive ever, my 2TB 7200RPM Hitachi was such a good deal I bought a second for my desktop, and even though I have never had a 2TB WD Black drive I hear they are great...

With regards to the Samsung F4 issues. Isn't Smartctl a Linux command line SMART monitoring program. Could this be a hardware + software issue by any chance? Also, does it affect Windows users? Just asking because I have two of these drives (one internal and the other external) at home.

 

[DaveJ]

Newegg's hard drive packaging is a joke. A small sheet of bubble wrap and some packing peanuts aren't good enough. If you buy several hard drives, Newegg will even wrap them all up as a single bundle with no cushioning between the drives D:

When I buy HP hard drives for my servers, they come in individual boxes, and they're cushioned on all sides by flexible plastic. You could punt the box like a football and not damage the drive inside. Consumer drives in retail boxes are packaged the same way.

If it weren't for Newegg's massive volume, I'm sure hard drive manufacturers would just flat-out deny RMA's from drives sold by them. I'd NEVER buy a drive from Newegg that wasn't in a retail box.

QFT, Newegg's shipping is crap. I ordered 3 2TB Barracuda LPs and they each came wrapped in a thin layer of bubblewrap inside a small white box, which was then tossed into a larger box with some crumpled paper for padding. All drives passed the Seagate full diags and seem to be doing OK, at least for the time being.

Do any vendors actually ship OEM HDs decently these days?

 

[jjmIII]

I'm currently on my FOURTH Seabait LP 2TB drive. Previously RMA'd 3 in a row.

Sell the next refurb'd RMA on eBay and move on. I did.

 

[Elixer]

newegg just buys the bulk/20 packs and splits them up whaddya expect. now the RE4's they come in this indestructible packaging its hard to describe but i've NEVER seen a consumer drive come with so much packaging ever.

Don't suppose you took pics ?

 

[Synomenon]

My 2TB WD RE4-GP came in like this:

Didn't get mine from Newegg though.

 

[brownstone]

I remember reading a lot of bad reviews with 2tb drives early on so I waited a bit. I now have 2 Samsung 2tb drives (one F3 and one F4) and other than a firmware update that I had to do on the F3 (because of issues with my chipset), I've had no issues.

 

[thobel]

I just installed 4 Hitachi 2TB 7200 drives in my WHS and they are running great.

PS Newegg packaging was great for me

 

[poofyhairguy]

Could this be a hardware + software issue by any chance? Also, does it affect Windows users?

Its a drive issue, and the effects can be replicated on Windows machines. The solution is to update the drives:

http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...bbs_msg_id=386


http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...bbs_msg_id=387

 

[taltamir]

Its a drive issue, and the effects can be replicated on Windows machines. The solution is to update the drives:

http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...bbs_msg_id=386


http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...bbs_msg_id=387

thats some engrish right there...

If identify commmand is issued from host during NCQ write command in the condition of PC ,
write condition is unstable.
So It can make the loss of written data.

the rest of it is just as engrishy

 

[poofyhairguy]

thats some engrish right there...the rest of it is just as engrishy

Amen. That (plus the fact the firmware doesn't change numbers) is why I am avoiding these drives like they are computer kryptonite.

Too bad, a 2TB Samsung drive is all my Unraid box needs to have every major consumer 1.5TB and 2TB drive on the market inside it. Maybe I can still get a F3 somewhere....

 

[AkumaX]

Got 4 x Samsung F4 2TB's in a RAID5. I also flashed the FW update (was pretty quick, at least for 4 drives in a row). Hope they last *knock on wood*

 

[Golgatha]

Its a drive issue, and the effects can be replicated on Windows machines. The solution is to update the drives:

http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...bbs_msg_id=386


http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...bbs_msg_id=387

Well that will make a fun little project.

 

[Emulex]

My 2TB WD RE4-GP came in like this:

Didn't get mine from Newegg though.

same thing but mine came in a box box 5-pack size [4 filled]. i'll try to iphone a pic but it far exceeds what i've seen on consumer drives.

 

[pitz]

Almost 12,000 hours on a batch of 2Tb Hitachi 7200rpm (7K2000) drives here. No problems. Just took delivery of some new 2Tb 7K3000 drives; hopefully they'll be as equally problem-free in RAID.

WD's were at a 60% price premium, Seagates were nearly double in price. I don't regret my decision.

 

[Sunfox]

Yeah, the Hitachi's are an especially good bargain these days. Don't know what's going to happen now that WD has bought them out.

I've had the Barracuda XT's for a few days now, and they seem quite nice. Noise level is low - very quiet seeks. There's a bit of a mid-tone "whirring" sound of 4 of them spinning at once, but that's better than the high pitched whine some other models reportedly have. Performance is unexpectedly good (while I wait for my SSD to come in); I can get over 500MB/sec sequential reads and 430MB/sec writes in ICH10R RAID. Of course random performance is less stellar.

 

[Emulex]

hitachi greenpower 4K sector 5400rpm for everyone!! w00t!

I'm using my WD RE4 in ML150 with P400/512BBWC with 50/50 read to write cache ratio in RAID (1+0). i'm going to try grow the volume online to 8 drives to see if performance will reach acceptable levels and twiddle with cache settings and stripe sizes. perhaps the RE4 are more sensitive than the cheetah or savvio to those specifics with a vmfs.

If not i'll just vmotion everything off and do raid-0 - i need the IOPS

 

[brandonb]

I just purchased 8 samsung drives 2TB for my fileserver. I wonder how they will end up. I have UPS shipping as well from New Egg. Recipe for disaster, I know, but it will be interesting to see what happens.

Just an update, I've installed, formatted, and scan disked the entire things, all 8 and no errors or failed drives. I'm happy with that. Hopefully they will last without any break downs.

 

[kmmatney]

I recently ordered a bare Seagate 2 TB drive from NewEgg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148681

It was packed in thick bubble wrap, surrounded by packing peanuts in such as manner that it could not bounce around at all in the package. I have no complaints at all with the packaging, and the drive works fine.

 

[Adul]

I think I am going to order a couple of wd green drives to sit as hot spares...

 

[a123456]

those numbers do sound rather painful, keep in mind you're also only collecting data from those who decided to post a review on newegg.

That may be true, but you can still do comparative analysis on the ratings. Obviously, it's biased because 40% of the drives sold don't fail. But compare some of the 2TB ratings to older, very reliable drives like the WD 640 Caviar Blue/Black. Those used to have 80% or higher 5* ratings and you could say they should suffer the same bias with DOA but they don't.

The 9.7% return rate on the 2TB Black is just scary.