On Wed, 06 Apr 2011 08:57:17 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> On 05/04/2011 06:07 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> On 4/5/2011 7:41, clipka wrote:
>>> Am 05.04.2011 16:09, schrieb Invisible:
>>>
>>>> I have absolutely no idea whether these "server-grade" drives really
>>>> *are* more reliable, or whether it's just a sucker tax.
>>>
>>> Server drives are designed to endure continuous use.
>>>
>>> Desktop drives are designed to endure lots of power cycles.
>>
>> The drives in a NAS are exactly the same as what you'd buy off the
>> shelf in an electronics store.
>>
>> Google has a whitepaper telling about the drive reliability based on
>> statistics from half a million disk drives. There's little correlation
>> between "category" and reliability.
> 
> So it *is* a sucker tax then.

It depends.  If you purchase through, say, EMC, what you're paying the 
'big bucks' for is the service contract, which in my experience is worth 
its weight in gold - they consider a single reported *recoverable* bit 
error on a drive in their cabinets as reason enough to replace the 
drive.  The system calls them and a technician calls the named contact to 
schedule the hot replacement of the drive that reported the error.

But such service certainly ain't cheap.  But their NAS devices are 
*solid* and their service (again in my experience) is second to none.

Jim

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