From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Aug 14 03:57:24 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 51EF3106566B for ; Sat, 14 Aug 2010 03:57:24 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tj@tjvarghese.com) Received: from mail-bw0-f54.google.com (mail-bw0-f54.google.com [209.85.214.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DCFDE8FC12 for ; Sat, 14 Aug 2010 03:57:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: by bwz20 with SMTP id 20so365458bwz.13 for ; Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:57:22 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.204.148.67 with SMTP id o3mr1267567bkv.208.1281756519096; Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:28:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.204.62.133 with HTTP; Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:28:39 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <01DEC02A-DAE7-47B8-AD6C-3CCEFA98F311@cwis.biz> References: <01DEC02A-DAE7-47B8-AD6C-3CCEFA98F311@cwis.biz> Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 11:28:39 +0800 Message-ID: From: TJ Varghese To: Ryan Coleman Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: FreeBSD Questions Subject: Re: 5900 RPM drives X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 03:57:24 -0000 On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 9:52 AM, Ryan Coleman wrote: > Can anyone give me any reasons to buy these over 7200RPMs for a RAID? I may > need to pinch pennies if I have to finance my next servers out of pocket. > Stupid idea, I know, but I really want to know if there's a reason to skimp. > > Specific models that you're considering would be good. For WD, if you're referring to the WD's GreenPower (non-RAID Ed), there are 2 gotchas 1) no support for TLER any longer - this IMHO is a deal breaker for RAID 2) ridiculously low sleep times (6s) to maximize power savings - in a server, this would cause extreme load cycles, however this setting can be set to less extreme numbers using wdidle. The main technical criterion for any HDDs to be used in a raid IMO should be TLER support IMO. Speed/capacity would be secondary concerns. regards, TJ