Date: Thu, 05 May 2005 00:15:31 -0400 From: jason henson <jason@ec.rr.com> To: Chuck Robey <chuckr@chuckr.org> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: mixing IDE and SATA hard drives on a FreeBSD system Message-ID: <42799DE3.5030108@ec.rr.com> In-Reply-To: <42795B04.3050206@chuckr.org> References: <200505041522.25722.algould@datawok.com> <20050504222456.GA74932@Grumpy.DynDNS.org> <42795B04.3050206@chuckr.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Chuck Robey wrote: > David Kelly wrote: > >> On Wed, May 04, 2005 at 03:22:25PM -0500, Andrew L. Gould wrote: >> >>> I was thinking about putting FreeBSD and swap on the ATA100 IDE hard >>> drive and installing a SATA hard drive for home and database data. >>> Is there any reason I shouldn't mix hard drive types? (I've never >>> messed with SATA before.) >> >> >> >> I have one PATA with FreeBSD installed, and two SATA striped with >> gvinum. Swap spread across all 3. No particular problems. The SATA >> drives are fairly recent models in 160G, the PATA is prior generation in >> 120G, all Hitachi. The SATA drives seem to handle seeks from multiple >> processes better than the PATA, better even than might expect from >> striping. >> >> At about 4500 hours of runtime one SATA drive developed a bad block >> which the drive firmware was not able to automagically substitute. >> gvinum >> shut down. >> >> I see no reason why a SATA drive should be less reliable than a PATA >> drive. Also remember back when one could purchase the same drive >> hardware in either PATA or SCSI, so find it hard to accept the interface >> makes much difference in reliability. >> > I don't know why it's true... I can state that I've had 3 of them so > far, and had troubles with 2, and google is chock full of reports. > Further, the info about them being the same as their IDE brethren > isn't true, at least, the access rate specifications are higher for > SATA drives, in general, as compared to IDE. Least they were the last > time I checked, maybe it's changed inthe last 6 months. > > OTOH, when I first bought mine, I was comparing in my mind with SCSI, > not IDE, maybe they *do* compare equally with IDE, is IDE that bad? > Certainly, SATA is less reliable thant he scsi drives. > Don't compare IDE to SCSI. IDE is home/consumer grade. SCSI is commercial/enterprise grade. Just look at the price differences, because you most certainly get what you pay for with SCSI compared to IDE. **Warning, the following contains anecdotal evidence** I built a new rig for my brother with SATA and it has been perfect. I only have IDE in my slightly older machine which runs great 24/7. But this has just been my experience, as always YMMV. One last thing, I would avoid the first generation of most technology because they tend to still have some bugs. So if you buy SATA don't et the discounted drive, look for a newer model and you should be good. Also checkout storagereview.com
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?42799DE3.5030108>