Any hard drive experts out there?

[David Roth weiss]

Hitachis are quieter as a rule.

Far from any reason to avoid them, enterprise drives are sought after because they are manufactured for mission critical applications, such as servers and (drum roll) even professional video editing. That being said, all SATA are quite robust and like the Engerizer Bunny, most seem to go on and on and on, even the ones that non-enterpise models.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Sean Oneil]

I just bought a 7200.11 and chose it over the Hitachi based on this article here:

https://www.barefeats.com/hard94.html

Sean

[Sean Oneil]

[Colin McQuillan] “I also see both brands offer an “enterprise” model for a little more.. “Enterprise” drives any good for video editing/media storage so on???”

Those types of drives should only be used in a hardware RAID configuration.

Sean

[David Roth weiss]

[Sean ONeil] “Those types of drives should only be used in a hardware RAID configuration.”

Sean,

Are you saying that because you’re suggesting that using them alone is overkill?

Because, if you can afford them, from a technical standpoint there’s certinaly no reason not to use them in all situations. They’re simply manufactured to more rigid specifications.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Sean Oneil]

[David Roth Weiss] “Because, if you can afford them, from a technical standpoint there’s certinaly no reason not to use them in all situations. They’re simply manufactured to more rigid specifications.”

I used to think that but recently learned there’s more to it than that. Server grade enterprise drives aren’t necessarily more rigid. They’re simply designed to function differently. From what I understand, most will actually disable certain error correction features found in the desktop models. They do this so that the hardware controller can take over those tasks. This actually makes them less suitable for software RAID that doesn’t have a fail-safe or battery backup unit.

Also, sometimes the server grade disks have an unusual disk geometry that only hardware RAID controllers will work with them. The Western Digital YD series is one example. I have a dozen of them. I can go through a long laundry list of SATA controllers that won’t even recognize them (including a G5 built-in SATA, a Mac Pro’s built-in SATA, a Sonnet card, and a Firmtek card). Only our Highpoint and 3ware cards will work with them. I’m not saying that’s always the case, such as the Seagates we’re talking about. I’ve just learned that server drives shouldn’t be used outside of an actual server/hardware RAID environment. If you’re using an ATTO or CalDigit or some high-end hardware RAID card, then they are probably the best choice. But if you’re populating the internal bays on a Mac Pro or using a software RAID eSATA card, I would use the desktop models.

Sean

[David Roth weiss]

Sean,

Just to clarify, the SATA enterprise level drives available on the open market from Seagate and Hitachi are not designed as server only models, they are simply drives built to higher specs, with a higher MTBF (meantime between failure) rate than plain vanilla non-enterprise SATA drives. The specialized server class drives you’re talking about are indeed server only drives that are not suitable for other applications.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Colin Mcquillan]

Thanks for the article.

i was leaning toward the seagate and this may tip the scale

Colin McQuillan
Van BC
Octo 3.2, 8gig, 8800GT, 2×23″ ACD, 2TB G-Speed eS, Kona LHe, JVC DT-V24L1UA, Mackie 1202-VLZ3, KRK Rokit5’s….
MBP 2.4, 4gig , 2xLacie Quadra 500gig….

[Colin Mcquillan]

Good to know.

I was worried that the “enterprise” drives give up a few things in lew of a longe MTBF and vibration dampening.

I couldnt see much difference in the listed specs between them and the regular drives other than the longer MTBF and vibration absorbtion

Colin McQuillan
Van BC
Octo 3.2, 8gig, 8800GT, 2×23″ ACD, 2TB G-Speed eS, Kona LHe, JVC DT-V24L1UA, Mackie 1202-VLZ3, KRK Rokit5’s….
MBP 2.4, 4gig , 2xLacie Quadra 500gig….

[Arnie Schlissel]

[Colin McQuillan] “Any reason to choose or avoid an “enterprise” drive over a non-enterprise drive for internal use?”

The “enterprise” drives from Hitachi & WD have 5 year warranties, while their “non-enterprise” drives have 3 year warranties. All Seagate drives have 5 year warranties.

Enterprise class drives are designed for use in servers, RAIDs & other high demand, industrial strength situations. Check the specs at a site like barefeets.com, where they go through rigorous testing to see how they perform for video use. They sometimes perform as well as their non-enterprise equivalents, sometimes better, sometimes worse.

Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/