Re: [gentoo-user] Are those "green" drives any good?

[Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com>]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Wed, 09 May 2012 03:47:09 -0500
> Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>>
>> As some know, I'm planning to buy me a LARGE hard drive to put all my
>> videos on, eventually.  The prices are coming down now.  I keep seeing
>> these "green" drives that are made by just about every company
>> nowadays. When comparing them to a non "green" drive, do they hold up
>> as good? Are they as dependable as a plain drive?  I guess they are
>> more efficient and I get that but do they break quicker, more often
>> or no difference?
>>
>> I have noticed that they tend to spin slower and are cheaper.  That
>> much I have figured out.  Other than that, I can't see any other
>> difference. Data speeds seem to be about the same.
>>
>> Please, no brand wars.  I may get a WD, Maxtor, Samsung or some other
>> brand.  I haven't picked that part yet.  So far, I have had good luck
>> with drives.  I think I have one doorstop so far.  I have at least one
>> of each of the brands above too.  Don't jinx me.  I'm sure someone
>> has a horror story about some brand.
> 
> 
> Green drives are basically just low power drives. It's a branding
> gimmick. Like you noticed already, they tend to spin slower (uses less
> power).
> 
> I stuck 4 of them in my media server for 12TB of cheap storage. And
> they are silent. I can barely hear them running even when I'm sitting
> next to the server and the kids are running the telly full tilt :-)
> 
> I haven't heard any mention from anyone at all that they are less
> reliable in any way. I'd expect them to be more reliable than
> super-fast drives because they are lower power, but drive models have
> so many things affecting reliability it's hard to tell.
> 
> One thing we have noticed is that Samsung's recent model are not very
> "green", they spin up slowly, use lots of power and make a racket when
> spinning. But they do work.
> 

I was thinking the same thing about the speed and them lasting longer
because of the slower speed.  I mean, it's less wear and less heat.  I'd
just hate to buy one and it be a piece of junk or something else I
wasn't expecting to be wrong.   I wish I could afford server grade.
Weeeeee!!

I'm going to give this a shot.  It's not like the OS is on it and I will
be putting a lot of wear on it or be making those heads sing.  It's just
going to store videos, music and other stuff.  I plan to set it up with
LVM and put /home on it.  Then I'm going to get rid of this legacy /data
directory I have been carrying around for the past 7 or 8 years.  Just
put it all in /home where it should have been to begin with.

I also forgot to mention, this rig runs 24/7 for the most part.  It's
usually only off when the power has failed and my UPS is a bit low.
I'll be glad when they get our new wires ran for power.  They been
working on it for at least a month.  It's ONLY 12 miles or so.  ;-)
They are replacing poles, wires, hardware and everything.  I been here
for 40 years, I have never seen them replace all this.  Bad thing is,
the lights go out when they do a major switch over.   I bet the lines
won't be breaking so much when this is done, at least not until some nut
wrecks and hits the stinking pole.   :/

Thanks for the info.  At least I know it won't be junk.  lol

Dale

:-)  :-)

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