# Which Green 2TB disks to take? (Need 2 not raid)



## puma99dk| (Jul 2, 2011)

i have been having my eye on 2 WD20EARS from WDC but i have heard good and bad things about them but still not sure if they are the best choice.

i have looked at these 3 models:

WD20EARS (SATA-2)
WD20EARX (SATA-3)
ST2000DL00003 (SATA-3)

prices are

WD20EARS i can get to 102,70USD / 71,06euro in my city at a computer store.

WD20EARX online for 108,12USD / 74,81euro.

ST2000DL003 online for 100,37USD / 69,45euro

so which one to takem, they r going to replace my 3 Samsung F1 1TB drives, i only want 2 drives and i want them green bcs my machine is on 24-7 so wanna save some power too ^^;

i have been having a WDC WD5000AACS also a Green drive for some years already and it runs like a dream and performance quiet well ^^


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## repman244 (Jul 2, 2011)

AFAIK (and as you said) the WD20EARS was having some issues (I think it had something to do with ultra DMA errors).
I can't comment on the EARX series (but seeing that it's SATA 3, I would assume it's a new "revision" of the EARS and it seem it's quite new).
I own the Seagate drive and it's working flawlessly for about 2 months now (knocks on wood), I obviously can't comment on how long will it last but I haven't seen a lot of complaints (for now) about any firmware issues or errors occurring, review:http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_barracuda_green_2tb_review_st2000dl003

Some say WD is the most reliable, some say Samsung is the most etc. 
But at the end of the day any of them can fail, it's just pure luck I guess.

If you want to save a few € go for Seagate, if you are worried about the comments that Seagate sucks go for WD


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## TC-man (Jul 2, 2011)

Hi,

Well, If you decide to make use of one of the harddrives for installation of an Operating System then the Seagate Barracuda Green (formerly known as the LP series, 5900 rpm) is a good choice since it (is the only green drive that) will give you faster OS boot time than other green harddrives from WD, Samsung or Hitachi, almost comparable to those 7200 rpm harddrives which are much more expensive.

The WD EARS is a tricky one since there exist two models of it: one with 3 platter and one with 4 platter which is much slower in almost everything, and is hotter and has a bit higher power consumption because the  4 platter design. There's no 100% garantee that the newer EARS models is 3 platter. So if you are choosing the WD green harddrives than it's perhaps better to choose the newer sata-3 EARX which only got a 3 platter design.

According the review Repman244 posted earlier, the Seagate Barracuda Green is not a bad choice at all, but if you are used to the WD brand and their quality, then perhaps it's safe to go for the 2TB EARX model.


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## puma99dk| (Jul 2, 2011)

nope i got my WD VelociRaptor 150GB for OS TC-man så that's not the case only my Anime/DATA ^^;


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## A Cheese Danish (Jul 2, 2011)

I enjoy mine. Although, 2 of the 3 have errors. One failed with Read/Write errors and the other just would not be recognized 
in the BIOS. And when it was, Windows would not recognize it. I got them cheap though.
So time to see if my replacements work...


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## Widjaja (Jul 7, 2011)

I have an EARS as storage and it's been doing fine even though WDidle3 is showing it's signs of working in HDTune.
I am not too sure which revision of the EARS has the head park to eventual failure, all I know is mine is one of the newer ones judging from the firmware.

It definitely stays a lot cooler than the WD Black 1TB I have.


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## cadaveca (Jul 7, 2011)

Widjaja said:


> It definitely stays a lot cooler than the WD Black 1TB I have.



Yeah, all the SATA 6 Gb/s Green drives are pretty fast, and very cool running. I have the Seagate listed in the OP; I use one in my review rig, and one as my OS drive in my gaming rig. It doesn't even need a fan blowing on it to stay under 40c during large transfers...just set up my STEAM folder, some ~850 GB, and the drive was pretty damn quiet while doing so too.


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## newtekie1 (Jul 7, 2011)

If you are going to put them in RAID, then avoid anything WD.


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## qubit (Jul 7, 2011)

I've got 2 EARS in motherboard RAID 1 now for two months or so and they've worked flawlessly. They're quiet, cool and surprisingly fast too, so I'm very happy with them and can recommend them.  They're damned cheap too.

I've not head of the EARX version until your post. As it seems to be a later version, I'd go for that - WD will change more than just the interface speed, even if the specs don't show many differences. Try to google for formal reviews of all the drives you're interested in though as that is likely to give you information that you won't find in a forum opinion thread like this.

EDIT



newtekie1 said:


> If you are going to put them in RAID, then avoid anything WD.



Just seen your post NT, after I posted. I guess you're talking from experience there. So, am I just lucky then? They've been flawless in RAID 1 so far.


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## aharvey (Jul 7, 2011)

Consider this at a lower price.

Edit: oops, just looked at your location. Guess this doesn't help. Maybe you can find an appropriate source in Denmark?


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## Cybrnook (Jul 7, 2011)

Widjaja said:


> I have an EARS as storage and it's been doing fine even though WDidle3 is showing it's signs of working in HDTune.
> I am not too sure which revision of the EARS has the head park to eventual failure, all I know is mine is one of the newer ones judging from the firmware.
> 
> It definitely stays a lot cooler than the WD Black 1TB I have.



WD released the bootable program that will allow you to modify the wdidle3 setting to allow for a longer threshold. You can correct any ears drive now that you suspect has the lower default timing.


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## Widjaja (Jul 7, 2011)

^^ Yeah one of the first things I downloaded if I foud I was not liking the amount of time between each headpark but I have no issue with it.


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## yogurt_21 (Jul 7, 2011)

newtekie1 said:


> If you are going to put them in RAID, then avoid anything WD.



have 10 of these drives in different machines at home in either raid 0 or raid 1 configs, no issues whatsoever. 

So in otherwords, nice troll post. lol


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## newtekie1 (Jul 7, 2011)

qubit said:


> Just seen your post NT, after I posted. I guess you're talking from experience there. So, am I just lucky then? They've been flawless in RAID 1 so far.



Western Digital disabled, and then removed, TLER from all of their drives except the RAID Edition drives.  This causes many RAID controllers to wrongly mark the drives as failed and kick them out of the array.  Originally, TLER was just disabled, and there was a utility to re-enable it if you wanted to use the drives in RAID.  However, all WD drives sold now, with the exception of the RAID Edition drives, have TLER completely removed from the firmware.

Add to that the head parking timeout being set so low that it causes large numbers of headparks, enough to trip S.M.A.R.T. sometimes, which again will cause some controllers to mark the drive as failed and kick them out of the array.

The majority of the time neither will be a problem.  However, I have seen WD Black, Blue, and Green drives all get tossed from arrays because of their lack of TLER.  The chances are slim, but there, and I'd personally just rather go with a different brand where the chances are none.



yogurt_21 said:


> have 10 of these drives in different machines at home in either raid 0 or raid 1 configs, no issues whatsoever.
> 
> So in otherwords, nice troll post. lol



Yeah, I know.  If one person hasn't had any issues, then there definitely isn't any problem at all, and anyone that says otherwise must be a troll.

So in other words, do a little research before calling someone else a troll for posting recommendations that the OP asked for, lest you look like a troll yourself.


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## qubit (Jul 7, 2011)

newtekie1 said:


> Western Digital disabled, and then removed, TLER from all of their drives except the RAID Edition drives.  This causes many RAID controllers to wrongly mark the drives as failed and kick them out of the array.  Originally, TLER was just disabled, and there was a utility to re-enable it if you wanted to use the drives in RAID.  However, all WD drives sold now, with the exception of the RAID Edition drives, have TLER completely removed from the firmware.
> 
> Add to that the head parking timeout being set so low that it causes large numbers of headparks, enough to trip S.M.A.R.T. sometimes, which again will cause some controllers to mark the drive as failed and kick them out of the array.
> 
> The majority of the time neither will be a problem.  However, I have seen WD Black, Blue, and Green drives all get tossed from arrays because of their lack of TLER.  The chances are slim, but there, and I'd personally just rather go with a different brand where the chances are none.



Thanks very much, what a great answer. 

I thought I'd google for exactly what the catchily called TLER is and I came across this beautifully unflattering Wikipedia explanation of it:



> Time-Limited Error Recovery (TLER) is a name used by Western Digital for a hard disk drive firmware bugfix (to a misfeature) that allows improved error handling in a RAID environment. In some cases, there is a conflict as to whether error handling should be undertaken by the hard drive or by the RAID controller, which leads to drives being marked as unusable and significant performance degradation, when this could otherwise have been avoided. Similar technologies are called Error Recovery Control (ERC), used by competitor Seagate, and Command Completion Time Limit (CCTL), used by Samsung and Hitachi.



Don'tcha just love that first sentence? 

Read the rest here.


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## newtekie1 (Jul 7, 2011)

qubit said:


> Thanks very much, what a great answer.
> 
> I thought I'd google for exactly what the catchily called TLER is and I came across this beautifully unflattering Wikipedia explanation of it:
> 
> ...



Thanks, glad you liked my answer.

I've personally had this issue with WD drives, which is why I don't recommend them for RAID use.  However, they are perfectly fine for everything else.


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## yogurt_21 (Jul 7, 2011)

newtekie1 said:


> Yeah, I know.  If one person hasn't had any issues, then there definitely isn't any problem at all, and anyone that says otherwise must be a troll.
> 
> So in other words, do a little research before calling someone else a troll for posting recommendations that the OP asked for, lest you look like a troll yourself.



your logic is circular, so if YOU, also one person did have an issue, then all WD drives must be the same, no?

why my goodness, let's apply this to everything, the logic is so superior. 

your post didn't give any evidence, nor have you in subsequent posts. Hence the trolling comment, and you've yet to prove me wrong. WD drives work fine in raid. If you want to talk volume.... lets see 

1048 shipped to clients (their warranty is through us, not dell)
44 in stock
72 in use at our location.

those are all Dell servers btw PowerEdge R200,R300,2950,2970,R900, R210, R310, R710, R810, T100, T300, T310, 2900 and etc. Half of which use WD drives, the other half use Seagate. No more WD's have failed than Seagates and the overall drive failure rate is less than 3%. 

See now, I might know just a little bit about raid if you catch my drift. And yes I built, configured, manage, and maintain everly last one of those servers. This includes those at client locations. Technically the clients own them, but we still manage them due to our proprietary software on them.

so once again as I've posted in other WD green threads, no issues whatsoever.

so don't go trying to tell me to do research on items I own personally and know to be working. yes I've seen all those crap threads/blogs/etc. There is no issue raiding the green drives.


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## qubit (Jul 7, 2011)

@newtekie & yogurt:

From my third party perspective, you are _both_ right and no one is trying to troll or BS the other.

In summary:

NT has experienced these failures and I found a Wikipedia article explaining this problem (see my post). So yes, the problem is real all right

Yogurt deals with thousands of these drives and hasn't seen any significant problems with them in raid.

Neither scenario contradicts the other. If anything, it tells me that the problem is real, but very rare and NT was unlucky to get bitten by it, that's all. I guess if I'd got bit, I would be put off them as well. As it is, I will continue using mine in raid, as I'm not made of money to rush out and get new drives just in case.

What about data loss? Well, I'm covered there, because I have another copy on a third drive in another computer.


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## yogurt_21 (Jul 8, 2011)

qubit said:


> @newtekie & yogurt:
> 
> From my third party perspective, you are _both_ right and no one is trying to troll or BS the other.
> 
> ...



data loss is always a concern and I would then concede raid 0 isn't ideal with these drives (despite my gaming array in specs) but for raid 1,5,and 10 you have that backup built in.


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## Disparia (Jul 8, 2011)

Trolling or not, at least we're discussing it 

Whenever someone brings it up and I ask about their experience and setup, they usually scurry away! Probably due to it being copy-pasta or they are using the drives in a configuration that it not recommended (Config outside of Green, Blue, Black for ICHxR/AMD SBxxx and RE for Adaptec/LSI/etc).

At work, have bought and used several 20-packs of RE drives for the servers with dedicated controllers and Blue/Black drives for ones using the onboard controller. All without problems. At home it's mostly Blacks, some Blues on ICHxR, again, no problems.

So if anyone has had a problem with them in a recommended configuration, I'd like to hear about it. Perhaps it comes down to a particular model or family of controllers?


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## newtekie1 (Jul 8, 2011)

yogurt_21 said:


> your logic is circular, so if YOU, also one person did have an issue, then all WD drives must be the same, no?



I didn't really read the rest of your post, kind of just skimmed, I didn't see a point.  The problem is documented widely on the internet.  I would not post the recommendation against the product if it was an issue that only I have seen.  I am fully aware that shit occassionally does happen and an issolated bad incident is not enough to base anything on.  My recommendation was based on documented issues with the drives that many people have had, your comment calling me a troll was based on your singular experience with the drives.

What you seem to fail to grasp is the concept that just because you don't have the problem, that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist.  Lets apply _that_ logic to every situation, shall we?  I've never owned or even seen a Bugatti Veyron, so they must not exist, right?

You can blather on about how experienced you are with the drives because you've bought so many, and how failure rates are under 3% all you want.  It just shows that, despite me telling you to do some research, you still haven't.  The issue is rare, you haven't seen it, not a surprise.  You're using relatively similar RAID controllers in most cases.  Just doing a quick rough guess, maybe 4-5 different raid controllers total?  Obviously you missed the part where the issue is very much RAID controller dependant.  Most RAID controllers won't have an issue, a few will.  Also, failure rate doesn't mean dick.  The drives aren't failed.  The RAID controller just thinks they have.  Rebooting the machine, or even rescanning for drives, will almost certainly pick the drive back up, rebuild the array and move along with business as normal.  I don't care how experienced you think you are, do a little research on the issue, becuase you experience means dick if you don't know what is being talked about because you've never experienced it.



qubit said:


> If anything, it tells me that the problem is real, but very rare and NT was unlucky to get bitten by it, that's all. I guess if I'd got bit, I would be put off them as well. As it is, I will continue using mine in raid, as I'm not made of money to rush out and get new drives just in case.
> 
> What about data loss? Well, I'm covered there, because I have another copy on a third drive in another computer.



Exactly, I even said that it was a rare issue.  I wouldn't recommend running out and buying new drives if you already have a setup that works, you will probably never have an issue.

However, when puraching new drives like the OP, if they are going to be used in RAID avoid WD, especially the Green drives.  Yes, the problem is vary rare, but there is still a chance, so there is no reason to not just buy another brand and have zero chance.  An extremely small chance is still infinitely bigger than zero chance.  And with drives all running pretty much the same price these days, and quality pretty much beaing equal as well(with the small exception of this WD issue in RAID), really there is no reason to not just buy a different brand to avoid the issue completely.  As I said, if the drives aren't for RAID, then buy whatever brand, it doesn't matter.  It turns out the OP isn't using them in RAID anyway, so all of this isn't really important, but we didn't know that before I made my comment, that information was added afterwards.



Jizzler said:


> Trolling or not, at least we're discussing it
> 
> Whenever someone brings it up and I ask about their experience and setup, they usually scurry away! Probably due to it being copy-pasta or they are using the drives in a configuration that it not recommended (Config outside of Green, Blue, Black for ICHxR/AMD SBxxx and RE for Adaptec/LSI/etc).
> 
> ...



Funny you say "recommended configuration", WD's stance on this is that the only drives that are recommended for RAID are the RAID Edition drives.  So using a Black/Blue/Green drive in a RAID array is not a recommended configuration.  So even if the problem does happen, it isn't in a recommended configuration.


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## Disparia (Jul 8, 2011)

But, it's been on the product page for those drives for years?

As of 6/8/11 they seem to have removed it from the product pages and moved it to their Knowledge Base, ID 996.



> WD desktop hard drives (Caviar Black, Green, and Blue) have been tested and *are recommended for consumer RAID applications* when using the drives in a RAID 0 (Stripe) or RAID 1 (Mirror) configuration.
> 
> WD only recommends using a Desktop drive in a RAID array with no more than two (2) drives (Raid 0 or Raid 1 only).
> 
> WD Caviar Black, Caviar Green, and Caviar Blue hard drives are not recommended for and are not warranted for use in RAID environments utilizing Enterprise HBAs and/or expanders and in multi-bay chassis, as they are not designed for, nor tested in, these specific types of RAID applications. For all Business Critical RAID applications, please consider WD’s Enterprise Hard Drives that are specifically designed with RAID-specific, time-limited error recovery (TLER), are tested extensively in 24x7 RAID applications, and include features like enhanced RAFF technology and thermal extended burn-in testing.



Last time I checked they did not have any restriction on number of drives or RAID level. If I could work the Advanced Search I'd be able to find my older posts with the original wording. Oh well, at least they still acknowledge RAID support, even if it limited.


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## yogurt_21 (Jul 8, 2011)

@ newtechie ^ the above shows you're the one who hasn't done the research, or at least non-tainted research. (so searching through thousands of articles until you find the one blog that agrees with you)

this is a consumer grade situation thus raid is fine according to WD. So saying that all WD desktop drives aren't good for RAID isn't true. I've done my homework, servers and RAID are part of my primary job duties. I simply know more about it than any of the random blogs you claim add up to a "well documented issue." So well documented that you've yet to post anything that proves it.

This is the whole issue with the internet age, no one bothers to check the credentials of the person posting the information. If 500 amateurs run into the same issue then it's likely a training/user issue and not a manufacturing one. If 500 well seasoned experts run into the issue then there may yet be a problem with the manufacturing/design. 

That said, I've yet to see ANY expert post about this issue. While yes if you're building a server you'll go with RAID edition enterprise drives, anyone building a desktop is fine using WD desktop drives even if they plan to RAID. 

The issues you speak of only apply to expensive RAID controllers being paired with these drives. The OP is not doing that. I seriously doubt >1% of the people on here could afford that kind of RAID card for their primary PC. Even then if you're pairing an 80$ hard drive with a 2500$+ RAID controller you got what you paid for.


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## newtekie1 (Jul 9, 2011)

yogurt_21 said:


> @ newtechie ^ the above shows you're the one who hasn't done the research, or at least non-tainted research. (so searching through thousands of articles until you find the one blog that agrees with you)



WD says the same thing, no need to rely on any Blog posts about it.  I guess I'll do the research for you:  http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers...-edition-and-raid-(enterprise)-edition-drives

[sigQUOTE]When an error is found on a desktop edition hard drive, the drive will enter into a deep recovery cycle to attempt to repair the error, recover the data from the problematic area, and then reallocate a dedicated area to replace the problematic area. This process can take up to 2 minutes depending on the severity of the issue. Most RAID controllers allow a very short amount of time for a hard drive to recover from an error. If a hard drive takes too long to complete this process, the drive will be dropped from the RAID array. Most RAID controllers allow from 7 to 15 seconds for error recovery before dropping a hard drive from an array. Western Digital does not recommend installing desktop edition hard drives in an enterprise environment (on a RAID controller).[/sigQUOTE]

Yes, they say enterprise situations.  But they say this because the downtime caused by the drive being kicked from the array is critical, it isn't in a consumer environment.  The drive still get kicked from a RAID array at the consumer level, which I don't like, but it isn't a critical issue.  Of course, in RAID0 the drive won't be kicked at all because the controllers are smart enough to know not to kill an entire array.



yogurt_21 said:


> this is a consumer grade situation thus raid is fine according to WD. So saying that all WD desktop drives aren't good for RAID isn't true. I've done my homework, servers and RAID are part of my primary job duties. I simply know more about it than any of the random blogs you claim add up to a "well documented issue." So well documented that you've yet to post anything that proves it.



That comes down to the consumer.  WD says it is ok because consumer level isn't mission critical.  If your RAID1 array drops a drive and has to be rebooted and rebuilt it doesn't matter nearly as much as bringing down a server and waiting on an array filled with critical data to rebuild.

Are you happy that I posted something now, and hey it wasn't a blog...

Obviously you don't know anything about it.  You have bought plenty of drives, but obviously know little about the situation at hand.



yogurt_21 said:


> This is the whole issue with the internet age, no one bothers to check the credentials of the person posting the information. If 500 amateurs run into the same issue then it's likely a training/user issue and not a manufacturing one. If 500 well seasoned experts run into the issue then there may yet be a problem with the manufacturing/design.



Looks at WD's credentials.  Yep, they know what they are talking about.



yogurt_21 said:


> That said, I've yet to see ANY expert post about this issue. While yes if you're building a server you'll go with RAID edition enterprise drives, anyone building a desktop is fine using WD desktop drives even if they plan to RAID.



If you've bothered to do even a little research, as I told you to do, you'd see WD themselves talking about the issue on their site.



yogurt_21 said:


> The issues you speak of only apply to expensive RAID controllers being paired with these drives. The OP is not doing that. I seriously doubt >1% of the people on here could afford that kind of RAID card for their primary PC. Even then if you're pairing an 80$ hard drive with a 2500$+ RAID controller you got what you paid for.



It isn't just expensive RAID controllers, I have no idea where you are pulling that from.  Again from the WD article on the issue that you probably wont' acknowledge exists:

[sigquote]* Most* RAID controllers allow from 7 to 15 seconds for error recovery before dropping a hard drive from an array.[/sigquote]

The issue can happen with cheap controllers all the way up to high end controllers.  Either way, the OP isn't using the drives in RAID, so it doesn't matter so I'm done arguing about it.  The issue exists, WD acknowledges it, it is up to the purchaser if they want to chance it, end of discussion.


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## qubit (Jul 9, 2011)

*NT*, that WD article was interesting.  Now I know what RE stands for on their drives and why they cost so much more money.

It looks like the practical upshot of using my Greens in RAID, is that they will work just fine. Until something causes an error. This would be either the beginnings of wear and tear, or if the drive is physically knocked while running, which causes a temporary error. Either of these will cause the start of a deep recovery cycle (sounds dramatic, dunnit ) and this is where the RAID controller can drop the drive. So, data loss fun can ensue if the same knock causes _both_ drives in a RAID 1 setup to simultaneously enter a deep recovery cycle...

Finally, after all this, WD doesn't deprecate using Desktop edition hard drives in RAID, with this statement: "WD only recommends using a Desktop drive in a RAID array with no more than two (2) drives (Raid 0 or Raid 1 only)" which is found in the companion article, Support for WD desktop drives in a RAID 0 or RAID 1 configuration linked in the first one.

To me, this would exactly explain how you saw these problems and yogurt didn't. The problem won't happen very often, but when it does, it's serious, so it's best avoided.

*Yogurt*, perhaps some of that small number of WD RAID drive failures you've seen were actually this issue manifesting itself, but it wasn't recognized? I'm thinking that the the odds of this problem happening occasionally with so many drives in so many environments is quite high.


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## Frizz (Jul 9, 2011)

I've got the EARX, I paid and I got. I think EARX is the newest revision.


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## newtekie1 (Jul 9, 2011)

qubit said:


> *NT*, that WD article was interesting.  Now I know what RE stands for on their drives and why they cost so much more money.
> 
> It looks like the practical upshot of using my Greens in RAID, is that they will work just fine. Until something causes an error. This would be either the beginnings of wear and tear, or if the drive is physically knocked while running, which causes a temporary error. Either of these will cause the start of a deep recovery cycle (sounds dramatic, dunnit ) and this is where the RAID controller can drop the drive. So, data loss fun can ensue if the same knock causes _both_ drives in a RAID 1 setup to simultaneously enter a deep recovery cycle...
> 
> ...



Yes, and because I run RAID 5 and 6 arrays, the problem is more likely.  As I said, the problem is non-existant in RAID0.  The controller is smart enough to know not to drop a drive and to wait as long as it needs to for the drive to respond, otherwise all the data will be lost.  And the reason WD only recommends RAID1 in a consumer environment is, again, because if the controller drops a drive and the array has to be rebuilt it isn't considered a mission critical issue like it would be in an enterprise environment.  As I said, I'd rather just avoid the issue completely and buy another brand for RAID environments, consumer or enterprise.


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## qubit (Jul 9, 2011)

newtekie1 said:


> Yes, and because I run RAID 5 and 6 arrays, the problem is more likely.  As I said, the problem is non-existant in RAID0.  The controller is smart enough to know not to drop a drive and to wait as long as it needs to for the drive to respond, otherwise all the data will be lost.  And the reason WD only recommends RAID1 in a consumer environment is, again, because if the controller drops a drive and the array has to be rebuilt it isn't considered a mission critical issue like it would be in an enterprise environment.  *As I said, I'd rather just avoid the issue completely and buy another brand for RAID environments, consumer or enterprise.*



Well, it seems a shame to cut out the brand completely. Wouldn't their RE (RAID Edition) drives be ok? Or is it a cost issue, perhaps; they are undeniably expensive.


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## newtekie1 (Jul 9, 2011)

qubit said:


> Well, it seems a shame to cut out the brand completely. Wouldn't their RE (RAID Edition) drives be ok? Or is it a cost issue, perhaps; they are undeniably expensive.



I'm not cutting the brand out completely.  I still buy them all the time when I'm putting them in a single drive configuration.  I just don't buy them when I know they will be used in a RAID configuration.  With drive prices and quality being some similar, I see no reason to chance having the issue, so when I'm buying a drive for RAID I don't buy WD, but that is the only time I don't buy WD.

And yeah, the RE drives are cost prohibitive.  I don't think it is worth paying extra for a piece of firmware code that has no reason to be removed from their desktop drives other than to allow them to "justify" the extra cost on the RE drives.


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