Topic: Hard Drive Capacities Overview (Read 12550 times)

benn600 · « **on:** March 28, 2009, 10:23:51 am »

After doing some research, I came up with this table that shows the approximate best price on Seagate drives at various capacities. Not long ago I was buying 500GB drives for $200. The 2TB drive is Western Digital.

Dollars	Gigabytes	$ / GB
60	500	0.12
80	1,000	0.08
130	1,500	0.087
300	2,000	0.15

Overall, 1TB drives are the best value. Surprisingly, 1.5TB drives are closely behind, though.

Unfortunately, the worst part about these huge drives is that when I looked at the reviews, I was not impressed. The Seagate drives have very recent reviews that talk about DOA drives and even one guy who lost a 20TB array because 5 drives failed so quickly! Are we doomed to endure vast data loss as these huge drives become more prevalent? To my surprise, the Seagate drives had about three times the negative reviews than the 1TB Western Digital drive. I've used WD drives almost exclusively for the longest time but heard that Google's huge tracking of drive failure found that WD is not among the best so was starting to consider Seagate.

Mr ChriZ · « **Reply #1 on:** March 28, 2009, 10:49:47 am »

I think Seagate had major firmware issues over the past couple of months which may explain your findings
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2009/01/21/seagate_firmware_fix_breaks_barracudas/

JimH · « **Reply #2 on:** March 28, 2009, 11:05:09 am »

I bought a 1.5TB Seagate drive two weeks ago. Fine so far.

Mr ChriZ · « **Reply #3 on:** March 28, 2009, 11:11:21 am »

Living on the edge there Jim

benn600 · « **Reply #4 on:** March 28, 2009, 11:20:54 am »

Quote from: Mr ChriZ on March 28, 2009, 10:49:47 am

I think Seagate had major firmware issues over the past couple of months which may explain your findings
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2009/01/21/seagate_firmware_fix_breaks_barracudas/

True but as I described, there are reviews posted recently--yesterday or today--talking about all the problems. That scares me--especially when at some point I may buy 16 identical drives. Am I supposed to order an extra drive or two assuming a few will be DOA?? As long as I can remember I think I have only purchased one DOA drive. It was a 320GB Maxtor. It ended up being good, though, because I realized I didn't need that extra drive and got a refund.

In this checking it was nice to see 2TB drives are out there. What will the next size be?? 2.5TB, 3TB?

Mr ChriZ · « **Reply #5 on:** March 28, 2009, 12:13:49 pm »

I imagine some of these drives take a few months to go through the distribution channels, and much though i'd like to think that warnings were sent from Seagate, and the distributes responded appropriately, life aint perfect.

benn600 · « **Reply #6 on:** March 28, 2009, 01:05:24 pm »

Yea, I totally understand. It's just that this isn't a "dang this player doesn't play FLAC" thing. Lots of people rely on hard drives for their months/years worth of work and all too many don't have working or acceptable backup schemes. I know my backup scheme could be improved and I try to do so as time goes on...but it's always a battle between devoting serious time and not devoting serious time (but still not losing data, by chance)...

newsposter · « **Reply #7 on:** March 28, 2009, 06:07:04 pm »

All my storage is mirrored and I backup to jbod drives in rotation. My jbod cabinet can connect by USB or eSata. Both of my big mirrored storage boxes have both kinds of connections available. I also have a dongle for the jbod cabinet that plugs into the USB2 and turns the whole thing into a network (CIFS/FTP) storage server. I do no compression in my servers but compress the hell out of the backups.

Other people use a single or dual SATA drive 'dock' and manually insert drives as necessary to capture backups.

None of this is rocket science. And all of it is available at the local computer store.

benn600 · « **Reply #8 on:** March 28, 2009, 06:50:35 pm »

It is rocket science when you include incremental and offsite backups. Not that I do but if you consider your data vital and un-losable, then there is no extent to how overly protected you could try to be. To be true offsite it should probably be a few states over. Of course if an entire city was destroyed one would wonder if the people would have survived. Then is the data important?

newsposter · « **Reply #9 on:** March 30, 2009, 01:48:16 pm »

It's only rocket science if you choose to make it that way. Mirrored data drives and regular full backups to fast media (such as removeable disk drives) reduce or eliminate any requirement to perform incremental backups.

benn600 · « **Reply #10 on:** March 30, 2009, 01:55:08 pm »

Does anyone want to comment on their favorite hard drive manufacturer? I wonder if it is between Seagate and Western Digital...? I haven't seen Maxtor drives much lately in my general searching. Reliability is probably most important factor for a favorite HDD Mfr. to me.

Doof · « **Reply #11 on:** March 30, 2009, 02:10:04 pm »

Quote from: benn600 on March 28, 2009, 06:50:35 pm

It is rocket science when you include incremental and offsite backups. Not that I do but if you consider your data vital and un-losable, then there is no extent to how overly protected you could try to be. To be true offsite it should probably be a few states over. Of course if an entire city was destroyed one would wonder if the people would have survived. Then is the data important?

Please tell me you're joking. Please.

JimH · « **Reply #12 on:** March 30, 2009, 03:28:06 pm »

What about a really big meteor? Would a few states away be enough?

Doof · « **Reply #13 on:** March 30, 2009, 03:37:30 pm »

Very true. I think the only way to be really sure is to set up a datacenter on the moon. Although if the Earth is destroyed it might take the moon with it. Might want to take a look at Mars. One of Jupiter's moons would be even better, although the latency might be a bit much.

JimH · « **Reply #14 on:** March 30, 2009, 04:24:07 pm »

Quote from: Doof on March 30, 2009, 03:37:30 pm

Very true. I think the only way to be really sure is to set up a datacenter on the moon. Although if the Earth is destroyed it might take the moon with it. Might want to take a look at Mars. One of Jupiter's moons would be even better, although the latency might be a bit much.

benn600 · « **Reply #15 on:** March 30, 2009, 07:01:44 pm »

So that was interesting. Back to everyone's favorite brands.

Matt · « **Reply #16 on:** March 30, 2009, 07:10:23 pm »

Quote from: benn600 on March 30, 2009, 07:01:44 pm

Back to everyone's favorite brands.

I want an Intel SSD.

dcwebman · « **Reply #17 on:** March 31, 2009, 08:42:09 am »

Seems WD has been my drive of choice lately. I had been using a WD MyBook for offsite backup until the USB connector on the thing broke. Soldered it back on but something else must be wrong and wouldn't you know it, it's a couple months over the warranty. Oh well, that prompted me to get an Acomdata 500GB portable (2nd one I have) to use for the offsite. Sure makes it a lot easier to carry back and forth. Not sure what drive is in it though and I don't plan on tearing it apart to find out.

AoXoMoXoA · « **Reply #18 on:** March 31, 2009, 09:02:51 am »

I have had failures with all the brands I have used so it is not necessarily brand-specific, and I think they have all gone through 'rough-spots' at various times or on certain models related to quality control and reliability.
In light of that I quickly learned early-on that good back-ups were a necesssity regardless of brand used.

This left another factor, cost. Not just initial cost or cost-per-gb, but cost-per-GB-per-year.

Since good shopping skils + patience can yield such a close cost-per-GB that brand is not much of a factor here it came down to life-expectancy/cost-per-year. Seagate, with their 5 year warranty, wins here.
I have had no more (and no less) drive failure with Seagate than I had with WD or Maxtor, but it has cost me nothing due to the long warranty.

So for now Seagate is my drive of choice, at least until I see another brand with the same or longer warranty for similar price.

Doof · « **Reply #19 on:** March 31, 2009, 09:13:37 am »

Hard drive warranties are great, but until they let me turn in a drive with the platters destroyed/removed, I'm not too keen on sending it in. I just consider the cost of a new drive ($130 usually) my paranoia/privacy tax.

ThoBar · « **Reply #20 on:** March 31, 2009, 09:53:23 am »

Personally, my experience with WD has been far better than with Seagate. This is most true when it comes to external drives, but does hold to some extent for internals as well.

At my workplace, my guys and I have had at least 8 external devices (branded as Seagate or Maxtor) die within months of purchase over the last 6 months.

I've now instructed our procurement arm to stop purchasing them. I should point out these are non-mobile externals, and are not subjected to the rigours of transport.

It's strange, as other people I know will tell almost the opposite story.....

JimH · « **Reply #21 on:** March 31, 2009, 10:13:21 am »

Quote from: confishy on March 31, 2009, 09:53:23 am

It's strange, as other people I know will tell almost the opposite story.....

The probability of flipping a coin a hundred times and getting nothing but heads is small but not zero, and the probability is identical to that for getting tails 100x. As you well know.

This explains a lot of things, and not just about drives.

benn600 · « **Reply #22 on:** March 31, 2009, 10:14:08 am »

Excellent! My 16 WD drive server has seen failures but they have all been after the 3 year waranty has expired. I find seagste drives on newegg are dirt cheap compared to WD right now. I'm worried about reliability because of an above comment...cost per gigabyte per year <--very important when running 19 drives in a server! Otherwise it could easily mean a hundred bucks a month maintenance!

I've been a long time WD believer but Google found they aren't the most reliable so I got worried.

AoXoMoXoA · « **Reply #23 on:** March 31, 2009, 10:25:29 am »

I should mention that I still run several WD's and several Seagate's that are past-warranty, so both do have a good deal of durability on average.

I have also had replacements under warranty with each, seems more with Seagate, but when you factor in WD's shorter warranty length it comes pretty much back into balance.

Like Jim says, flip a coin
but a little research into a model's reputation and consumer ratings can't hurt

Oh, Maxtor's were about the same as well, but haven't had any in a while.

* this is all referring to internal drives, most often one of the larger capacities available at the time of purchase.

Mr ChriZ · « **Reply #24 on:** March 31, 2009, 11:47:28 am »

They never had this problem with punch cards.

newsposter · « **Reply #25 on:** March 31, 2009, 01:01:56 pm »

never buy drives from the same production lot, or even the same month. Spread your purchases out and you'll spread the risk of failure out.

benn600 · « **Reply #26 on:** March 31, 2009, 01:56:06 pm »

Quote

never buy drives from the same production lot, or even the same month. Spread your purchases out and you'll spread the risk of failure out.

Good idea. Do punch cards come in 1.5TB capacities? I like the idea of avoiding this problem.

The reviews on Newegg for the large Seagate drives looked horrible with a big percentage of 1 star reviews saying they were DOA or failed early...about 30% while WD drives only had 10% 1-star reviews. Granted people with a bad experience are much more likely to write.

DiiPii · « **Reply #27 on:** May 14, 2009, 02:05:15 pm »

My 10cents. I have 6 SG barracuda 1.5TB's (bought from Dell on sale @ $89/ea). All same batch. all running 24/7 for almost 3 mths with no issues. I read the bad reviews & issues, but at that price thought I could afford to roll the dice...and at least to present seems to be paying off.

benn600 · « **Reply #28 on:** May 25, 2009, 10:19:48 pm »

Does anyone know of a good deal on 1TB or 1.5TB drives? I'm very close to building a new server. At the moment, the best price I am finding (WD) is $90 for 1TB and $130 for 1.5TB.

I'd really like to see $80 for 1TB or the above order of $90 for 1.5TB drives--what a bargain!

AoXoMoXoA · « **Reply #29 on:** May 26, 2009, 08:13:11 am »

Quote from: benn600 on May 25, 2009, 10:19:48 pm

Does anyone know of a good deal on 1TB or 1.5TB drives? I'm very close to building a new server. At the moment, the best price I am finding (WD) is $90 for 1TB and $130 for 1.5TB.

I'd really like to see $80 for 1TB or the above order of $90 for 1.5TB drives--what a bargain!

HITACHI 0A38016 1TB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM
[ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145233&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL052609&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL052609-_-HardDrives-_-L0A-_-22145233 ]

$79.00 includes free shipping, with Promo Code EMCLSNT27 $75.00

benn600 · « **Reply #30 on:** May 26, 2009, 10:25:56 am »

I've been hoping to find the WD drives for $80 ($10 discount). I'm a bit leery of going with Hitachi, mainly because I don't know much about their reliability and those drives also only have 16MB cache.

Honestly, the 1TB green drives seem like the ideal purchase because they run quieter, cooler, etc. In a server with 22 of these drives that will really help. I may not need to upgrade my UPS. I read some specs and they average 1 watt less draw compared to the WD Black drives during seek. At idle, they save several watts.

My plan (subject to change) is a 20-hot swap bay case with all twenty devoted to a single array in RAID6+. My current card allows this and I hope this new Areca 24-port does as well. It basically means 3 parity drives. And one will be a hot spare. So 16TB + 3TB parity + 1TB hot spare.

My current setup is 16 500GB drives in RAID6 (no hot spare) = 7TB. This is literally down to 10GB free. I look at it that I could double all the data on the system, 14TB, and still have nice breathing room of 2TB.

The case also has a slim optical port which I'll put a slim DVD-RW drive in. Lastly, it can support a drive in the center and I expect that where the slim floppy bay is, I can put another drive. So this will allow me to have RAID1 for the OS drive. I will either use onhand 500GB drives or just get a few more 1TB green drives.

What size power supply will I need for this system?
Low-end Core 2 or Xeon (haven't decided yet) [65 watt]
4 - 8GB memory
Slim optical drive
Areca 24-port hardware RAID card
22 7200 RPM drives (green edition)

I tried to add it up and thought perhaps 400 watt. Can anyone recommend a redundant PSU on Newegg? All the cheaper ones seem to have poor reviews saying it's better to spend the money on a better single-unit.

Addition: Do hot spare drives literally stay spun up and ready to go? If they do, aren't they wearing? Shouldn't they be cold-spares?

I got the Newegg email too with the Hitachi drives. I can get four more (24 total) for the same price as 20 WD. The cache is no big deal because I'm not going for speed in any way. Capacity! Besides, I'll get plenty of speed. But I may jump on that deal. Thankfully it lasts about a week. Then I was reading that the Green drives are not good for RAID...oh great! I am incredibly concerned with a reliable setup--like the one I've got now. I'm keeping my current server for a very long time and may just use it as a large backup device--not that it will hold everything this new server will have

Daydream · « **Reply #31 on:** May 26, 2009, 03:21:33 pm »

Quote from: benn600 on May 26, 2009, 10:25:56 am

Then I was reading that the Green drives are not good for RAID...oh great!

I was reading through your post and was tapping my fingers on the keyboard, ready to write exactly that. WD Green brand and RAID (even if build around a good controller like one of Areca's) is a no go. Black is more expensive. Personally I have a bunch of Samsung F1's that never had a problem with.

The 22 drives + Areca is a very cool setup which I'm pretty familiar with having researching and considering it for a while, but isn't kind of expensive, all in all, just for storage? (if you don't do video editing and the likes)

benn600 · « **Reply #32 on:** May 26, 2009, 04:08:57 pm »

I right now have the 7TB array full. We keep all of our digital media on it and video editing--especially HD video--eats it up. I'm constantly filming events and such. For the above server, it will cost around $3,700. That really isn't too bad considering it is for 16TB. For $4,500 I can build 24TB (1.5TB drives) and that's probably what we'll do.

The last server I built (7TB) cost around $5,000. That was almost exactly two years ago. So in two years, for a little less money, I can have more than 3 times the storage space. Amazing. I just keep thinking about Blu Ray and how those discs are so big. This new server wouldn't even flinch at Blu Ray capacity!! I greatly prefer lump one-time purchases over having to constantly dump smaller amounts of money into things so if I can do this right...although last time I thought I did it right. It was the perfect size for about 1.5 years and then it started feeling full.

Perhaps Seagate 1.5TB drives since they seem to have the trouble worked out with new firmware.

benn600 · « **Reply #33 on:** May 26, 2009, 04:23:41 pm »

Who wants to help calculate the MTBF or any statistics on these arrays:

Array 1
16 drives - 500GB
2 drives can fail (RAID6)
12.5% parity

Array 2
19 drives - 1,500GB
3 drives can fail (RAID6+)
15.8% parity
[one hot spare]

Array 3 [later addition]
21 drives - 1,500GB
3 drives can fail (RAID6+)
14.3% parity
[one hot spare]

newsposter · « **Reply #34 on:** May 26, 2009, 05:50:18 pm »

remember the problem I pointed out with buying all of your drives from the same production lot.

You also need to bounce the drive cost vs real-world throughput in a raid setup.

Daydream · « **Reply #35 on:** May 26, 2009, 06:34:24 pm »

Well that thing with video editing kind of explains it

. Specific hardware, for specific needs. Blu-Ray does kick the requirements up, so better be safe. What case you have in mind? Norco (newegg)?

And I imagine you read threads like this and maybe this on Avsforum.

benn600 · « **Reply #36 on:** May 26, 2009, 08:16:51 pm »

I keep changing what I'm after. I go from absolute cheapest possible (Norco) and then decide the Supermicro offers enough extra. Lately I realized the key is to break the hardware apart from the hard drives because they really are quite separate. My latest round is a bit more pricey but will allow me to get 27TB of space, $5,500 or so. It's the Supermicro 24-bay case where 22 will be for the big array and 2 for the OS.

22 - 3parity - 1spare = 18 drives * 1.5TB = 27TB

It is truly a balance because I can easily get the price down, but that means less space. This latest round also includes a quad-core Xeon, better motherboard, server-grade everything. So the extra thousand dollars (over $4,500) yields some noticeable items.

A redundant power supply is sounding better and better, not to mention the extra 4 bays in the Supermicro. This means that I get 2 extra drives for the big array (3TB) but the OS drives are also in hot swappable bays--very nice. The optical drive is in the back of the case (very space efficient). Plus, I feel that the Supermicro case is probably more in the league of my current Chenbro case. Both seem to be decent-quality brands. The Norco, I believe, weighs a lot less and surely doesn't have all the features.

benn600 · « **Reply #37 on:** May 26, 2009, 08:38:17 pm »

Quote from: Daydream on May 26, 2009, 06:34:24 pm

Well that thing with video editing kind of explains it . Specific hardware, for specific needs. Blu-Ray does kick the requirements up, so better be safe. What case you have in mind? Norco (newegg)?

And I imagine you read threads like this and maybe this on Avsforum.

Those threads are unbelievable. I guess at this point, I'll keep doing light research and watch for a great deal on the 1.5TB drives.

How smart would it be to start with, say, 12TB and lots of empty bays and then add more 1.5TB drives as needed and expand the array? I must insist that all the data is on the same array because it makes mapping and remotely connecting to the server much simpler. If I reorganize data there is no cross-drive (interdrive) slowness. It's all intradrive then.

Daydream · « **Reply #38 on:** May 26, 2009, 09:10:42 pm »

Quote from: benn600 on May 26, 2009, 08:38:17 pm

Those threads are unbelievable. I guess at this point, I'll keep doing light research and watch for a great deal on the 1.5TB drives.

How smart would it be to start with, say, 12TB and lots of empty bays and then add more 1.5TB drives as needed and expand the array?

That would've been my approach should I went that way. You don't need max space right now, just some more, and in the coming months may be in the position to take advantage of lower prices. Just make sure they don't retire the type of HDD, 'cause I wouldn't be too happy mixing different models even if of the same brand. Then again at the numbers you're working with, there is not much of savings overall, ~$200 if the prices drop 20 bucks per drive or so.

Regarding another thing you touched a bit above, depending on the Areca you have I believe it should do array spin-up/spin-down, if aiming to save power.

benn600 · « **Reply #39 on:** May 26, 2009, 11:01:19 pm »

I have found the spin down to be useless in my particular application. There are a few reasons:

1. Spin up obviously draws a lot of power and could trigger a PSU failure if it happens a few times every day.
2. This server is very versatile. I host several domains (many are for development purposes) and web site traffic nearly requires constant availability.
3. Even without web applications, I would often experience a 10+ second delay when trying to access the array. This irritates me as I wonder if there is a problem and is very annoying when it happens a time or two every day (morning mainly).
4. I've heard all too often how it is so much better to run equipment (that can handle it) 24/7 rather than on/off all the time.
5. The premise for this server is really always on. At night, I have a lot of automatic processes such as downloading podcasts, running email / database / etc. backups. All of these require the array to be available.
6. At times, I have had minutely / hourly actions that would download security camera images from our cameras and weather images from our local channel. This way, our local computers can have instant and archived access to these images.

I'm amazed I came up with that many reasons. As far as the WD Green drives goes: what I probably need are 5400 RPM drives. I'm not after speed all that much because these cards typically top out at 600MB/sec regardless of the drive count (past 10 probably), speed, etc. Even worse: I'm limited by the gigabit Ethernet connection. I would be greatly interested in 10-gigabit networking on my main computers and this server if the prices are within reason.

Daydream · « **Reply #40 on:** May 27, 2009, 12:07:18 am »

From what you're describing, no. 4 pretty much wraps it up. At that kind of activity is indeed better to leave the equipment always on.

10Gigabit is too "emerging", cost is too high (you'll build a couple of more TB file servers for that kind of money). I've only seen solutions like that done on fiber.

I'm not sure at this point if you're talking about your home that became also an office or about your office and you're planning to live there too

benn600 · « **Reply #41 on:** May 27, 2009, 12:09:41 am »

This seems to be the best case choice:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811152124

$950 includes a 900 watt 1+1 redundant power supply. The power supply alone is worth the difference from the Norco to the Supermicro. Other advantages of the Supermicro over the Norco ($290) are:

1. Forces me to get the much needed redundant PSU.
2. Allows for 2 more drives in the main array (3TB more).
3. The OS drives are in hot-swap carriages rather than strictly internal.
4. I have a Supermicro motherboard in mind and it supposedly has quick connectors for same-brand components.
5. Much heavier case--better build quality overall.
6. The slim optical drive goes in the back, out of sight for the 99% of the time it is not needed (only during OS install).

I'd really like to go with another Chenbro but the 24-port case seems to cost well over two grand.

benn600 · « **Reply #42 on:** May 27, 2009, 12:12:33 am »

For 10-gb networking to even be possible, it needs to run over regular Cat5e cable. I don't even want to think about running more cable.

Daydream · « **Reply #43 on:** May 27, 2009, 01:39:05 am »

Quote from: benn600 on May 27, 2009, 12:09:41 am

This seems to be the best case choice:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811152124

$950 includes a 900 watt 1+1 redundant power supply. The power supply alone is worth the difference from the Norco to the Supermicro. Other advantages of the Supermicro over the Norco ($290) are:

Read this, they build arguments pro and against these 2 cases better than I could. Personally I do not believe in a $600 difference but obviously you;re seeing these from a different angle, which in the end may be working better from you.
It's not the first time I hear the Supermicro is very loud, whoever has it got it mounted in the basement somewhere and ran cables through the house.

I can't remember where on Avsforum was it but they measured the power draw on these dual PSU server chasis. Conclusions where 2:
- the draw is not that high (900W is overkill unless you wanna put the server at work for something else - encoding?). What's the power consumption for a drive, at max? By some measurements a Samsung F1 1TB is ~11W at random read. Times 24... go figure.
- the second PSU is definitely for backup, not load balancing (as you intended, I'm just throwing this in just for fun). The main PSU hold the fort, the second one draw 2-5W just to stay alive.

benn600 · « **Reply #44 on:** May 27, 2009, 09:55:30 am »

Good article. I'm totally for saving money here. When I've been talking to Promise tech support or other people and tell them I'm running a 16-drive setup on a single PSU, they all gasp. Is that just because that is crazy in a business environment? I just think as the drive count gets larger and larger a power failure could be more likely to be catastrophic.

This server is in the closet immediately adjacent to our theater. If I can get a quieter server, I'd love to. We hear the current server in the theater a tiny bit. Quieter would be better. Is the redundant PSU the main problem? My current Chenbro has 5 high power hot-swappable fans that seem to create the majority of the noise.

Oh, and where is the 24 bay Norco they reference??? That would knock out several of my points. I like the Supermicro also because it has an 80+ PSU -- or at least the 1200 watt has an 80+ Gold PSU and I can't even find an 80+ redundant PSU on Newegg.

So ~$300 for Norco + $100 single PSU? $550 savings! Total = $5K then. I was originally using a baseline core 2 with a simpler motherboard. Upgrading to a Xeon (quad-core), DDR3, and nicer motherboard added $350 or so.

DarkPenguin · « **Reply #45 on:** May 27, 2009, 10:15:57 am »

Supermicro rack mounts tend to sound like an L-1011 taking off.

The more drives you have the more likely a power glitch will cause all kinds of neato things to happen. A drive doesn't have to actually fail for the system to start rebuilding it.

You could also try a number of external esata jbods. They'd end up being about the same price but would bundle the disks together in smaller groups.

Anywho.

benn600 · « **Reply #46 on:** May 27, 2009, 11:39:22 am »

Does anyone know when the Norco 24-bay chassis will be released? I couldn't find a contact link on Norco's site.

benn600 · « **Reply #47 on:** May 27, 2009, 03:12:40 pm »

Why do server motherboards often include multiple network ports? One motherboard I'm looking at has four! Can I get four times the bandwidth somehow? That would be very intriguing!

JimH · « **Reply #48 on:** May 27, 2009, 03:20:32 pm »

We have a virtual server with eight network ports. Each "bottle" can run a different OS and each has a dedicated network port.

DarkPenguin · « **Reply #49 on:** May 27, 2009, 03:21:44 pm »

The reason for multiple ports is that you can attach to multiple networks. You can also use this for redundancy, load balancing and failover.

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Author Topic: Hard Drive Capacities Overview (Read 12550 times)