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---- Google Publishes Hard Drive Study


AlexK - 12:41 am on Feb 21, 2007 (gmt 0)


I certainly bought SCSI for the server (2003) because of the perception that SCSI was the only way to go for a professional setup so--to that extent--the hype/reputation sure worked on me.

Thing is, my experience has confirmed the hype/reputation. Work on my (Linux, SCSI) server is blisteringly fast on disk-bound operations, whilst the same operations on my (Windows, ATA) desktop stumble along. And of course I'm not comparing like-for-like:

Colo Server:


Home Desktop:
  • 1 x 160GB 7,200rpm Maxtor 8MB ATA
  • 1 x 80GB 7,200rpm Seagate ATA
  • 512MB main-memory
...hardly any comparison.

It seems to me that for someone in my position, with a single machine in a remote Colo, I would go for SCSI because of it's reputation for speed and reliability (which has, so far, been confirmed).

BTW: does anyone know whether SCSI drives report scan errors, sector reallocations, offline reallocations or sector Probational Counts and--even more important--how to pick up the info under Linux?

Comment: with hindsight, and in G's position, I would have gone for the cheapest discs also. They have simply taken the idea of RAID (remember: "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Discs") to it's ultimate and run with it. Good on 'em.


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