Getting New Sata Drive

ishamy

ishamy

ishamy

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I've made my decision on a WD Caviar 250gb 16MB Cache, but there are 2 drives which look the same but have a price difference of £2, is there a difference between:

Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-046-WD)

and

Western Digital Caviar RE 250GB 2500YS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-104-WD)

other than the picture being different? :rolleyes:

(Edit: This is my first Sata drive, so i don't have a clue really :D )
 
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spb251272 said:
That's what the RE stands for on the YS model - "Raid Edition". If the difference is only £2 then get the RE as it's designed for 24/7 usage.
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Yes and No.

"Hard drives typically perform error recovery on their own, pausing for extended periods of time to save data that might otherwise be lost. That works well enough for drives acting independently, but it can be problematic when multiple drives are bound together in a RAID array. RAID controllers prefer to handle error recovery on their own, so they don't want to waste too much time waiting around for a single drive's heroic attempt at solo error recovery.

If a drive pauses for too long trying to recover from an error, it may be tagged as a failed disk and dropped from the array, even if its attempt at error recovery is ultimately successful. To prevent this premature array ejection, TLER limits the amount of time that a drive will pause to recover an error before it resumes normal operation. If the error isn't quickly recovered by the drive, the RAID controller will sort it out. However, if the drive isn't connected to a RAID controller that supports error recovery, data could become corrupted or lost. That's why Western Digital doesn't recommend TLER-equipped drives for non-RAID applications. "
 
Well blow me, I didn't know that was the case. I don't see the point in buying the RE versions then, because even if it was for use in a RAID array, you may want to use one on it's own in the future. Better just getting the SE version then :D
 
spb251272 said:
Well blow me, I didn't know that was the case. I don't see the point in buying the RE versions then, because even if it was for use in a RAID array, you may want to use one on it's own in the future. Better just getting the SE version then :D
Click to expand...

I remember reading about it some time back, but took some time googling it to find out exactly why.
 
I've been also thinking about Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE)

I've read that these are very good drives as well, The drive I am replacing is a 120gig Maxtor IDE drive which came with my old Compaq pressario 4 years ago ( :confused: spelling?) This drive will be my main drive to run windows and games etc. while my second drive which I have is a 200gig Seagate Barracuda IDE drive which will be my storage drive for files etc.

Which between the Seagate and WD would be my best selection, and will I notice a big performance difference using one of these drives to that of my Maxtor? I will be partitioning my new drive for Windows then games, which i don't have at the moment.
 
wizardmaxx said:
The seagate 7200.10 range is the fastest sata drive, barr raptors, atm.
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Except some suffer from noisy motors. This isn't classed as "faulty" so you would have a major problem getting a replacement for the quieter ones.
 
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