Want a 4K sector drive.

dcx_badass

I want another 4k sector drive.

I plan on using Windows raid 1 in my WHS 2011 machine, I've done it before and found it fine, so no need to go into that. Atm I have two Samsung F4's, my thinking is get another drive and run two in Raid 1 and then have the third kept off site.

Now my logical thinking is have the Raid 1 a mix of one samsung F4 and then one hard drive of another make to reduce possible manufacturing problems. Then the other Samsung F4 kept off site. All 2TB drives.

My problem is finding another 4k sector drive.
The western digitals have spin down problems so I'll write that out.
I don't like seagate, due to past firmware issues.
Hitachi seem pretty good, had no problem with my other externals, but their 2TB drives seem to still use 512 sectors.

I'm right in thinking raid 1 of a 4k and a 512 sector drive is a bad idea, correct?

So does this leave me any other options, or should I get a third samsung F4 and presume it should be ok?

Agent-A01 · 07-03-2011, 02:57 | posts: 5,705 | Location: USA

What Spin down problems are you referring to?

I have 2 systems with raided WD drives and neither of them have that problem.

dcx_badass · *Last edited by dcx_badass; 07-03-2011 at 03:02.*

The 2TB green drives, spin down after 5 seconds of no use from what I've read, and this seems to be pissing a lot of people off and causing a lot of unnecessary wearing on the drives. I know a few NAS manufacturers have recommended against them.

Apparently so much so that they spin down whilst say playing a media file if it is buffered ahead by more than say 5 seconds so the drive is not used for that time, it parks the head, then takes another 3-5 seconds to wake back up and play, causing pauses and delays. I'd rather avoid tbh.

Agent-A01 · 07-03-2011, 03:01 | posts: 5,705 | Location: USA

Why would you go with a green drive anyways? i Have 4 1tb WD blacks tho, im sure none of the 2tb blacks are affected by it.

dcx_badass · 07-03-2011, 03:03 | posts: 9,567 | Location: Leeds [UK]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Agent-A01

Why would you go with a green drive anyways? i Have 4 1tb WD blacks tho, im sure none of the 2tb blacks are affected by it.

Because they're storage drives in my server. I want lower speed, power and heat. And no the blacks don't, only the greens. Would rather avoid them anyway, not risk the hassle.

Agent-A01 · 07-03-2011, 05:44 | posts: 5,705 | Location: USA

Never had any problems with blacks before. they dont make more heat than the greens. also, an extra 2 watts of power required for black is meaningless.

thatguy91 · 07-03-2011, 09:50 | posts: 2,962 | Location: Australia

4k drives at 2tb are kinda meaningless, its only when you go above around 2.2TB that is becomes more important.

Also note that there aren't any true 4k drives, and Windows does NOT actually support true 4k drives. At the moment 4k drives use 4k sectors with 512 byte emulation, which somewhats defeats the purpose (to an extent), and you lose any performance benefits you may have had with it being a 4k drive with the in drive 512b emulation...

Pyro the Dragun · 07-03-2011, 10:20 | posts: 376 | Location: Manhattan, Kansas

As said by thatguy91, I was under the impression that most 4k drives use 512 emulation of some sort anyway (this might have changed with Win7, but I thought it was a still a problem/deal/thingy with Vista).

Also, don't write off the WD blacks; I bought a WD 1TB SATA3 Black a while ago and was almost blown off my seat when I benchmarked it, it performed better than my (slightly older) Raptor, which I had not seen in any tech reviews nor expected of it.

And, as final thought, don't you need to due some formatting trick to get the 4k benefits? (pertaining to my first point ^)

dcx_badass · 07-03-2011, 13:55 | posts: 9,567 | Location: Leeds [UK]

No, they are proper 4k drives, windows 7, WHS 2011 will format them correctly. I don't want blacks, I want green drives, 5400rpm etc, it's my server, ethernet is maxed out well before the hard drives are anyway.

Agent-A01 · 07-03-2011, 18:06 | posts: 5,705 | Location: USA

Just go with another of what you already have. You seem to be writing off every other drive recomendations.

dcx_badass · 07-03-2011, 18:12 | posts: 9,567 | Location: Leeds [UK]

Not really, no-one is reading what I put, seriously why are you recommending me performance 7200rpm drives for a server.

thatguy91 · 07-03-2011, 18:40 | posts: 2,962 | Location: Australia

Want I meant by proper 4k drivers is drives with no 512b emulation. Windows 7 does NOT support full 4k drives

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2510009

A native 4k drive is what I would refer to as a 'proper 4k drive. What you want is an 'Advanced format' drive. 4k physical sector size and 512 byte logical sector size (512 emulation), hence why its also called 512E.

dcx_badass · 07-03-2011, 20:19 | posts: 9,567 | Location: Leeds [UK]

Well it's an AFT drive I want then.

I'll probably just get another Samsung F4 then.

Thanks.

Mineria · *Last edited by Mineria; 07-18-2011 at 18:40.*

You can always align the drives yourself.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...ql.100%29.aspx

For low level alignment, most HDD brands offer advanced disk alignment tools.

johnny87au · 07-22-2011, 03:32 | posts: 1,817 | Location: Only the best AU

go for WD greens, i use them in my NAS and never have any problems! 5200rpm too.. U dont need WD blacks or any f3 drives for storage/server ..

dcx_badass · 07-30-2011, 00:01 | posts: 9,567 | Location: Leeds [UK]

I bought some more Samsung F4's in the end, well two more, one for my server and one for my dad's NAS. I have 4 of them now and they seem decent enough.