#278246 - 26/03/2006 04:42
Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
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pooh-bah
Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
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These are a love/hate item, but they're my favorite woot. My 500GB raid5 array is going up to the 1TB mark with a hot spare, I think. As usual, no idea how long the woot will last. Also great for replays/tivos/xboxes in need of upgrading.
Matthew
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#278247 - 26/03/2006 18:06
Re: Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
[Re: matthew_k]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
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#278248 - 26/03/2006 19:54
Re: Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
[Re: matthew_k]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 20/01/2002
Posts: 2085
Loc: New Orleans, LA
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Hehe, I dunno. My data is too important to risk on a refurbed drive. Important to me, anyway.
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#278249 - 26/03/2006 20:32
Re: Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
[Re: lectric]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
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I just think that's a bogus argument. Even if we accept that the refurbished drive is more likely to fail than a new drive, any data that's "too important for a refurbished drive" is too important to not be backed up.
My feeling is that any drive that's working properly now is no more likely to die than any other. I could be wrong, but then, these go into a raid array where it's not really an issue.
Matthew
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#278250 - 26/03/2006 21:09
Re: Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
[Re: matthew_k]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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It's also a moot point if you have a RAID 5. I imagine the chance that more than one drive will fail at the exact same time is unlikely. Unfortunately I saw this woot at around 1PM, which seems to have been about 10 hours too late 
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Matt
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#278251 - 27/03/2006 00:37
Re: Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
[Re: matthew_k]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 20/01/2002
Posts: 2085
Loc: New Orleans, LA
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Granted, I'll admit it's just a mental block of mine. Then again, at work, when any drive on one of my arrays at work gets kicked out for the second time, I replace it. No questions asked. Call me paranoid. Backing up 250G+ at home can get rediculously expensive. Much cheaper to just mirror and be done with it.
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#278252 - 27/03/2006 05:51
Re: Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
It's also a moot point if you have a RAID 5
That still isn't an excuse to not do backups 
Quote:
I imagine the chance that more than one drive will fail at the exact same time is unlikely.
That chance isn't as low as you think actually. If you're buying from the same batch then it is possible that there is a flaw in both of them.
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#278254 - 27/03/2006 06:28
Re: Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
[Re: n2toh]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
How is one suposed to backup 1TB on the cheap?
Buy more HDs to use as an offline backup or buy a tape drive. Backup systems aren't cheap. It all depends on how valuable your data is. If you feel okay with RAID5 just protecting against drive failure then go with that. If you want to make sure that if you accidently formatted the wrong partition that you can get everything back then go with a backup system as well.
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#278255 - 27/03/2006 10:03
Re: Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
[Re: lectric]
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old hand
Registered: 14/04/2002
Posts: 1172
Loc: Hants, UK
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That's what I'm planning to do imminently, just buy 2x 250Gb HDDs and copy my essential data over, then clone my 30Gb system drive onto the current 120Gb secondary drive and then I will be happy for a good while yet.
Actually, does anybody know whether it is recommended to use different makes (of an identical size) in a SATA RAID configuration? I know about the compatilbity concerns of the RAID array itself, which is partly why I'm going to get a PCI card. (The other reason being that my motherboard doesn't have on-board SATA and I don't need to upgrade the rest yet)
Gareth
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#278256 - 27/03/2006 10:25
Re: Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
[Re: g_attrill]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
Actually, does anybody know whether it is recommended to use different makes (of an identical size) in a SATA RAID configuration?
Depends on how paranoid you're feeling. The theory is that a batch of drives bought from the same manufacturer at the same time might have a flaw that causes them all to die at the same time.
However, unless you're really unlucky, they're not all going to die at exactly the same time. You just have to hope that you've got a hot spare available before the next one dies.
Personally, all 4 drives in my RAID array are Seagate Baraccuda SATA disks, all bought at the same time, from the same place. Hopefully they won't all die at the same time.
I'm not too bothered, though -- I have got fairly recent backups.
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-- roger
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#278257 - 27/03/2006 19:07
Re: Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
[Re: g_attrill]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
of an identical size
Got to be careful about this part. The precise capacity seems to vary slightly among the drive manufacturers. You might get a couple hundred MB more on one than the other. Your RAID controller won't like it if you replace a dud drive with one that is a fraction smaller.
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#278258 - 28/03/2006 01:49
Re: Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
[Re: matthew_k]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 19/09/2002
Posts: 2494
Loc: East Coast, USA
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Quote:
I just think that's a bogus argument.
Maybe I can rephrase it. My time is too valuable (not really) to spend recovering from a backup at the worst possible time. My frustration level is too great (really) to deal with "clicks of death" any more often than I have to.
I'll pay top dollar for my WDs and Segates for the sense of security that they won't die TOO soon. Not.... too soon.....
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- FireFox31 110gig MKIIa (30+80), Eutronix lights, 32 meg stacked RAM, Filener orange gel lens, Greenlights Lit Buttons green set
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#278259 - 28/03/2006 21:39
Re: Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
[Re: tman]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
Got to be careful about this part. The precise capacity seems to vary slightly among the drive manufacturers. You might get a couple hundred MB more on one than the other. Your RAID controller won't like it if you replace a dud drive with one that is a fraction smaller.
I even had that problem when I ordered an additional IBM drive using the model number. Quite how they thought it was a good choice to suddenly start shipping a slightly smaller drive with the same model number !
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Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#278260 - 30/03/2006 12:56
Re: Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
[Re: andy]
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enthusiast
Registered: 11/06/2003
Posts: 384
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Quote:
Quote:
Got to be careful about this part. The precise capacity seems to vary slightly among the drive manufacturers. You might get a couple hundred MB more on one than the other. Your RAID controller won't like it if you replace a dud drive with one that is a fraction smaller.
I even had that problem when I ordered an additional IBM drive using the model number. Quite how they thought it was a good choice to suddenly start shipping a slightly smaller drive with the same model number !
Sun will even switch vendors using the same part number.
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#278261 - 30/03/2006 13:17
Re: Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
[Re: Mataglap]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Got to be careful about this part. The precise capacity seems to vary slightly among the drive manufacturers. You might get a couple hundred MB more on one than the other. Your RAID controller won't like it if you replace a dud drive with one that is a fraction smaller.
I even had that problem when I ordered an additional IBM drive using the model number. Quite how they thought it was a good choice to suddenly start shipping a slightly smaller drive with the same model number !
Sun will even switch vendors using the same part number.
They should be asking the drive manufacturer to give them special drive firmware which caps the capacity. Thats how it should work anyway...
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#278262 - 30/03/2006 13:30
Re: Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
[Re: Mataglap]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
Sun will even switch vendors using the same part number.
IBM, a drive manufacturer (at the time), managed to switch manufacturer on me. The drive that arrived when I ordered a new IBM 18GB SCA drive was a Seagate...
...it was however clearly marked with the IBM part number.
I expect they are still sitting on a shelf here, because I didn't bother to look at the drives in detail until a couple of months after I got them and Scan didn't want to take them back after that length of time.
_________________________
Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#278263 - 30/03/2006 13:53
Re: Woot: Refurb 250GB HD's for $50 again
[Re: tman]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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They do. Sun drives with the same part number seem identical from the OS (with the exception of the SCSI ID string).
_________________________
Bitt Faulk
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