10-18-2008, 01:45 PM
FWIW - comparing Seagate to Hitachi 1TB HDs... We have encountered a very low failure rate on both - awesome reliability in terms of sheer numbers on both the 7200.11 and the 7K1000s... but in just the actual numbers of units returned - we have shipped far more of the Hitachi 1.0TB out straight as well as in our solutions and had far far fewer failures with the Hitachi. That said - still talking very small numbers that still wouldn't stop me from buying/using a Seagate 1.0TB drive.
I've said this for years... a longer warranty doesn't mean a better drive. Good marketing though.
That said... on Enterprise drives, the longer warranty is good (all Enterprise drives from all HD makers are 5yrs except Samsung that is now 7yrs) - That longer warranty is supposed to ensure that if a drive fails in that RAID-5 of yours, the MFR is supposed to give you an identical replacement down the road so can drop the replacement back in. On non-enterprise drives, the replacement is typically equivalent or better - which is fine except if your setup needs the same exact.
I've said this for years... a longer warranty doesn't mean a better drive. Good marketing though.
That said... on Enterprise drives, the longer warranty is good (all Enterprise drives from all HD makers are 5yrs except Samsung that is now 7yrs) - That longer warranty is supposed to ensure that if a drive fails in that RAID-5 of yours, the MFR is supposed to give you an identical replacement down the road so can drop the replacement back in. On non-enterprise drives, the replacement is typically equivalent or better - which is fine except if your setup needs the same exact.