10-18-2008, 05:20 PM
OWC Larry wrote:
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.
Hi Larry
Thanks for the thoughtful input, I had not considered availability of the identical Seagate ST31000340AS consumer level drives down the road if and when I experience a failure. Sent a technical inquiry to HighPoint support RE their 2314 eSATA card and if exact match is mandatory on hardware RAID-5. I purchased from OWC the SansDigital TR8M enclosure and RocketRAID 2314 based on input from Jamie Dresser and Chris Haeffner, so far all is good after steep learning curve on RAID and hot swap reserve drives.
Must confess however the high cost of eight 1TB drives forced me to choose lowest cost vendor that still came in at $1100 for the Seagate AS drives. Eight of your Enterprise drives was just out of the question in view of high cost. Will advise you, Jamie and Chris of the reply I get from HighPoint tech support.