http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070409/sc_livescience/newharddrivesholdaterabyteofdata

heath

Isn't a terabyte a 1000 gigs? I didn't know this was a big deal. Yesterday at BB I purchased an external USB hardrive (laptop user) with 250gig for $99, and they had external terabyte drives for $449 with IEEE 1394 and USB.

I saved a small forest!

1tb hdd will rock. cant wait for 2nd generation and the price to come down.

Yeah, I've been seeing 1TB external drives for quite some time now, AT LEAST a year, maybe two.

Terabyte drives might be old news in professional multimedia systems but I bet no one's running a yottabyte drive. Now that would be something.

Liam.

Yeah, I've been seeing 1TB external drives for quite some time now, AT LEAST a year, maybe two.
That's because those devices either use 2 x 500GB or 4 x250GB hard drives. Single HDD's of 1TB were anticipated to be released this spring...and here they come!

Pete beat me to it, but yes, all those drives are made up of two hard drives in one enclosure.

heath

Pete beat me to it, but yes, all those drives are made up of two hard drives in one enclosure.

heath
I suspected that might be the case.

One question though, apart from being cheaper to manufacture, what would be the benefit of a single drive over a multiple one?

You can put two 1tb drives into one case to make a 2 tb drive. It's also more efficient.

heath

I suspected that might be the case.

One question though, apart from being cheaper to manufacture, what would be the benefit of a single drive over a multiple one?

What do you think of doubling storage capacity over 500 GB disks or even quadrupling over 250 GB disks? In a very compact (2 disk) enclosure you can now get 2 TB. Just be aware to only use eSATA and not USB or fire wire to get the full benefit.

What do you think of doubling storage capacity over 500 GB disks or even quadrupling over 250 GB disks? In a very compact (2 disk) enclosure you can now get 2 TB. Just be aware to only use eSATA and not USB or fire wire to get the full benefit.

Obviously, they'll be more storage. What I mean is will a 1TB drive be faster and more durable than 2 500GB drives or 4 250GB drives? Will it be quieter and less prone to fail?

In short does size matter?

Obviously, they'll be more storage. What I mean is will a 1TB drive be faster and more durable than 2 500GB drives or 4 250GB drives? Will it be quieter and less prone to fail?

In short does size matter?

I don't know if it would be more prone to fail or not. Keep in mind that if you have 2 drives in an enclosure, wouldn't you say there is 2x greater chance that one will fail? If configured in a RAID 0 (Which is most likely) you lose everything anyway. So......I don't know.

I can say I have a tendency to want to have 4 250GB external drives around and swap them as I need them. If any one of them dies I still have 75% of my files. If I have one great big TB drive and it fails.....I have 0% of my files.

At this point in time I can easily handle HD projects and not exceed 250GB so I am OK.

I don't know if it would be more prone to fail or not. Keep in mind that if you have 2 drives in an enclosure, wouldn't you say there is 2x greater chance that one will fail? If configured in a RAID 0 (Which is most likely) you lose everything anyway. So......I don't know.


Absolutely. If the probability that one drive in a pair will fail is p the probability that neither will fail is (1-p)*(1-p) = 1 -2p + p*p. Thus the probability that at least one drive will fail is 2p - p*p or not quite double. That's why RAID sets (in some configurations) use redundancy. The probaility of a failure is higher.

Also note that the next increment after the terrabyte drive (or drive set) is the petabyte drive. These are used to store petafiles (sorry, I just had to).

Absolutely. If the probability that one drive in a pair will fail is p the probability that neither will fail is (1-p)*(1-p) = 1 -2p + p*p. Thus the probability that at least one drive will fail is 2p - p*p or not quite double. That's why RAID sets (in some configurations) use redundancy. The probaility of a failure is higher.

Nice math, but it doesn't tell us diddly squat about whether or not using one new drive as opposed to two older ones is a better option. The new drives incorporate a new manufacturing technique and I'll bet they're just a little bit flaky.

Just told my wife your petafile joke, she looked at me like I was mad:)

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=E83FDD2&nplm=TJ763LL%2FA

Are you sure this is just 2 500GB discs? Because they do have a version of this that is 2 discs that is 2TB, and this has been out for quite some time.

Matthew, that LaCie unit is indeed 2x500GB drives. Read the reviews at the Apple Store or over at Newegg and other places. Or just the specs at LaCie's web site. Their 2TB Bigger Disk Extreme is 4x500GB drives in one enclosure.

Hitachi is still the only one shipping 1TB hard drives. They were announced as available back in December, but supply has been extremely limited. PC vendors like Dell haven't been able to get the quantities to actually offer them in production systems until now.

Seagate also has 1TB drives ready to go and should be shipping them within the next few weeks. I know Maxtor has announced them as well, but don't know when we can expect them. I have yet to see any real-world benchmarks and reports of the 1TB drives. Either Anandtech or Tom's had a brief review of the Hitachi unit within the last 60 days, but it was rather brief. Price on these drives is MSRP $399. Look for street price from most online vendors to be ~$370 and commonly available here in about another 2~4 weeks.

Seagate also has 1TB drives ready to go and should be shipping them within the next few weeks. I know Maxtor has announced them as well, but don't know when we can expect them.

Is Seagate still going to run Maxtor as a separate entity? I figured Maxtor would go away after Seagate acquired them.

-gb-

Is Seagate still going to run Maxtor as a separate entity? I figured Maxtor would go away after Seagate acquired them.I expect that the Maxtor brand will stick around. They're typically a bit cheaper than Seagates and don't have as strong a warranty.

I have no idea which parts and factories apply to the two brands though. It's probably pretty fungible by now.

Larger drives are faster because they have a higher density of data per drive platter. For a 2TB mirror, you are better off getting two 1TB drives than four 500GB drives, unless you can run RAID0+1.

Larger drives are faster because they have a higher density of data per drive platter. For a 2TB mirror, you are better off getting two 1TB drives than four 500GB drives, unless you can run RAID0+1.
So, there we go, size matters. Don't tell the missus;)

Absolutely. If the probability that one drive in a pair will fail is p the probability that neither will fail is (1-p)*(1-p) = 1 -2p + p*p. Thus the probability that at least one drive will fail is 2p - p*p or not quite double. That's why RAID sets (in some configurations) use redundancy. The probaility of a failure is higher.

Also note that the next increment after the terrabyte drive (or drive set) is the petabyte drive. These are used to store petafiles (sorry, I just had to).

Two words....SOLID STATE DRIVE, ok that's three...

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=E83FDD2&nplm=TJ763LL%2FA

Are you sure this is just 2 500GB discs? Because they do have a version of this that is 2 discs that is 2TB, and this has been out for quite some time.

The link you pointed at is two disks. the 2 TB version you mentioned is 4 disks. Just to remind you, LaCie has a rather bad reputation in terms of reliability. In addition is only has fire wire and USB interfaces, which for me would be unacceptably slow.

The link you pointed at is two disks. the 2 TB version you mentioned is 4 disks. Just to remind you, LaCie has a rather bad reputation in terms of reliability. In addition is only has fire wire and USB interfaces, which for me would be unacceptably slow.

Hmm, thanks for the heads up on Lacie. Didn't realize they had a bad rep.

Hmm, thanks for the heads up on Lacie. Didn't realize they had a bad rep.

Actually LaCie has a rather good rep and a surprisingly strong following... Considering most of their products are grossly overpriced and kinda suck. They market themselves mostly to the pro graphic design and imaging industries, more so to Mac users and I think that's where they get some of their pro image and reputation. However, I have never used or owned a LaCie product that I was truly pleased with. They have been marketing a lot more to the general consumer over the last year or two and their business has been picking up I guess, but I still don't understand where they get so many loyal customers and people who praise their products.

LaCie, for me, was a mixed bag, but I think that's common with most drives. I love Fantom and G-Tech, though we had three G-Drives go down at the same time. Same with LaCie.

But those may have been isolated. Because new G-Drives and both older and newer LaCies have done well for me, and also where I work.

Drives will eventually fail, esp. if they're bumped to the floor, which happened to our LaCie.

Heath

I think the title of this thread should be something else other than what it applies. It's a tad misleading :)

Bill

I think the title of this thread should be something else other than what it applies. It's a tad misleading :)
I think that's why they're called threads: as in, they weave:)

It was in reference to drives that "run" at 1TB. When I first saw the title of this thread, it read as if there's new drives that have a 1TB per sec transfer rate.

run doth not equal capacity :D

Bill

LaCie, for me, was a mixed bag, but I think that's common with most drives. I love Fantom and G-Tech, though we had three G-Drives go down at the same time. Same with LaCie.

Well not to defend LaCie or the other brands, but since they will use off-the-shelf hard drives, some portion of the failure rate can be attributed to the hard drive manufacturer. That said, poor thermal exchange (and not manufacturing defect) is probably the number one cause of consumer drive failure. LaCie and others may have built their device without engineering proper heat dissipation.

If you dig around for the report from Google on drive failure (they have a LOT of drives) they found no correlation between drive temperature and failure. Nor did they find any one that was better or worse than others. What they did find was the typical bathtub curve, if it doesn't fail early in it's life due to a manufacturing defect, it'll almost certainly last quite a long time until it wears out. This is pretty typical of most thing, particularly electromechanical devices and kind of makes those MTBF figures a bit misleading.
NAS devices are very cheap these days, we have just bought the Thecus 5200 with 5x400G Samsung drives in RAID 5 and so far liking it a lot. We could have fitted 5 x 1TB drives but the $/GB was best on the 400GB drives.

It was in reference to drives that "run" at 1TB. When I first saw the title of this thread, it read as if there's new drives that have a 1TB per sec transfer rate.

run doth not equal capacity :D

Bill

Point taken, a 1TB/sec drive, that would put a new spin on "Gone in 60 seconds";)

re: GOogle report:
http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.html

re: 1TB drives, Hitachi has announced 960GB usable disk space (though marketed as 1TB) single disk drive 7200rpm should be available for purchase around august, september.

Seagate's working on squeezing more GB per plate so that they can achieve a "true 1TB" usable space (maybe market it as 1.1TB?) that's the rumour i think. it will most likely be more like 990GB usable space or somn stupid like that. should be available for purchase december 07 into spring of 08 for cheaper prices.

all sata BTW as sas will take probably 5-10 years to reach such a large disk size @10,000rpm or 15,000rpm.

initially, price of the hitachi is $600ish MSRP, seagates is comparable, but by late '07 hitachi should inch closer to $500 or close to 400 with rebates, etc. seagates will debut late 07 and be close to 400-500 by summer of 08 or maybe winter. by then, 1TB drives will be flooding the market =D.

even if you have a 4port raid0 (not that you should do it, but technicall you could) you can get 3.7ish TB of usable space. if you're crazy and have 8port or 16, 24ports you can have close to just as many TB's in raid6 even! i just can't imagine the rebuild time if 1 disk dies.