Toshiba 5TB external drives

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Patrick

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Does anyone happen to know what type of hard drives are in these: Amazon.com: Toshiba 5TB Canvio Desktop External Hard Drive (HDWC250XK3J1): Computers & Accessories

Also, has anyone warrantied a "shucked" hard drive from one?

I need some 5TB drives but the idea of spending $215 on a WD Red Amazon.com: WD Red 5TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD50EFRX: Computers & Accessories is not sitting well (newegg is $195 but free same day Prime is preferable)

If the Toshiba drives inside those are decent, it might be worth picking a few up at $139.
 
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unwind-protect

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Woah. I love those MD04ACA5 and DT01ACA3 drives and I can't get them cheap anymore. Not eager to be first penguin on the x300 series.

Tempted to order 5 of those external things, if the first one has a good drive keep them all, if not send 4 back...
 

briandm81

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Goharddrive has the Seagate 7200RPM enterprise models for 199. But you have to go through Goharddrive for the warranty.
 

briandm81

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I've always had good luck with those guys, but I have no idea. I'm guessing they are new pulls.
 

Patrick

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Just did 4 of these Toshiba's. Expect something online soon.
 

briandm81

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Cool. I'd be interested if they do TLER. I have a 9265 I'd love to use them with. Especially at that price.
 

Stereodude

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Cool. I'd be interested if they do TLER. I have a 9265 I'd love to use them with. Especially at that price.
CCTL/TLER settings don't seem to stick through a power cycle on recent drives, even enterprise ones, that report supporting it. This may be by design. It would be nice to know exactly how / if / when HW RAID cards enable TLER / CCTL.
 

Patrick

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Any chance you could test those with a gardware RAID controller like a 9265-8i? :)
Going to be tough. I have been HW RAID free for quite some time now. I may try that IBM controller that is sitting next to my desk if I get a chance.
 

briandm81

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Thanks! I just don't have time to learn something new like ZFS. I would really like these drives over 200 per for the Seagate drives.
 

Rain

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The only thing that concerns me with drive shucking is the drives were likely binned; there is a reason they're in externals and not being sold as bare drives. Sure, it's cost effective to have spares, but if the reliability of these drives is (even slightly) lower compared to the same bare drive, I'd rather have the warranty for a few years than save a few bucks.

Edit: Please see @Patrick and I's follow up posts: #20 and #22.

Thanks! I just don't have time to learn something new like ZFS. I would really like these drives over 200 per for the Seagate drives.
If you're not interested in "learning" the more advanced features ZFS has to offer, achieving the same functionality as hardware RAID (drive redundancy) is as easy as one command:
Code:
zpool create <volume_name> [mirror,raidz,raidz2] <drive1> [<drive2> ...]
Especially in situations where IOPs are not the #1 "we need all teh IOPz, or else!" concern, I cannot honestly recommend hardware RAID anymore as the cons far outway the pros.
 
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Stereodude

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The only thing that concerns me with drive shucking is the drives were likely binned; there is a reason they're in externals and not being sold as bare drives. Sure, it's cost effective to have spares, but if the reliability of these drives is (even slightly) lower compared to the same bare drive, I'd rather have the warranty for a few years than save a few bucks.
As someone who has a large number of Toshiba drive I don't post this with any glee, but the warranty may not be worth much.

...I cannot honestly recommend hardware RAID anymore as the cons far outway the pros.
To you... Not everyone is going to reach the same conclusion.
 

Patrick

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The only thing that concerns me with drive shucking is the drives were likely binned; there is a reason they're in externals and not being sold as bare drives. Sure, it's cost effective to have spares, but if the reliability of these drives is (even slightly) lower compared to the same bare drive, I'd rather have the warranty for a few years than save a few bucks.
Let's put it this way, I know one of the major manufacturers does NOT do this. NDA wise I cannot really go into details but I am not sure where the concept of them being binned is coming from.
 
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