Tale of two 7K3000 Hitachis

[lifespeed]

It is about time for me to upgrade from my venerable Seagate 1 TB ST1000340NS 'enterprise' 5-drive RAID array. Wouldn't it be great to leapfrog the 2 TB drives and upgrade to 3 TB? But they're expensive.

Wait, I found the Hitachi 7K3000 Deskstar 0F12450 available for $215. That is alot less than $350 for the Hitachi 7K3000 Ultrastar 0F12456 with 2 million hour MTBF and 5 year warranty.

Do the Deskstar drives still offer Time Limited Error Recovery for use in RAID arrays? I think Hitachi calls it CCTL or something.

What are the pros and cons of my various drive upgrade options? I would like to increase from my current 4 TB to 6 TB without breaking the bank.

Edit: what about 512 byte sectors vs 4K sectors? Does this matter? I am using Highpoint 3520 card.

 

[lifespeed]

Although only a 5400 RPM, the 3 TB Hitachi Deskstar model 0S03230 is exceedingly inexpensive at $140. Get what you pay for, or a reliable and economic RAID solution?

Edit: I see they sell 0S03228 model number also, 3TB 5400 RPM. This is what has me confused. As a RAID user I need to get a set of drives that will likely be available in the future so I can buy matching drives to expand.

The plethora of part numbers for 3 TB at a given RPM really has me concerned. Which is the 'mainstream' 5400 RPM 3TB drive part number I should get?

 

[halkx]

Although only a 5400 RPM, the 3 TB Hitachi Deskstar model 0S03230 is exceedingly inexpensive at $140.

New price of this is 119usd...If you take the other hitachi models' reliability into consideration you should be safe to assume that this drive is a reliable and economic raid solution for low speed demanding applications