[mythtv-users] BackBlaze hard drive study

[Stephen P. Villano]

On 1/29/14, 9:23 PM, Gary Buhrmaster wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 4:14 PM, Craig Treleaven <ctreleaven at cogeco.ca> wrote:
>> Very interesting analysis from running 25,000 consumer-class drives over 5
>> years:
>>
>> http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/01/21/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/
> A rather scathing response regard the statistical accuracy of this report:
> http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/storage-hardware/selecting-a-disk-drive-how-not-to-do-research-1.html
> _______________________________________________
>
What I see is vendor data vs experiential data from one outfit that
testing a ton of various inexpensive drives.
As such, do we really want to trust an opinion that is based upon vendor
ratings? Do we trust a tester who has no hard drive industry affiliation?

Actually, neither.
First, what was the HD temperature of each drive in each bundle in each
unit during its testing?
What was the ambient temperature of the rack, the array unit, etc?

Those are really big deals, as we're talking about potentially cooking
the hard drives, something unforgivable for any electronic device not
designed to be cooked.
And yes, I mean cooked. I've worked in far less than optimal
environments, including server rooms that reached 105-110 degrees F and
lousy ventilation, air conditioning performed by split air conditioner
units designed for habitations, not a server room.
We'll suffice it to say that we had significant loss of hardware,
especially server fans and the occasional power supply.
Add in the real difference between consumer hard drives and enterprise
SAS drives, there's another really big difference.
But, without temperature data, we really don't have a clue what was
really going on.
And to be blunt, I'll not trust my *own* word on it without a trainload
of real numbers.