Re: hardware doctors!

[Jonathan Q <jq@example.com>]

Christopher SEKIYA (wileyc@example.com) wrote:

Christopher> With ATA, all bets are off.  ATA drives should never be used in applications
Christopher> that require reliability or survivability.  Full stop.

Don't we have one in hikari?  :-)

Generally, though, the difference between a SCSI disk and ATA is in 
the electronics rather than the mechanics.  Manufacturers generally
use the same HDA in both SCSI and IDE.  Yet another reason why both
types from a given manufacturer are likely to be either both good
or both bad.

A few years ago this was not true, but IDE is a whole lot faster now
than it was a few years ago.

Jonathan

Christopher> Don't judge a manufacturer on their ATA quality, as they're all pretty much
Christopher> crap across the board.

IBM's are quite good.  I also have a Quantum Fireball that has been going 
for over three years, and my five year old 1.2 GB WD Caviar.  But 
five years ago, Caviar drives were very good.  I've heard from a lot of
people that, unfortunately, that's no longer the case.


Christopher> (Apart from me, Ayako, Dmytro, Scott, and Jonathan).  I'd be interested to 
Christopher> hear hardware horror stories ...

Not a horror story, but back before I worked here, they once took the top off
of an old retired SCSI disk (with an OS on it), pointed a web cam at it,
and booted the system.  People could watch the drive for a couple days
until it totally self-destructed :-)

Jonathan