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back to article WD hopes biz barons will grab its new 4TB data tubs

WD has added two mainstream 4TB enterprise disk drives to its range, with Xyratex and Dell using them straight away. Basically it looks like the same 3.5-inch format drive mechanics with either a 6Gbit/s SAS or SATA interface. The RE SAS is available in 1TB, 4TB, 3TB and 4TB capacity points, with the RE SAS coming in 2GB, 3TB …

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  1. jabuzz

    Bit error rate

    So the $60,000 question is what is the bit error rate on these drives. This is frankly of far more importance than the MTBF these days.

    Also 60 drives in 10U, that is rubbish density as all the major players are offering 60 drives in 4U, e.g. IBM DCS3700 for example

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    1. Alan 6
      Reply Icon

      Re: Bit error rate

      Dell's MD3600 will fit 60 drives in 4U, I think the puzzle is how they'll fit 10 of the 4U 60 drive enclosures into 10U of space - maybe they're buying rack technology off Dr Who

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    2. Ammaross Danan
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Re: Bit error rate

      I think you missed the metric of these 4TB drives being 3.5" whereas your "60 drives in 4U" is for 2.5" drives....

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  2. Mr Anonymous

    Agree on the BER, but _if_ it has a suitable number, which I doubt, what is the rebuild time for an array with these in it?

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  3. jai

    But, Hitachi do a 4TB external drive for 170 quid - people have been buying those, ripping them out of their enclosures and putting them in their servers.

    I know, not enterprise level, but that's a massive price difference between pro and home use isn't it?

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    1. DavidRa
      Reply Icon
      Holmes

      Yeah - "normal" thing to do

      They all do it. They claim they've selected certain drives and made them differently, in an "enterprise" ready state. Frankly I figure the extra bucks are twofold - one, to get enough dosh to cover the extra warranty claims from running the drives 24x7 for 5 years instead of 8x5 for 3 years (it's 44000 hours instead of 6280), and two, some extra margin for the resellers to make some money off the enterprise drives.

      I really do doubt the quality is that different (of course having said that, I'll get home and I'll have lost 4 of the 20 disks in my array of consumer drives).

      Sherlock would know whether or not the drives are different ...

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  4. avh

    DELL MD3 aka MD3660

    umm yes the MD3 does hold 60x 3.5" in 4U that's the product Brett Roscoe is refering too.

    aka dell DELL MD3660. Which I think is an OEM NetAPp E5400 right?

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