Legit Reviews

Hi,
I was going to set up a RAID5 4x1TB on a TX4650 promise raid controller. But it looks like those drives are MIA (as my first option 4x750GB WD7500FYPS) in Spain and will not be "available" again in about 4-5 weeks.
I'm looking for some help about:
1. Do you know any european shop (serious) where to find those drives? (I want 5) All I found say in 20-30 days they probably "have".
2. Which would be a "real" alternative for those drives? Maybe from hitachi (ultrastar series) or seagate (es.2 series)? Or any other ideas.

I'm not looking for a +30MB/s performance or -0.3ms random access, I'm looking for stability and reliability (and low wattage). It would be much appreciated any help coming from people who knows about 24x7 storage.

Thank you for so much views... I finally got the RE-2 GP Western Digital so alternatives are not required anymore. Lets RAID.

The WD RE2-GP were broken (3 of 4). So I changed them for 4x Seagate ES.2 (ST3100340NS). If you have a Promise TX4650 remember to:

I publish this information for those who had never had a RAID5 configuration.

1. update to the latest BIOS always.
2. use the latest drivers.
3. use webpam to create the raid not the other interface because initialization is a long process. use a full initialization to create a RAID5. Wait until initialization is done before formating! It took 3 days (72h) to fully initialize a "4TB raid". Be patient.

RAID5 is not meant for performance but I post the HD Tach for those interested:

Thanks, the Seagate HD's (Enterprise) are excellend Hard drives.

Calamar wrote:The WD RE2-GP were broken (3 of 4). So I changed them for 4x Seagate ES.2 (ST3100340NS). If you have a Promise TX4650 remember to:

I publish this information for those who had never had a RAID5 configuration.

1. update to the latest BIOS always.
2. use the latest drivers.
3. use webpam to create the raid not the other interface because initialization is a long process. use a full initialization to create a RAID5. Wait until initialization is done before formating! It took 3 days (72h) to fully initialize a "4TB raid". Be patient.

RAID5 is not meant for performance but I post the HD Tach for those interested:

3 of the 4 WD drives were broken? What was wrong with them?

Presented LBA BSR (constant reports via webpam) when initializing. 1,3,4 had so much bad sector reports that the controlled retired the disks before 5% of initialization.

Now I'm having problems with the seagates. The read speed is correct, but every time I copy a file inside the GPT begin writting at 50-60MB/s but after a few seconds speed (5-7s) is reduced to 6MB/s. I think this time is a controller problem. It is curious because with certain activities with other drives (f.e. copy a file from drive S: to T:) the write speed between whatever and the raid5 returns to 50-60MB/s.

I hate all this poltergeist raid issues. I'm really tired. Also I'm very disappointed with promise, their support (they reply fast but with no solution), and the information their provide about their products (compatibility lists). I don't know how other controllers are, but would never recommend promise. (I have a TX4310 and a TX4650).