[Pc_Support] Maxtor 100GB Serial ATA (SATA) drive $99.99 - $65.00rebate

[Jason Boxman]

On Monday 21 November 2005 21:33, William A. Mahaffey III wrote:
<snip>
> New on the list, can't resist. I have believed for several years that
> modern HDD's (IDE vs. SCSI) are identical as far as platters, motors,
> bearings, heads, etc. Only diffs are in the board & hookup's. This is
> based on some time spent several years scouring Seagate's site for
> drives for some SGI's, and noticing that MANY basic part #'s (as well as
> descriptions of components) for IDE & SCSI drives were identical except
> for 1 letter which distinguished SCSI or IDE. Thus, there should be no
> discernible difference in longevity, suitability for Linux or not, etc.
> True/false/other ?

I think there is a great deal of truth to that.  Bryan might be able to 
elaborate more.

It's hard not to think of drives in terms of being SCSI or IDE (inteface 
type), but a better distinction might be operational rating (24/7 v 14/5 or 
whatever) or enterprise versus consumer.  For example Western Digital's 
Raptor has the dimensions of a enterprise drive, despite being a 
consumer/prosumer disk.  (36GB and 74GB sizes versus the typical commodity 
sizes of 80, 120, 200, ect.)

I think at the end of the day you just have to look up the particular disk and 
see if it's rated for the kind of operation you desire, be it 24/7 or just 
once in a while, and buy the reliability your application desires.  In my 
case I just buy the cheaper drives without the 24/7/365 guarantee and hope 
they last.  Often they do since they may very well be from the same 
manufacturing process as the higher rated disks, but not tested to the higher 
standard to fill order requirements for the lower rated disks.

-- 

Jason Boxman
http://edseek.com/ - Linux and FOSS stuff