The drive is new technology, with connection speed of up to 6Gb/s, it would have a higher price than a corresponding 3.0Gb/s drive such as the ST32000542AS. (Both are LP drives).
Consider the 6.0Gb/s ST32000641AS which is a 7200 RPM drive for $170 and the previously mentioned ST32000542AS is only $90.
This is true, however when comparing the sustained write performance between the ST2000DL003 and the ST32000542AS units there is a difference of 49MB/s, that will be noticeable. ST2000DL003 = 144MB/s ST32000542AS = 95MB/s
If it was just for pure capacity, the older 512b sector drive would be fine. My take on this is, Seagate will phase out the older 512b ST32000542AS drive and replace it with the ST2000DL003 drive.
As for 7200 RPM vs 5900 RPM performance, the ST2000DL003 actually has better sustained write performance than does the ST32ST32000641AS ST32000641AS = 138MB/s ST2000DL003 = 144MB/s
Right now the there is only approx. $20 price difference between the two LP drives. (not including shipping)_
No drive over a gigabit network will record that performance since anything over 112MB/s is theoretically impossible. (1000Mb/s divided by 8 = 112MB/s.) You would have to have available a 10Gb/s network which would be very unusual outside a corporate installation. So why pay more for a drive that is not on the list when the higher transfer speed cannot be utilized?
As the ST32000542AS has a sustained transfer rate of 95 MBps, and the theoretically max you will see with a 1GB link is 125Mb/s, I would expect to see better performance with the ST2000DL003, if only up to 112Mb/s. In the past to get any kind of higher performance, required you to purchase the Enterprise 7200 rpm drives at a much higher price premium. If I can get better throughput at a small(ish) price increase, I'm all for it and willing to wait for it to be certified.
This was never supposed to be a this drive is better than that drive thread or why would one choose a 6Gb/s interface over a 3Gb/s when the NAS only supports 3Gb/s...
As originally stated: "Any word on when they might be tested" How and when are drives selected to be tested?
I ordered three of the ST32000542AS only to be told by the online retailer that they couldn't get hold of any more stock. They offered me three of the ST2000DL003 at the same price.
These are for a ReadyNAS Ultra 2-bay. All I need to know is will they work given that in my case they will be the same price.
The problem is that until someone tries them or they show up on the HCL, no one knows. Even if someone is successful, you still won't know 100%. In the U.S, both Newegg and Amazon have them. From your forum id, you may be in Australia so you may be limited to Amazon.
Unfortunately it looks like the online stores are struggling with stock levels around this 542AS in Australia.
Had a look at a couple of other options on the HCL but it seems that it is in need of a significant refresh as there are a number of new drives released by the HD vendors that haven't found their way onto the list.
It takes time for NetGear to test drives thoroughly and if necessary work on compatibility fixes and retest drives. NetGear will update the compatibility list when they are satisfied that drives are compatible and not before. Also note, that NetGear has to wait for drives to appear on the market, then as supply improves buy a large quantity of the disks (need lots of drives to test allowing for disk failures and testing on multiple units) so it can take a while before disks are able to be added.
Just picked up two for my forth-coming Ultra 4 Plus! I like the idea of having a newer drive model (vs. the EADS) for future availability when one inevitably fails!
I have a netgear readynas NV+ with 4 x 2TB ST32000542AS in Raid X
In the past month or so i've had Smart errors on one of them specifically:
"Sun Feb 13 04:00:04 EST 2011 Reallocated sector count has increased in the last day. Disk 2: Previous count: 18 Current count: 21 Growing SMART errors indicate a disk that may fail soon. If the errors continue to increase, you should be prepared to replace the disk."
So rather then face a total disk failure later, i tried looking for the past month in Australia for a replacement ST32000542AS, well none could be found. I've been keeping my eye out on this thread and saw the ST2000DL003 made it on the HCL so i took the risk and bought one (ST2000DL003). Last night I pulled out disk2 (failing one), and swapped with ST2000DL003. It immediate saw the drive, it matched the "usable GB" count and corresponding resynced. Its now finished resyncing and all is good. (according to the readynas anyway).
I believe the ST2000DL003 is a 4k sector disk. If partitions are not aligned properly you may notice poor write performance. On Sparc ReadyNAS (e.g. NV+) to get 4k sector alignment you need to backup all data, upgrade to RAIDiator 4.1.7 and do a factory default. See http://www.readynas.com/RAIDiator_4_1_7_Notes
Try transferring a large file from your computer to the NAS over ethernet. If the speeds are pathetic compared to what they were before then you know there's a problem.
If I was to get two of these for my Duo, do I remove one and let it sync and then remove the other and let that sync too? Or is there something I need to do with this 4k thing? NAS is on 4.1.7.
While that Seagate drive uses the 4K sectors, it also includes "SmartAlign" which is designed to not require special alignment procedures (Seagates words). However, it would certainly not hurt to to a complete backup of your system (you have not talked about what size your current disks are so I have no idea how extensive your backup would need to be. But you could certainly use one of the new Seagates as a backup target, then shut down the Duo, remove both current drives, install the second new drive and then do a factory default. Once the Duo is back up and config is set, restore your data and then hot add the first new 2TB drive used as a backup target.
This would also allow you to maintain the current drives as an emergency backup for a while. But, this would not be possible if you replace them one at a time.
Thanks papabear - I'm going from 2 x 1TB drives (came with it - think WD) to the 2 x 2TB drives mentioned above. Do I also need to back up the config of the box separately - and is that then EVERYTHING - inc. network settings, share access, type (ftp, nfs etc) and ID's and passwords? Would I need to format the new disk as NTFS (I'm using W7) and simply copy the contents to it (USB or across the network to it slaved to a PC?) or use the NAS backup option? I assume I then remove both of the drives and put in the unused new one and do the factory reset - then copy the contents back to it from the first new drive and then put that drive in the NAS - to have its data overwritten - albeit with the same data - but the NAS will re-format it automatically (EXT(3?)?)? Assuming I do back up the config separately, when do I restore it? After I have done the factory reset and before I start copying data back to the NAS?
Given that 4.1.7 supports 4k and my NAS is on 4.1.7, why does it need a factory reset? (I'm not questioning whether it does or doesn't - simply why it does need it..) Many thanks, Steve
