UDMA/100 vs Serial ATA/150 hard drive differences

[Net Llama!]

On 02/27/04 15:21, Jesus Antonio Santos Giraldo wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> While searching to buy a new hard drive I found something like:
> 
> Hitachi 120GB UDMA/100 7200RPM 2MB IDE HDD
> Maxtor 60GB 7200RPM 8MB Serial ATA/150 HDD
> Seagate 80GB 7200RPM Serial ATA/150 8MB HDD
> etc...
> 
> I noticed someones have   : UDMA/100 7200RPM,
> Others                    : 8MB Serial ATA/150 HDD
> 
> What's the diference between UDMA/Serial ATA?

I assume you mean the difference between SATA and (P)ATA?  SATA = Serial 
ATA.  The older ATA is Parallel ATA.  SATA is the newer technology that 
provides much faster data transfer rates.

> Which is better?

See above.  Its not really a matter of better than faster.  As you can 
see from your examples above, SATA can give you 150M/s, PATA maxes out 
around 133M/s.  Both are IDE, rather than SCSI

> Which one is better suited for Linux?

They both work.  SCSI still out performs IDE, and tends to be better 
quality, and longer lasting drives.

> 
> Any help or recomended reading would be very appreciated.
> 
> BTW: If I you have to choose between Hitachi, Maxtor, Seagate what will you
> choose?

Seagate, then Maxtor, _NEVER_ hitachi.  Hitachi has the absolute worst 
RMA service imaginable.  Every time I need an RMA from them I have to 
fight with them just to get the RMA for drives that are still in 
warranty (and these are for SCSI drives that cost a fortune initially). 
  Once I get the RMA, it takes them at least a full month to provide 
replacement drives.  I've got a current example to illustrate:
I had two 36GB SCSI drives fail in a server.  I tried to use their 
website to get an RMA, and the website claimed that the drives didn't 
exist.  I called their tech support line and was first told that my 
drives didn't exist.  I called back a 2nd time and was told that they 
did exist but weren't in their database because they were originally 
covered by IBM (even though they were clearly labeled as Hitachi 
drives), but since they weren't in their database they couldn't verify 
their wwarranty status.  I had to fax them the original invoice to prove 
that i actually owned the drives.  So i managed to dig up the invoice, 
and faxed it in, and then i got an RMA on January-26 (over a month ago). 
   I shipped the drives back to Hitachi the same day.  After waiting 3 
weeks I attempted to check the status of my RMA on their website, and it 
claimed that my RMA number didn't exist.  So i called again, and the 
first person i spoke to claimed that my RMA didn't exist.  I went 
postal, and demanded to talk to a manager.  The manager apologized and 
found my RMA, and said that i had to wait 15 business days before they 
could provide status on RMAs (i was 2 days short).  I called again this 
week and was given another story that the drives were very hard to 
replace, and that I'd get a status update directly from their warranty 
dept within 24 hours.  Two days passed with no update.  I called again, 
and demanded to know why i hadn't gotten replacement drives after a full 
month.  I was told that the drives were EOL, and that they couldn't 
locate replacements.  I asked why no one told me that from day one, and 
of course there was no explanation yet again.  They offered to provide 
upgrade both of the original U160 36GB drives to U320 73GB drives, and 
ship them no later than this Monday.  I'll believe it when it happens. 
Worst service ever.

All of the Seagate SCSI drives i've owned have had a very low rate of 
failure, and those that have failed were replaced within 10 business 
days every time.   I've also owned a few IDE Seagate drives, and they've 
held up well too.

Maxtor seems to be middle of the road in terms of rate of failure & RMA 
replacement.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
L. Friedman                       	       netllama at linux-sxs.org
Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo: 		    http://netllama.ipfox.com

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