Anthony, et al -- ...and then Wols Lists said... % On 03/12/2022 05:41, David T-G wrote: % > % > The good news here is that I don't mix disk sizes; all of these are not % > only the same size but, for the foreseeable future, the exact same model. % % From the exact same batch? That's BAD news actually. I don't know about the same batch. I got three together, so maybe, and then I recently added a fourth. diskfarm:~ # for D in /dev/sd[bcdk] ; do printf "$D\t" ; smartctl -i $D | grep Serial ; done /dev/sdb Serial Number: 61U0A0HQFBKG /dev/sdc Serial Number: 61U0A0BEFBKG /dev/sdd Serial Number: 61U0A007FBKG /dev/sdk Serial Number: 91C0A03ZFBKG How close is too close for SNs? Anyone have a magic decoder ring? I seriously think I'm going to be asking for another -- plus the corresponding offsite external drive -- for Christmas, so we'll be even more homogeneous as time goes on and maybe sooner than later. % % Now that disk sizes have been standardised (and the number of actual % factories/manufacturers seriously reduced), it should be that a 1TB drive is % a 1TB drive is a 1TB drive. Decimal, that is, not binary. So there % *shouldn't* be any problems swapping one random drive out for another. That would be nice. But it just feels so ... WRONG! :-) I don't want to have to sweat different numbers of sectors or different caches or different speeds that will just make hiccups. I'm not yet sold on going multi-vendor all together ... [In different arrays or machines, certainly, but not when they're supposed to be identical members.] % % But if all your drives are the same make, model(, and batch), there is a not % insignificant risk they will all share the same defects, and fail at the % same time. It's accepted the risk is small, but it's there. What is the problem? Is it the manufacturer's firmware? Is it the day they were made? If I order a Tosh, a Seag, and a WD all on the same day then it sounds like I'm [much more] likely to get clones made at the same time in those few factories. But I couldn't just buy a drive a quarter and wait nearly a year to get up and running; I had to start somewhere ... % % It's why my raid is composed of a Seagate Barracuda 3TB (slap wrist, don't % use Barracudas!), 2 x 4TB Seagate Ironwolves, and 1 Toshiba 8TB N300. These are Tosh X300s, FWIW. Like 'em so far! % % Cheers, % Wol HAND :-D -- David T-G See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/email/ See http://justpickone.org/davidtg/tofu.txt
