Seagate RMA gone bad

[WalkinTarget]

Well after putting the finishing touches on my Vista Ult. 64 bit rig and solving the RAID array problems, I soon had the pleasure of yanking one of the drives and sending it back to Seagate as it had gone belly up on me.
Just hot the good news yesterday that my drive was received, and now today they have sent out a new drive to replace it ... only ...

I forgot to specify in the RMA paperwork that this drive was part of a RAID array, and .. I just knew this would happen .. they sent me a larger 400gb drive

Now I'm not one to complain under 99% of ordinary circumstances, but you need identical drives to recreate the RAID, so I just ordered the proper 320gb drive from the 'Egg and will have a spare 400gb drive lying about awaiting yet another build.

Anybody need a 400gb Seagate drive (retail) and want to swap hardware ??

[BuzzSaw55]

You don't need identical hard drives for a raid set up.

I have personally set up a raid with 2 different size hard drives
Joe

[Trooper110]

Yeah, but if you have a hd with a higher capacity it gets knocked down to the capacity of the lower one. Thus wasted space.

[BuzzSaw55]

Wasted space or not the 400 gig hard drive would have worked perfectly well with the 320s

now he has totally wasted a while 400 gb hard drive

Joe

[WalkinTarget]

I just found that out today, so I learned yet another lesson in RAID'ing.

now he has totally wasted a while 400 gb hard drive

Buzz, you new around here ?? I don't waste ANY hardware. To say that I wasted a 400gb drive is a bit silly. I have eight rigs, so I might as well waste it and drop it in one of them. Honestly, I need more PC hardware like Bill Gates need cash.

I'll tell you WHY I bought another, TBH. The drive was running fine until I swapped power supplies. In my haste to do this, I banged one of the video cards into the SATA connector. There was absolutely no damage that I could see to it, but I still RMA'd it and let Seagate decide if I had damaged it.

It may have been total coincidence, but I felt obligated to own up and buy a drive, so I bought it in good conscience to assuage any guilt about possibly cocking it up myself.

[BuzzSaw55]

You bought something you didn't need, why so defensive i wasn't trying to be negative.

A previous poster said it would waste hard drive space

Joe

[Duke{CLR}]

I don't think WTs is being defensive he just like to build a rig a week.

[BuzzSaw55]

LOL

Joe

[WalkinTarget]

Sorry, Buzz. Duke is correct, and I what I typed did sound a bit harsh towards you, which I did not intend.

I tell myself I need to stop these quick forum visits over work, as I make some of my replies too brief and the post is too easily misconstrued.

Duke is also correct in the statement that I build a lot of rigs. I've been selling at least one a week for a month now, so I am constantly either building a customer or myself some sort of cobbled together system.

I admit .. I am a hardware addict, and I achieve nothing more than financial pains by doing so, but it is what it is, and I am who I am, and try as I might to slow down, I find buying hardware is my 'reward' for busting my arse at work 8 hours a day, followed by 2+ hours every night doing the same thing at home.

[Trooper110]

I meant it would waste hard drive space, in that the RAID array would see it as a 320GB hard drive, as they must be the same size. Therefor you have 80GB there that's not being recognized and/or used. With the prices of hard drives today, and the space that games, music, videos, etc. take up, it makes more sense to just buy another 320GB hard drive and use the 400GB hard drive in another rig, or as part of the same rig, just not in the RAID array. Yes, he could have used the 400GB hard drive in the RAID array, but my personal opinion is that it's a waste. Sorry if you took it in the wrong way BuzzSaw.

[WalkinTarget]

Seems like I lucked out. My buddy has a 320 Seagate on hand so I'm paying him instead of Newegg and should have the drive tomorrow. The 400gb goes to a rebuild of my HTPC tha is long overdue, but at this point in time I have no idea what mATX board I want to go with.
So many have minor issues that make them problematic in an MCE setup, so I am holding off to see if one emerges as a cheap board that has no issues.

[WalkinTarget]

The beast lives !! Picked up the 320gb from my buddy and restored the image last night. After 45 minutes, I was back in BIZNESS. Did a quick HD Tune benchmark and everything is as it was. The new drives firmware was also a match for the old one, so no crap AAK firmware drives to deal with either.

I may end up giving the 400gb drive to my buddy to pay him back for the 320. I finally found an mATX board that fits the bill, but they aren't even available yet (Nvidia 9300 matx) so we'll save that project for after the holidays.

[Duke{CLR}]

That's good to hear WT this whole RAID experience you have had makes me think that I need to look at mine. I suspect its slow but I have no idea on how to benchmark it or tune it.

[juneau]

After 45 minutes, I was back in BIZNESS.

Fo Shizzle?

Duke - http://www.hdtune.com/

[WalkinTarget]

Duke, one thing this thread did was make the simple complexities of RAID (heh, I found that expression funny ... simple complexity) a bit more understandable.
Dead was able to see what I had done wrong, so what it comes down to is that the expected performance is clearly not there, so at what point in the chain did I not follow instructions ?

We all toss out benchmark numbers, but there is such a huge disparity on how each one of us tests and evaluates our gear compared to others with similar setups. But even the simple stuff like running an HD Tune benchmark can make you scratch your head and wonder at the numbers you see.

I knew what to expect from similar hardware, so when I didn't see that I started digging. If you want us to take a look, go ahead and start a thread and we'll do some research and digging.