Black64 Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 So I was wondering whats the difference between enterprise drives and regular ones? I have a few at work that are extra and I can buy them for cheap. Are they worth getting? Or should I stick to regular drives. They will be used for storage only. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
scr4wl Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 There isn't a huge difference between the two. Companies usually use enterprise drives because they supposedly: Use better quality components Have quicker recovery time limits Error correction And better vibration tolerance I don't know if any of that is actually true, or just what manufacturers say though. The manufacturers also say that the enterprise drives go through more scrupulous testing, and seagate says that they design the constellation differently. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigball1 Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 Ah about 25% more to buy. Warranty is a big one. WD enables tler on there drives (time-limited error recovery) so you if you have a error on your raid your pc will just freak out instead of keep running. Did i mention warranty? oh and warranty Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black64 Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 I won't use them in raid, would they still just freak-out? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigball1 Posted January 3, 2012 Posted January 3, 2012 If the drive fails it will act like a normal hard drive in a PC. They are ment to be in a server with a raid controller so when the drive fails it wont blue screen the system or freeze/hangup. Other then that nothing Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
KissMyWookie Posted January 22, 2012 Posted January 22, 2012 The "time limited error recovery" feature merely limits the amount of time the drive will allow itself to repair errors. The time given for standard WD drives is 30 seconds and for their Enterprise drives it's around 6 seconds. When used with hardware RAID controllers, a drive that gives the controller a busy signal for 30 seconds will cause the controller to just fail the drive and in the case of RAID0, fail the entire array. With a limit of 6 seconds to self-repair an error, there is still time left for the drive to respond to the controller and let it return a read error to the OS. At the time I bought my 1TB drives, the WD Caviar Black series of drives were identical to the WD Enterprise drives, at least at the hardware level. Unfortunately, WD had disabled the modifiable TLER setting on that generation, which could previously let the standard drives work reliably with hardware RAID controllers via the use of a commandline tool.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waco Posted January 22, 2012 Posted January 22, 2012 For most people there's no difference. Like others have said, if you're running a hardware RAID array, it can make a pretty big difference. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Question Posted January 27, 2012 Posted January 27, 2012 According to Wikipedia, "Enterprise flash drives Enterprise flash drives (EFDs) are designed for applications requiring high I/O performance (IOPS), reliability, and energy efficiency. In most cases an EFD is an SSD with a higher set of specifications compared to SSDs that would typically be used in notebook computers. The term was first used by EMC in January 2008, to help them identify SSD manufacturers who would provide products meeting these higher standards.[23] There are no standards bodies who control the definition of EFDs, so any SSD manufacturer may claim to produce EFDs when they may not actually meet the requirements. Likewise there may be other SSD manufacturers that meet the EFD requirements without being called EFDs" Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanTheGamer11 Posted January 27, 2012 Posted January 27, 2012 I don't think he was referring to flash drives... would they cost the same as normal ones? And the warranty be the same? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Question Posted January 27, 2012 Posted January 27, 2012 I don't think he was referring to flash drives... would they cost the same as normal ones? And the warranty be the same? Typically I would think not. I was assume, as stated earlier in the thread, that the warranty period would be much great but that would come with an additional investment. As far as the description goes, I believe it can be applied to the basic philosophy of enterprise class drives in general. Meaning; thee is no standard other than an expectation that they would be more reliable and capable of greater workloads than "consumer" drives. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black64 Posted January 27, 2012 Posted January 27, 2012 Well I currently have a regular 2TB and a enterprize 2TB, the only difference so far is the enterprize goes into a sleep mode sometimes. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waco Posted January 27, 2012 Posted January 27, 2012 (edited) Enterprise drives usually support TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery) which is essential if you run them in RAID and don't want your array failing every few days from an un-correctable read error. EDIT: Wow, this thread has been around long enough to not only forget that I posted in it, but that this has already been covered. Edited January 27, 2012 by Waco Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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