FreeBSD and large harddrives

[Paul Wootton]

  On 11/18/10 18:23, Chuck Swiger wrote:
> On Nov 18, 2010, at 5:51 AM, Mike Tancsa wrote:
>> On 11/18/2010 7:16 AM, Andy Wodfer wrote:
>>> Harddrive speed is not so important so a 5400rpm drive
>>> would be OK. Seems like the green line of WD harddrives use both 5400rpm and
>>> 7200rpm. I will use RAID 5.
>> I would stay away from the green series hard drives for this
>> application. There have been a number of reports of issues with the
>> drive's power saving design causing problems when used in raid arrays.
>> Search the list for more details.  Use their black series instead.
> While the WDC green drives are unsuitable for any RAID application
 From my own personal experience, I will not use WD Green drives again, 
be it for RAID or not.

I have a one as my boot up and OS drive on a home server configured as a 
single drive in a ZFS pool (so none RAID). The load/unload cycle is 
rated at 300,000.

Here is a copy from smartctl
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   092   092   000    Old_age   
Always       -       5958
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   
Always       -       885346

The drive has less than 250 days online, but is nearly at tripple the 
rated load/unload cycle.
While the drive is still working, I have NO faith in it anymore and am 
just waiting for it to die.


Paul