[Phoenix32]

Now I am going to add hard drives to this novel. This can be a place to get screwed or not, but it is still important information when looking at Guardian Snap Servers. Many people do not consider the value and cost of the drives when looking at buying a Snap Server, but I assure you, it is a large factor.


Time and again, David and I often hear people asking about what hard drives to get or asking for help because they have failed drives. We also hear about how much storage they need and so forth. Here is some general guidance, based on my opinion (and backed by David and others who know this type information).

For starters, don't buy junk quality drives. These are enterprise class servers and should have enterprise class drives, but at least don't stick junk in them. Remember, these units will not only be running 24/7 maybe, can have heavy loads at times, need long term reliability, and also will be running in RAID arrarys than can be picky about little things like timing, heat, and drive matching.

While the Guardian Snap Server are probably the very best NAS unit one can buy, it is embarrassing some of the junk drives Adaptec stuck into these units. A good example is Maxtor drives. A lot of Snap units came with Maxtor drives. While many people may like them and swear by them, I will tell you that I know very few real hardware technicians who will say anything nice about them. They are cheap drives and you get what you pay for in this case. If you buy a unit, and it has Maxtor drives in it (ask), then devalue the price of the drives accordingly.

The old Hitachi 185GB drives you see in most of the 720GB Snap Servers, were decent drives for their time (although pretty slow). Now for the bad news. Most of those drives are very old in those units (4 and 5 years old) and are not anywhere near something I would trust for long term reliability as such. Also, those drives are old enough now (and not that popular when they were around), getting a replacement if a drive fails on you will not be tough, but not be real easy either. Your choices, and thus prices, will be limited.

The two above are very common cases, so I covered them, but rather than go drive by drive, I will just let you know what is good and I recommend from here.

For long term reliability, I recommend Western Digital or Seagate drives. I have far less faith in most Seagate drives over Western Digital, but a good portion of them have 5 year warrantees, thus giving you an out if you do have problems. Watch out though with Seagate, many many many of the Seagate OEM drives have ZERO WARRANTY! Again, ASK!

For storage capacity, I say 250 GB drives or larger for these units. For their expense, I see no reason for or use for drives smaller than that. Just simple logic. Due to prices and availability, as well as initial investment involved (most of us here do not have a money tree), the 250 GB drives are a good place to go and most cost effective. 4 x 250 GB (1TB) gives you about 690 GB of good reliabile RAID 5 storage. Plenty for most uses.

Get enterprise class drives if at all possible. They cost more, but are worth it in the end. Example, you can buy WD 250 GB drives for about $65, but WD RAID Edition 250 GB drives will cost you about $90. It may not seem to be worth it for $100 more for the drives (4 drives) for the same storage, but when you consider the other factors, it pays dividends in the end. Those drives have 5 year warrantees normally, last much long, run cooler, etc etc etc etc. And fact is, they are just plain better and far more reliable drives. You can bank on the fact that David and other hardware technicians with experience will tell you the same exact thing. You get what you pay for. Considering the cost of drives in the first place, buy right the first time.


So in general, I recommend Wester Digital or Seagate drives with Western Digital being the preference. I recommend drives of 250 GB or larger, with the 250 GB drives being the sweet spot due to initial investments and bang for the buck. I recommend enterprise class drives over standard drives every single time for the Snap Servers. And for a general overall, I say get Western Digital RAID Edition 250 GB drives for your Guardian SNAP Server (unless of course you have money to burn).


I truly hope this message thread is educatng the buying public out there and lending some help to some. If not, I will just shut up.


So David, what have I missed for buying advice on the Guardian Snap Servers?