Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Enterprise vs Standard Hard Drives

I understand since the Ensemble is essentially a server, an enterprise drive SHOULD be used for replacement. My question is, besides integrity, what would be the difference between using a standard drive? Any drop in performance? If it's nothing other then reliability, I would prefer to stick a standard 2Tb Seagates and then do a full backup to another drive and keep offline in case of failure.

Why?

To save a few $$????

More or less.....yes.
If I can get 2x2TB drives for a little over $200 vs 2x2TB Enterprise Drives for almost $1000, yes. If it were only a few dollars, I probably wouldn't even contemplate.

I think the point is, don't populate the Sooloos with 3Tb drives if you only have 2Tb external drives for backup.

Now that 3Tb external drives are more available (and still affordable at places like Costco in the U.S.), if my storage requirements dictate, upgrading is an option.

But at my rate of CD purchasing, it will be several years before I have to upgrade from 2Tb mirrored.

I currently have a 1Tb Ensemble and wanted to add a 2Tb drive to it. I figured if I purchased 2x2Tb drives (NON-ent), I could put one in Ensemble and keep full backup offline. Say something like Seagate that offers 5 yr warranty. One goes down, I replace with backup (obviously backup again to another drive at that time) and send damaged drive out for replacement. My point in the this post/thread was to know IF a NON-ENTERPRISE drive offered ANY drop in performance (or ANY other issue) other then dependability/reliability issues.

Hi,

Reliability aside the functional performance of enterprise drives v non-enterprise drives when fitted to an Audio Server such as the Sooloos is moot. If you wanted to run 10+ zones then maybe but for the typical installation the drives will be just ticking over.

I ran a pair of Seagate 2TB Barracuda XT 3.5" SATA-600 7200rpm 64MB Mfr#: ST32000641AS drives for over a year without a hitch; when I needed more space I upgraded to a pair of 3TB Seagate ST33000651AS Barracuda XT 7200RPM SATA (6GB/s, 64MB Cache).

I did look at the Enterprise Constellation versions but availability and cost factors (in Dec 2011) lead me down the Barracuda route. I actually purchased 4 drives; 2 for the TwinStore, one for offsite backup and one for onsite backup (I alternate the two backups - possibly overkill I know).

Regards,
Carl

Ahhhh...perfect!! And I don't think that's overkill at all. You're STILL spending MUCH less and you have even MORE insurance.

Also, 2x3TB drives would STILL be cheaper then 1x2Tb Enterprise drive.

Each to their own
I've seen too many drives fail to mess around with the basic stuff
At minimum, I'd go with Carl's choice

Not quite....