Well, the time has come to upgrade my RAID array. I'm not running out of space yet, but it's getting there, and I'd rather plan ahead so that when the time comes I'm prepared, plus that way I can look for best possible hard drive deal.

I'm planning to use 8 2TB hard drives in RAID 6 configuration on Adaptec 31605 card under Windows Server. I already ruled out Seagate that has been plagued by never ending quality control problems and WD because of the parking head issues. So the only other two contenders are Samsung F4EG aka HD204UI and Hitachi 5K3000. Originally I didn't even consider Hitachi because the only Hitachi drive I ever bought went bad on me, and because some of their drives such as P7K500 spin down in idle. However, it looks like 5K3000 does not spin down and people have been recommending Hitachi drives for RAIDing because they are no nonsense drives without any gimmicky green issues such as parking heads, plus 5K3000 uses 667GB platters, so I'm willing to consider it.

That said I'm looking for some feedback on these drives in RAID. I'm pretty sure neither Samsung nor Hitachi spin down or park their heads, but I'm seeing conflicting reports whether one can enable TLER on those drives.

So the tally so far is:

Hitachi 5K3000
1. Does not spin down
2. Does not park heads
3. Cannot enable TLER
4. 512 byte sector

Samsung HD204UI
1. Does not spin down
2. Does not park heads
3. Cannot enable TLER
4. 4K sector, would this play nice with Adaptec 31605, or would I have performance issues?

At this point it looks like both drives are identical feature wise. I'd like to know if I'm missing something here, or if I'm wrong on the features, particularly about TLER. I'm almost positive that you cannot set TLER on either of these drives, but it would be nice to hear from someone who tried. Also if anybody knows if these drives play nice with Adaptec 31605 card, I would really appreciate it.

as for tler, theres a reason you cant enable it on hitachi or samsung: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-Limit ... r_Recovery

i have both drives btw. they're not identical: the hitachi spins at 5.9k, where the samsung is at 5.4k; this leads to a bit better performance for the hitachi, but a little higher power draw, and temps about 2c warmer on average from what ive seen, and what other people are reporting.

another thing to consider is the firmware updating for the samsungs: it must be done one drive at a time in dos(freedos worked fine for me)... and if youre doing 8 it might be annoying. though of course, its only a temporary bother.

sadly, i dont have such convenient information such as raid performance, so i apologize if im not being much help.

Yes, I know about firmware issue, and I will update it if I buy Samsung. At this point I'm mainly wondering about compatibility with my Adaptec 31605 controller, including how it would handle 512byte vs 4Kbyte drive. With on board controller you can manually align the drive, but when using RAID controller, the RAID controller takes over the drive, and I don't know if Adaptec can properly align the drive so that there is no loss of performance. Eh...

One more thing, after doing some more googling, I saw several people claim that Samsung F4 actually spins down when in idle, can anyone confirm this? Because that would be a big no-no for hardware RAID controller and if those reports are true then I'm going to go with Hitachi.