Hey Guys,

I have a poweredge 1800 and the largest hard drive this server can handle is less than 1TB. I ran out of space on my 160gb hard drives so i decided to get 2 500 hard drives on raid. Which hard drives are good for servers usage? I am new to this server stuff but been talking to dell support and im learning.

Please let me know which are good.

I was just going to purchase this one Enterprise Hard Drive but I wanted to ask the professionals. Is there a cheaper alternative? Or this is the best?

Thanks guys.

Question - why do you think the server can only handle HD sizes <1TB? I'm not seeing that limitation in the specification.

Also, what is the server used for? That will impact the type of drive you should be getting.

Looks like it's true:
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forum...6/19510863.aspx

Well, that's some suckitude right there. I guess you could buy a new controller if you wanted to get around that though.

Yea the controller limits it to under 1TB. I dont want to spend more money than I have too and im not too tech savvy. Right now the server is used for a storage server where employees dont have to store anything on their PC and just access everything through the server.

I believe 500gb is enough space since for the last 5 years 160gb just got filled up. And im pretty sure after another 5 years we will just invest in another server.

Im not too sure if that answers your question... Im not running gaming servers on it just files to be accessible to employees.

Thanks youu guys

Gotcha. Well I would think that if it's just a file server, with no real performance demands, just get whatever works.

But you are on the right track that you should get an enterprise-class hard drive. I think the one you have there will work fine for your needs.

Thanks! I have been looking at other 500gb hard drives as well. The regular SATA is $40 and Enterprise WD is 68.

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=...54471&&

I want to save money where I can. Do you think its better to go Seagate Enterprise or WD Enterprise?

TY

This is the absolute truth from my point of view - over the years I've seen dozens upon dozens of failed hard drives. Some die in less than a year, some were 6+ years old. Typical age is 4-5 years. I've come to a personal conclusion that brand, model, capacity, PATA, SATA doesn't matter. Any drive can die at any time for a variety of reasons.

Hard drives are a commodity item these days and typical cost between a 160GB drive and 1TB drive is maybe $50 (if that much). What I look for in a drive is capacity (in your case, no more than 500GB) and rotational speed. Warranties mean nothing to me. I mean, if a hard drive fails what am I going to do, send it in with all the data on it for a refurb in return? Nope, I'm destroying the drive and buying a new one. That's just me, the paranoid guy that I am.

Bottom line, you're looking to save money, go with the less expensive, unless the rpm & cache is lower. I'll spend a few extra bucks for better performance. However, I never like to think that one particular drive is going to outlast another. That being said, make sure there are good backup proceedures in place