# The End of my PC Building Era **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 8, 2007, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-my-pc-building-era/399150 "2007-04-08T02:24:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2007, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-my-pc-building-era/399150/61 "2007-04-11T03:58:51Z")
I reckon there’s always hope. At this point, I need to wait until I get more money before I do anything else. If I get something running, I can post an update if it’s not too far in the future. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2007, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-my-pc-building-era/399150/62 "2007-04-11T13:31:01Z")
If you want a junkbox and are even vaugely near NYC, I got three or four that are now officially crowding me out of house and home. ---
**Author:** ![RogueRacer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ab992/32.png) [@RogueRacer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RogueRacer)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2007, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-my-pc-building-era/399150/63 "2007-04-11T19:18:51Z")
**Una** , it looks like your mind is already made up, but since I just found this thread, I thought I would add in my own $.02. First, as near as I can tell, I agree completely with **black rabbit**. The company I work for has learned from hard experience that a RAID does not replace a backup. You also need to take a look at how MTBF (mean time before failure) works with a RAID to see that you really are asking for more frequent trouble using a RAID. The hope is that the trouble isn’t the kind that leads to loss of data, just loss of time. One thing that I did want to note though is to make sure that you are using drives that are meant for RAID. We had huge problems with several systems losing drives. The drive could be readded and the RAID rebuilt, but this led to more hands on time and periods of degraded service. These were SATA RAID systems. Let me see if I can explain what was happening. The timings on the drives allowed more time for recovering from errors than what the RAID controller allowed. When a drive would hit a bad spot and try to recover, it would spend too much time leading to the RAID controller dropping the drive from the array. It turns out that the system builder used “normal” drives. The manufacturer (Western Digital in this case) made a RAID drive with quicker timing on errors, but our builder didn’t use them for some reason. I don’t know the reason, but it wasn’t cost as there was no difference. We have since moved to rack mount Dell servers, which aren’t exactly pain free either. I would have a very hard time convincing myself to use a RAID in my home PCs. Fortunately, individual drives are large enough for my needs. ---
**Author:** ![Slacker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2007, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-my-pc-building-era/399150/64 "2007-04-11T20:12:55Z")
One more piece of software to toss on the pile - I’ve found Robocopy works well to mirror stuff to another drive (internal or external). It’ll only do stuff that’s been updated so unless you work on everything you have every day it’s really fast. > **[Robocopy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy)** > > Robocopy is a command-line file transfer utility for Microsoft Windows. Robocopy is functionally more comprehensive than the COPY command and XCOPY, but replaces neither. Created by Kevin Allen and first released as part of the Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit, it has been a standard feature of Windows since Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. > Robocopy provides features not found in the built-in Windows COPY and XCOPY commands, including the following: > Since Windows Server 2019 and Windows 10, R... ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2007, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-my-pc-building-era/399150/65 "2007-04-11T21:09:49Z")
[QUOTE=Slacker] One more piece of software to toss on the pile - I’ve found Robocopy works well to mirror stuff to another drive (internal or external). It’ll only do stuff that’s been updated so unless you work on everything you have every day it’s really fast. > **[Robocopy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy)** > > Robocopy is a command-line file transfer utility for Windows. It is functionally more comprehensive than the COPY and XCOPY commands, but replaces neither. Created by Kevin Allen and first released as part of the Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit, it has been a standard feature of Windows since Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. Robocopy provides features not in the COPY and XCOPY commands, including: Robocopy syntax is markedly different from its predecessors, copy and xcopy, in that it accepts on... [/QUOTE] There’s now a GUI for it, too. [Over here](http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2006/11/UtilitySpotlight/default.aspx). ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2007, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-my-pc-building-era/399150/66 "2007-04-11T21:33:57Z")
Sorry **E-Sabbath** , but thank you nonetheless. I have a local person who’s offered jukeboxes (or whatever the other name is) to me. [QUOTE=RogueRacer] One thing that I did want to note though is to make sure that you are using drives that are meant for RAID. We had huge problems with several systems losing drives. The drive could be readded and the RAID rebuilt, but this led to more hands on time and periods of degraded service. These were SATA RAID systems. Let me see if I can explain what was happening. The timings on the drives allowed more time for recovering from errors than what the RAID controller allowed. When a drive would hit a bad spot and try to recover, it would spend too much time leading to the RAID controller dropping the drive from the array. It turns out that the system builder used “normal” drives. The manufacturer (Western Digital in this case) made a RAID drive with quicker timing on errors, but our builder didn’t use them for some reason. [/QUOTE] That is some very interesting information - I had not heard of that before. FTR, I ran all 8 hard drives through the “detailed” Western Digital drive test, and it pronounced all of them “sane.” I’ll take a look at Robocopy, **Slacker** , thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2007, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-my-pc-building-era/399150/67 "2007-04-11T21:42:25Z")
**Una** , you might want to listen to episode 81 of [Security Now](http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm) as Gibson discusses issues with Western Digital drives (and their use in RAID specifically, IIRC). ---
**Author:** ![Slacker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2007, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-my-pc-building-era/399150/68 "2007-04-11T22:29:55Z")
[QUOTE=SkipMagic] There’s now a GUI for it, too. [Over here](http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2006/11/UtilitySpotlight/default.aspx). [/QUOTE] Hey, I wasn’t aware of that. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2007, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-my-pc-building-era/399150/69 "2007-04-12T00:50:03Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] **Una** , you might want to listen to episode 81 of [Security Now](http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm) as Gibson discusses issues with Western Digital drives (and their use in RAID specifically, IIRC). [/QUOTE] I read the transcript, and I only got the impression that he was saying there was a difference between the high-end “Raptor” drives and the mass-market ones. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2007, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-my-pc-building-era/399150/70 "2007-04-12T00:53:55Z")
[QUOTE=Una Persson] I read the transcript, and I only got the impression that he was saying there was a difference between the high-end “Raptor” drives and the mass-market ones. [/QUOTE] Ah. Sorry. Somewhere I read/heard that WD was ditching RAID because it was too problemmatic, and I thought that was where I’d come across it. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2007, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-my-pc-building-era/399150/71 "2007-04-12T01:29:38Z")
Not Jukebox, Una. Junkbox. As in, two-three-four generations old, not really suitable for gaming or desktop service anymore, but just _fiiine_ for running as a file server. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2007, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-my-pc-building-era/399150/72 "2007-04-12T01:34:32Z")
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath] Not Jukebox, Una. Junkbox. As in, two-three-four generations old, not really suitable for gaming or desktop service anymore, but just _fiiine_ for running as a file server. [/QUOTE] Oh, I thought you meant like a tower that holds 16 hot-swappable hard drives or something (the tech calls them “jukeboxes”, I guess because they have so many platters…). ---
**Author:** ![RogueRacer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ab992/32.png) [@RogueRacer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RogueRacer)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2007, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-my-pc-building-era/399150/73 "2007-04-12T19:03:39Z")
**Una** , here’s the response that I got from Western Digital on that problem: > [@Western Digital](#): > > You are using our desktop drives in a RAID environment when you should be using our RAID edition drives. See the links below for more information. > > Title: Specifications for the Western Digital RAID edition Serial ATA hard drives. > URL: [http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std\_adp.php?p\_faqid=1278&p\_created=1095958060](http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1278&p_created=1095958060) > > Title: What is the difference between Desktop edition and RAID (Enterprise) edition hard drives? > URL: [http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std\_adp.php?p\_faqid=1397&p\_created=1131638613](http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1397&p_created=1131638613) > > I recommend that you see if you can exchange your drives back at the place of purchase for RAID edition drives. > > Please let us know if we can be of further assistance. > > Sincerely, > Jeremy H. > Western Digital Service and Support > [http://support.wdc.com](http://support.wdc.com) ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2007, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-my-pc-building-era/399150/74 "2007-04-12T19:49:48Z")
[QUOTE=RogueRacer] **Una** , here’s the response that I got from Western Digital on that problem: [/QUOTE] Ah, hell. I have to buy 3 more TB of hard drives? Now I really quit… Thank you very much for the link, nonetheless. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-my-pc-building-era/399150.md?page=3)