Software raid and WD green drives (Debian 5)

wjtaylor · 07-12-2010, 08:45 PM

Hello All,

Looking to get some answers for Debian 5 running a linux software raid. I would like to get some recommendations for HDDs.

First, I'd like to go green with the drives. I'm open to any make/model as long as they work well with Debian 5 and my Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R. It seems this problem has been going on a while, and I'm hoping that by this time some definite answers can be given.

I have heard a sorts of craziness about the WD green series. I've heard non-sense about mother boards non being able to boot due to BIOS issues with 4k sectors, I've heard of TLER causing conflicts with the raid controller, I've heard of head parking and time-out issues. Some say the fixes do nothing to stop the poor performance; some say it's good afterwards.

What model drives are causing problems (with linux, especially Debian/Ubuntu)?
What are the problems?
What are the fixes/results, if any?

I have 3 WD10EACS models that seem slow, but I access the box remotely and thought it was the network (over internet). Is there a way to test what my speeds are and what they should be?

I need some new HDDs and want to go low power but not if it's going to botch the whole thing up. Suggestions are appreciated!

Thanks!
WT

Congrats to Spain on winning the World Cup!!!

Noway2 · 07-13-2010, 05:26 AM

I am afraid I don't have any drive recommendations for you, but in response to your request for speed test your drives I have two suggestions. First, there is a tool called Bonnie++ that would provide you a lot of information regarding the drive performance. You can find it on Source Forge. Second, you can run a simple test using dd that will give you some throughput data in bytes/sec. You can adjust the block size and count to better suit your needs. Be sure to delete the file afterwards.

Code:

 dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/testfile.img bs=8k count=256

.

wjtaylor · 07-13-2010, 07:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Noway2

I am afraid I don't have any drive recommendations for you, but in response to your request for speed test your drives I have two suggestions. First, there is a tool called Bonnie++ that would provide you a lot of information regarding the drive performance. You can find it on Source Forge. Second, you can run a simple test using dd that will give you some throughput data in bytes/sec. You can adjust the block size and count to better suit your needs. Be sure to delete the file afterwards.

Code:

 dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/testfile.img bs=8k count=256

.

Thanks for the info.
How do I know what the norm is? I'm running an Intel quad core @ 2.6GHz in a 3 drive SATA raid 5 (mdadm).

Anyone else have any good (or bad) news on this green drive problem? Anyone have any recommendations for any other drives for linux raid? Please note this is being used for a basic server, not a gaming machine so low power is preferred (but not manditory).

Thanks!

wincen · 12-13-2010, 03:36 PM

I'm actually thinking about trying to implement a software raid 1 configuration with some WD green drives as well. I'm curious if you or anyone else up there tried it out and what the results were.