Here is some scary information from Jeff Goldner of Microsoft.
"SATA drives are not reliable. They’re very sensitive to vibration. Put two SATA next to each other and they don’t get along."
"Drives are like champagne bottles. You need to turn them on once in awhile. There is lubricant in there. The heads stick when they don’t move. "
"If you have a drive offsite and can’t turn the power on, it’s a problem. If they sit there more than six months, you have a very high probability they won’t turn on."
He’s keen on what is coming down the pike. "You’re going to see holographic storage coming in the year. 10 terabytes and up on a platter. The predicted reliability is 50 years."
That makes no sense. The difference in SATA and the older IDE is in the controller chip and the connector. The disk platters and other moving parts are the same. If the drives are too close to each other and they operate at different speeds, then yes, vibrations issues can occur, but that's the case for any kind of drive. I'd be curious to know where Mr. Goldner came up with that information as I have never heard anything about it nor can I find anything on it.
Holographic storage: They've been claiming that it is almost here since the early '80s. I'll believe it when I see a working product on the market.
Posted by: Dan | June 30, 2006 at 08:11 AM
Sorry I didn't see this earlier. If you are not familiar with desktop drive mechanics, you might want to look at http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/8/f/98f3fe47-dfc3-4e74-92a3-088782200fe7/TWST05005_WinHEC05.ppt or other material on rotational vibration provided by disk vendors. Dave Anderson is an excellent source - just use your favorite search engine.
Posted by: Jeff Goldner | December 20, 2007 at 09:46 AM