On Sunday 05 Oct 2003 5:14 pm, Tom Brinkman wrote: > On Sunday October 5 2003 09:18 am, Anne Wilson wrote: > > > It's the new drives that do have the CRC checking shortcuts. > > > Prior to August 1998, WD's did proper CRC checks, were some of > > > the best drives. > > > > Now you've really confused me, Tom. I posted Civileme > > explanation to another list and they said that it was old hat - > > no longer a problem. I guess the answer is if you've got one try > > it, if you haven't, steer clear, to be safe. > > > > Anne > > Here's the whole story. Overclockers long favored WD, Quantum, > and IBM IDE drives, particularly WD's. Mainly because they did much > better on off-spec PCI buses (anything SCSI has problems on an > off-spec bus). Often necessary to overclock Intel cpu's of the era. > In the fall of '98, many started complaining of problems and > failures of WD IDE drives. Research by the more knowledgable > overclocking gurus, soon revealed that WD had lowered their drive > specs (8/98). AFAIK their current specs are the same or even lower. > OTOH, many HDD manufacturers have lowered their specs over the last > several years, and consequently, their warranty periods. > > While Civileme was/is certainly an authoritative source, an > even better source, the final answer for the WD-CRC checking > situation is the linux kernel mailing list. It was the kernel > hackers that discovered the WD problem, and AFAIK, the improper CRC > checking is still the situation with WD drives. Your research may > vary, http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel > > I've just avoided WD since '98, but maybe the kernel gurus have > found a work around for WD's. I doubt it tho (I lurk on lkml), > since the problem was WD drives depend on (Windoze) software for > CRC checking rather than including the needed hardware and firmware > on their drives. It made their drives slightly cheaper and a little > faster than their competitors drives. For windoze users (and system > OEM's), this was seen as a Good Thing (and probly why WD did it). > > IMO tho, I'd worry more about tainting a Linux system with > closed source software and drivers, or other forms of win-hardware, > before I'd replace a perfectly good working WD drive. IOW's, for > those with WD drives and no problems with them, or traceable to > them, I wouldn't give this WD-CRC deal another thought. Bottom line > is, keep backups, all drives today are lesser quality than they use > to be.
Thanks, Tom. Filed for future reference. Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet?
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