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I think all Apple would need to do would be to provide evidence of a currently shipping server which uses the Deskstar drives which they do. I'm sure there is one, maybe Dell or HP ships one?
 
Is this any surprise when you look at all the other ways Apple has screwed everything and everyone when it comes to wireless backups using TM?

Cripple and/or won't fix the AEBS airdisk to work with TM, so there is no competition with their solution which is...an overpriced AEBS + HD.



Slowly? In some areas you could argue they've passed them...

Agreed. I am losing my loyalty...
 
what's the difference between consumer grade and server grade? Is there a performance issue?

Hitachi sells the "Ultrastar" server grade drives. These have a 5 year warranty and a claimed 1.2 million hour MTBF.

Hitachi also sells the "Deskstar", which Hitachi calls a "consumer" drive. These have a 3 year warranty and no MTBF is claimed.

It's a reliability issue.
 
I think all Apple would need to do would be to provide evidence of a currently shipping server which uses the Deskstar drives which they do. I'm sure there is one, maybe Dell or HP ships one?

The XServe comes with this drive.

At work we have three Xserve RAID units dating back to the original chassis with HSSDC2 Fibre Channel Ports. I knew all of the drives were Hitachi Deskstar's, but here are the part numbers used in Apple's official drive modules (grabbed via Xserve RAID admin just now):

500GB Modules - Hitachi Deskstar HDS725050KLAT80
400GB Modules - Hitachi Deskstar HDS724040KLAT80
240GB Modules - Hitachi Deskstar HDS722525VLAT80
180GB Modules - IBM Deskstar IC35L180AVV207-1

Not an Ultrastar in the bunch! They've been pretty reliable too, most of the drives we've had to replace are of the original 180GB variety from the oldest unit purchased in 2003. I don't remember replacing any of the 240/400/500GB modules.
 
I think all Apple would need to do would be to provide evidence of a currently shipping server which uses the Deskstar drives which they do. I'm sure there is one, maybe Dell or HP ships one?

That may work for the ill-informed, but as others have stated on this board, Hitachi clearly positions the Deskstar line as its consumer base product, and the Ultrastar line as its server and enterprise product.

This would be like stating the MacBook is professional level because it can be used in professional applications.

Im pissed and I wont buy into lame PR semantical games. This was a major screw up by Apple.
 
what's the difference between consumer grade and server grade? Is there a performance issue?

Quite often it can just come down to features, such as Native Command Queuing, or Time Limited Error Recovery, etc. Quite often, such features are only useful in a true multi-user environment, but they can actually be less efficient for use with a single user desktop system.

StorageReview.com has some really smart people who know what is quality and what is not.

I put two Hitachi 7K1000 drives in my Guardian Maximus after researching them and have no issues with the Hitachi brand.

WD is also a really good brand to go with, such as their 1TB RE-2.
 
Hitachi drives are HIGHLY reliable. Only the 75GXP line had issues with bad bearings and that was a LONG time ago.

I currently have over 30 Deskstar drives in use over the past 6 years and have not had a single issue.

Consider yourself lucky!

As a person who works on computers everyday for a living I see more Hitachi hard drives fail than any other hard drive manufacturer. They tend to also be noisy as well.
 
I can't believe they would use the DEATHStar in any of their products. Hitachi hard drives are about as reliable as a drunk cab driver. I would have thought Seagate or WD. (I have had bad luck with Hitachi drives)
DeathStar.gif

That's a load of rot. Hitachi drives since the dodgy days of the GXP75 and early GXP60's have been fine. I've got a several Hitachi Deskstars kicking around including a couple of 6 year old GXP120s and they've not missed a beat.

I do IT support for a living and the company have hundreds of IBM ThinkCentre's mostly with Hitachi drives fitted and again no real problems. Most that fail usually have the less common Western Digital drives.

Apple might be in a bit of hot water here, although it does mention under applications for the 7K1000 Networked storage servers. The UltraStar A7K1000 does appear to be the high usage version with a high MTBF and 5 year rather than 3 year warranty. Looking at retail prices the A7K1000 is about 25% more expensive for what in essence the same drive.
 
The whole "Server-Grade" comment was basically meaningless spin by Steve Jobs. "Server-Grade" could mean just about anything but it does not mean "Enterprise Class", which is what a lot of people have taken it to mean (possibly what Apple were aiming for). You're not going to get an enterprise class disk in a device costing what Time Capsule does...
 
Legalities aside, to me "server grade" implies better reliability/quality than "consumer grade." Far from over-reacting, it just seems like apple should have been more careful with their marketing strategy. But maybe they are not concerned with an audience that would have trouble with their definitions. If they are stretching, it is irritating, and to others more so.
 
That is false advertising, but is typical of Apple of late -- revisionist history.

Time Machine and Time Capsule have class action written all over them. This is TWICE in two months that Apple has stated one set of features, gotten early adopters to buy in, then switched to an inferrior offering when shipping. (Saying first that Time Machine would work with APE disks, then that Time Capsule would use server grade drives).

This is simply NOT ACCEPTABLE and is deceptive marketing practice that should result in the dismissal of some folks at Apple.

Lame.
:mad:

Cool it and go get a drink. Walk your dog or something.
 
I was under the impression that the server-grade drives were the same, except they are designed to withstand and pass a strict(er) specification.

Perhaps this is why the drives are marked with an Apple firmware sticker, as they're running custom settings like a PVR drive would.

Someone can chime in if I'm wrong though :cool:
 
... here are the part numbers used in Apple's official drive modules (grabbed via Xserve RAID admin just now):

500GB Modules - Hitachi Deskstar HDS725050KLAT80
400GB Modules - Hitachi Deskstar HDS724040KLAT80
240GB Modules - Hitachi Deskstar HDS722525VLAT80
180GB Modules - IBM Deskstar IC35L180AVV207-1

Not an Ultrastar in the bunch! They've been pretty reliable too, most of the drives we've had to replace are of the original 180GB variety from the oldest unit purchased in 2003. I don't remember replacing any of the 240/400/500GB modules.


Excellent posts. This is perfect to end the non-sense.

There you have it, another case of whining. Less than knowledgeable users don't know what they're talking about and getting all worked up. Just classic.

So can we bring back the lawsuit posts again, just to give me a chuckle?
 
To be honest, there aren't many SATA drives that could be considered server grade. What does that even mean? SATA has a far smaller duty cycle compared to real server HD technology such as SCSI and SAS.

I work with high end EMC SAN storage, and all the EMC storage arrays have options for using SATA drives.

Steve
 
Is anyone really surprised by this? Apple's marketing has never been known for honesty...

Anyone remember the line "Macs don't crash." on the Apple website?
 
You're not going to get an enterprise class disk in a device costing what Time Capsule does...

Why not? Retail price difference is 30.00-60.00 much of the time. Bought in the numbers that Apple would buy, it's certainly not as inconceivable as you make it out to be.
 
Cool it and go get a drink. Walk your dog or something.

Not only is this a real issue, this also violates several laws including the mis-representation act. I'm happy for Apple to have a high profit margin on their products, but selling their own customers short is just plain wrong.
 
That is false advertising, but is typical of Apple of late -- revisionist history.

Time Machine and Time Capsule have class action written all over them. This is TWICE in two months that Apple has stated one set of features, gotten early adopters to buy in, then switched to an inferrior offering when shipping. (Saying first that Time Machine would work with APE disks, then that Time Capsule would use server grade drives).

This is simply NOT ACCEPTABLE and is deceptive marketing practice that should result in the dismissal of some folks at Apple.

Lame.
:mad:
The fact that you are carrying on over SATA drives, means you don't even know what server grade means. Without any type of redundancy or proper enterprise controller, this can't even be considered a server. So calm yourself.
 
Excellent posts. This is perfect to end the non-sense.

There you have it, another case of whining. Less than knowledgeable users don't know what they're talking about and getting all worked up. Just classic.

So can we bring back the lawsuit posts again, just to give me a chuckle?


I've decided to invoke hatred for Seagate based on the fact that I had a Conner 80Mb drive back in the 90's that was noisy and failed taking my college work with it. Therefore as Seagate bought Conner all their hard drives must be bad and I'll never buy one ever again.
 
Consider yourself lucky!

As a person who works on computers everyday for a living I see more Hitachi hard drives fail than any other hard drive manufacturer. They tend to also be noisy as well.

lol i love these types of comments, it seems you cant have a thread talking about reliability without one of these "i work on computers everyday and almost all of them are X brand" guys.
 
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