Hello Tosh, got a downrated 6TB spinner? Yes, for slower workloads Toshiba has introduced a downrated version of its MG04 6TB disk drive, suitable for bulk storage and cloud-based apps requiring less data transfer velocity than the standard model. This feat is accomplished by retaining most of the feeds and speeds, such as the 7,200rpm spin speed, but giving it a 6Gbit/s SATA interface …
Reliable? Quantum Bigfoots were the first hard drives I encountered that actually needed firmware updates to NOT cause corruption while writes. I remember regularly using a dozen or so BBS's back then but I can't remember hard drive firmware updates to any models in the file areas.
Yeah, I'd quite happily put a bigger form drive in one of the many drive bays I have free if it meant significantly higher capacity, cooler running and better reliability at an economical cost. I still have a 4GB Bigfoot that runs fine to this day in one of my retro use machines.
Probably the cost of making something in a completely different form factor requires too much initial investment for them to be sold at a reasonable price however.
How do you know that these won't last twenty years?
Over the years I have encountered models that were complete lemons, and batches of formerly reliable drives that suffered presumed common-mode component failures. Excluding these, I've found that the majority of IDE and SATA drives were working well up to the day the system they were in was scrapped. No manufacturer stood out as better or worse, but really unless you are the like of Google (who aren't telling), you haven't got a big enough sample set to judge past history let alone extrapolate the future of a newer model.
By the time you (or the manufacturer) knows that a particular design is long-term reliable, it is also obsolete and no longer in manufacture. So cross your fingers, touch wood, mirror your disks, pair different manufacturers to minimise common-mode risks, and make sure of your backups!
Just this week I finally threw away several sub 20GB drives I have had for donkeys years, and had installed in the childrens PCs for the last 2-3 years. Prior to that, the childrens PCs were fitted with an assortment of REALLY ancient drives, going all the way down to a 850MB drive that arrived in a Win95 box back in 1997.
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