[Beowulf] Consumer vs. Enterprise Hard Drives in Clusters

[Nifty Tom Mitchell]

On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 04:36:51PM -0800, Greg Lindahl wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 04:19:55PM -0800, Jon Forrest wrote:
> 
> > The
> > last time I checked, the enterprise drives were ~25%
> > more expensive than the consumer drives. This difference
> > might have changed since then.
> 
> Last time I checked, it was +$10 on a $300 drive. I bought
> the enterprise drives.
> 
> My local system reseller claims there's a substantial difference in
> return rate. I'd love to have harder data.

I suspect that the difference is in subtle and in the BOM.

A ten dollar difference could be as simple as heat sink
or capacitor thermal specifications.   The heat sink could 
be invisible -- i.e. more/ thicker copper on the logic board

Contract manufacturers may also bring better quality practices
to the table.

Different internal filters, bearing seal or lubrication specifications 
may also apply.   I doubt that firmware is different.

-- 
	Regards,
	T o m   M i t c h e l l