Even more-awkwardly, I'm half-Aboriginal but still with white skin (so I'm technically diverse, but invisibly so). So can I really feel sorry for those who squander their (not-so) precious data by brainlessly reifying the 1980s‑leftover distinction between "consumer" and "enterprise" storage (back then, stepper-motor drives were for consumer applications and voice-coil drives for enterprise use; there were indeed dreadful steppers like the MiniScribe 3650, as well as some excellent models from premium manufacturers like Disctron and Lapine; but voice-coil enterprise models of the era were NEVER as bad as the modern Seagate Grenada and Rosewood platforms)? The only reason I mind at all is because it hurts the innocent too: My 2004 home PC had a bulletproof ST380011A which despite years of 67°C heat (also with no air conditioning, hence uncontrolled humidity), remained trouble-free long after the rest of that shitbox was a write-off; then Mum's otherwise well-specified 2012 office PC had a SandFarce-based Kingston SSDNow V+200, which silently corrupted in 2018 and crashed everything hard. Quite foreseeably, even Samsung and Crucial consumer SSDs have well and truly fallen; the good news is that proper enterprise SSDs are finally down to quite reasonable prices (<AU$1/GB for the Exascend SE3 I chose) and sensible for mainstream applications.
Kingston in general is basically the Maxtor of SSDs (remember Maxtor?), so none of their models are trustworthy in any important application.
I think that this all boils down to planned obsolescence, which I agree is a tragedy. Servers used to last 30 years once, and now you're lucky to get 5 to 7 years out of them. Absolute bullshit.
As if that wasn't enough, we ALSO have to worry about that unique spyware chip no larger than a grain of rice which China puts on many of their motherboards, and literally no American tech company does their due diligence about this shit. If I were CEO of a big tech company I would be using AI to do visual sweeps of each circuitboard procured to catch that kind of thing. It would be very valuable not only because it would prevent the CCP from spying on you, but also because you could then use the server which you had identified as compromised to pass false info to the CCP and fuck them over.
But most companies just care about short-term profits because their executives switch jobs and corporations so frequently that their stupid mistakes rarely have a chance to catch up with them.
Even Western Digital's high-end drives, while they make it past the 5‑year warranty, don't have too much headroom beyond that; although the price is right, it's still underwhelming when so many older models, even those with higher‑quality ball‑bearings (including even Maxtor's excellent 2000-model DiamondMax Plus 40, before the post-Deathstar FUD gave them the idea to make deliberate junk; and ironically most‑of‑all the 75GXP with its ceramic ball bearings) let alone FDBs, kept going for way longer (that said, the WD4003FZEX earned great respect as the first model dethroning Hitachi's 9‑year‑long performance leadership with the Deskstar 7K400, 7K500, 7K1000, 7K2000, 7K3000 & 7K4000).
Since Seagate has been forced to stop willfully making junk too (as they did under the wrath of those Maxtor managers), I'll give the ST10000VE001 a try this year and see how well it lives up to the Barracuda 7200.7 (I not only still use my ST380817AS for S‑tier backups; but I've ordered an ST3160827AS also in perfect health on eBay, so I can soon upsize for at least the next few years); only Seagate's engineers stand a chance of even matching their durability. It's also rather sad how the SkyHawk and FireCuda have to boast “tarnish‑resistant components” as an explicit feature, when you just got them as a right in the older premium 7200rpm drives (the classic Barracudas more than anything!); but it's nice to see that whatever mask they're wearing, Seagate's engineers are still making the effort (the 2.5″ 7200rpm Constellations, whether in SATA or SAS, are the most adorable little drives around; and even though their development has stalled for a decade already, the Constellation.3 is still in‑production albeit renamed to Exos 7E2000).
I guess much of the problem is that corporate IT has largely fallen to the Boomers – they just want to meet basic specifications at the lowest available price, plus tempting‑but‑treacherous "convenience" features like self‑encryption in the proprietary firmware (instead of using the open‑source encryption software of your choice on the server housing them), along with miscellaneous dubious extras (which is why I'd rather use the SkyHawk or FireCuda than the 3.5″ Exos families).
Western Digital's broad strategy is to work with the market; which made their Raptor line a smash hit in its day, and the Caviar Blacks are a solid choice (available in all capacities, too) for budget to midrange PCs. Seagate's strategy is rather to make superior drives (notwithstanding the cheaper, slower consumer models) despite the market, and use their resources also to cater to niches (like the Constellations, which although ostensibly enterprise‑oriented, occupy their strongest role in SFF desktops with Barracuda‑equal speed, while much quieter and power‑sipping).
Even more-awkwardly, I'm half-Aboriginal but still with white skin (so I'm technically diverse, but invisibly so). So can I really feel sorry for those who squander their (not-so) precious data by brainlessly reifying the 1980s‑leftover distinction between "consumer" and "enterprise" storage (back then, stepper-motor drives were for consumer applications and voice-coil drives for enterprise use; there were indeed dreadful steppers like the MiniScribe 3650, as well as some excellent models from premium manufacturers like Disctron and Lapine; but voice-coil enterprise models of the era were NEVER as bad as the modern Seagate Grenada and Rosewood platforms)? The only reason I mind at all is because it hurts the innocent too: My 2004 home PC had a bulletproof ST380011A which despite years of 67°C heat (also with no air conditioning, hence uncontrolled humidity), remained trouble-free long after the rest of that shitbox was a write-off; then Mum's otherwise well-specified 2012 office PC had a SandFarce-based Kingston SSDNow V+200, which silently corrupted in 2018 and crashed everything hard. Quite foreseeably, even Samsung and Crucial consumer SSDs have well and truly fallen; the good news is that proper enterprise SSDs are finally down to quite reasonable prices (<AU$1/GB for the Exascend SE3 I chose) and sensible for mainstream applications.
Kingston in general is basically the Maxtor of SSDs (remember Maxtor?), so none of their models are trustworthy in any important application.
I think that this all boils down to planned obsolescence, which I agree is a tragedy. Servers used to last 30 years once, and now you're lucky to get 5 to 7 years out of them. Absolute bullshit.
As if that wasn't enough, we ALSO have to worry about that unique spyware chip no larger than a grain of rice which China puts on many of their motherboards, and literally no American tech company does their due diligence about this shit. If I were CEO of a big tech company I would be using AI to do visual sweeps of each circuitboard procured to catch that kind of thing. It would be very valuable not only because it would prevent the CCP from spying on you, but also because you could then use the server which you had identified as compromised to pass false info to the CCP and fuck them over.
But most companies just care about short-term profits because their executives switch jobs and corporations so frequently that their stupid mistakes rarely have a chance to catch up with them.
Even Western Digital's high-end drives, while they make it past the 5‑year warranty, don't have too much headroom beyond that; although the price is right, it's still underwhelming when so many older models, even those with higher‑quality ball‑bearings (including even Maxtor's excellent 2000-model DiamondMax Plus 40, before the post-Deathstar FUD gave them the idea to make deliberate junk; and ironically most‑of‑all the 75GXP with its ceramic ball bearings) let alone FDBs, kept going for way longer (that said, the WD4003FZEX earned great respect as the first model dethroning Hitachi's 9‑year‑long performance leadership with the Deskstar 7K400, 7K500, 7K1000, 7K2000, 7K3000 & 7K4000).
Since Seagate has been forced to stop willfully making junk too (as they did under the wrath of those Maxtor managers), I'll give the ST10000VE001 a try this year and see how well it lives up to the Barracuda 7200.7 (I not only still use my ST380817AS for S‑tier backups; but I've ordered an ST3160827AS also in perfect health on eBay, so I can soon upsize for at least the next few years); only Seagate's engineers stand a chance of even matching their durability. It's also rather sad how the SkyHawk and FireCuda have to boast “tarnish‑resistant components” as an explicit feature, when you just got them as a right in the older premium 7200rpm drives (the classic Barracudas more than anything!); but it's nice to see that whatever mask they're wearing, Seagate's engineers are still making the effort (the 2.5″ 7200rpm Constellations, whether in SATA or SAS, are the most adorable little drives around; and even though their development has stalled for a decade already, the Constellation.3 is still in‑production albeit renamed to Exos 7E2000).
I guess much of the problem is that corporate IT has largely fallen to the Boomers – they just want to meet basic specifications at the lowest available price, plus tempting‑but‑treacherous "convenience" features like self‑encryption in the proprietary firmware (instead of using the open‑source encryption software of your choice on the server housing them), along with miscellaneous dubious extras (which is why I'd rather use the SkyHawk or FireCuda than the 3.5″ Exos families).
Western Digital's broad strategy is to work with the market; which made their Raptor line a smash hit in its day, and the Caviar Blacks are a solid choice (available in all capacities, too) for budget to midrange PCs. Seagate's strategy is rather to make superior drives (notwithstanding the cheaper, slower consumer models) despite the market, and use their resources also to cater to niches (like the Constellations, which although ostensibly enterprise‑oriented, occupy their strongest role in SFF desktops with Barracuda‑equal speed, while much quieter and power‑sipping).