Mac Pro drives uses same QC as servers?

[xper]

Hi!

I have read somewhere that the drives that is shipped with the Mac Pro
uses the same quality control as all the server does, can someone verify this?
Usualy server drives have a strict quality control and only uses the harddrives
that has passed this test with flying colors (hmm is that expression correct?)
and if this where true for the Mac Pro drives that comes with the machine justify
that it´s worth the extra dollars to use the drives from apple store instead
of buying from another vendor.

Confirmation please!

 

[rob5]

Apple's drives aren't even 16MB cache unless you get the 750GB ones. They are like any other drive you buy on newegg.com, nothing special.

 

[xper]

The question was not related to the drives itself, the question was if the drives
Apple uses for the Mac Pro have been trough the same quality control as all
the harddrives that goes into servers.

 

[dkoralek]

Apple's drives aren't even 16MB cache unless you get the 750GB ones. They are like any other drive you buy on newegg.com, nothing special.

What does that have to do with quality???

cheers.

 

[rob5]

What does that have to do with quality???

cheers.

It proves my point that it's not "worth the extra dollars to use the drives from apple store instead of buying from another vendor" since you can get the exact drives cheaper from somewhere else.

 

[xper]

It proves my point that it's not "worth the extra dollars to use the drives from apple store instead of buying from another vendor" since you can get the exact drives cheaper from somewhere else.

Yeah but harddrives that gonna end up in server configuration have not gone through the same quality control as the one that different vendors sell.
Quality control for server hardware is very strict.

 

[jaguarx]

um, no.
Server hardware wise - a Segate Cheetah, is a Cheetah (for example), full stop, there aren't grades of them the way there is for RAM or CPUs (all of which happens before it enters the wholesale stream anyway). Individual companies often do burn-ins or tests on serious server hardware before putting it into production but outside the very, very high end of the market no vendor is going to do serious burn-in pre-sale. The drives in Apple machines, from XRAID to MacMini are stock drives, mostly from WD and Seagate, exactly the same ones Newegg et al sell and it'll be the same for Dell, HP etc, server or desktop.

Random example: My work just bought a big Dell Poweredge server, 4 U320 SCSI drives. Serious money. One died a week later.

There is no real difference between server and desktop hardware, it's all arbitary. Take WD's Raptor series for example, designed and marketed as a 'server' drive it's got a huge following as a damn fast desktop drive for gamers and video types.

 

[dkoralek]

It proves my point that it's not "worth the extra dollars to use the drives from apple store instead of buying from another vendor" since you can get the exact drives cheaper from somewhere else.

That still doesn't have anything to do with the level of cache (your rationale for demonstrating this lower quality). You can get a crappier drive with a bigger cache and a better drive with a smaller cache. by that token, the raptors are lower quality because they have a slower interface. I'm not disputing whether the drives are better or worse quality. It is an intriguing question, though. Not that I think it is true. But it is possible that certain drives that test better (within the same model) are used (analogous that for years intel sold processors that didn't meet specs as lower spec models.

cheers.

 

[Sesshi]

um, no.
Server hardware wise - a Segate Cheetah, is a Cheetah (for example), full stop, there aren't grades of them the way there is for RAM or CPUs (all of which happens before it enters the wholesale stream anyway). Individual companies often do burn-ins or tests on serious server hardware before putting it into production but outside the very, very high end of the market no vendor is going to do serious burn-in pre-sale. The drives in Apple machines, from XRAID to MacMini are stock drives, mostly from WD and Seagate, exactly the same ones Newegg et al sell and it'll be the same for Dell, HP etc, server or desktop.

Random example: My work just bought a big Dell Poweredge server, 4 U320 SCSI drives. Serious money. One died a week later.

There is no real difference between server and desktop hardware, it's all arbitary. Take WD's Raptor series for example, designed and marketed as a 'server' drive it's got a huge following as a damn fast desktop drive for gamers and video types.

Seems like a questionable random example - you can't buy upper-end Poweredges with SCSI anymore.

The drives in the Pro look like regular SATA drives to me. I just whacked in an additional drive and it doesn't look / work any different to the one in the Mac already. And builders don't test drives beyond the burn-in phase - manufacturers do.

The SAS drives in my Precision 690 / 490s on the other hand are engineered to higher tolerances and higher performance. They're server-class drives, working on a slightly better 5000X board than the Mac Pro along with a pretty decent controller (not even an option on the Pro, alas)