The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Likewise I noticed the performance of the Pentium M right away. It was completely unlike any other chip of its time. It performed less like NetBurst and more like AMD64. I was interested in building a Socket 479 desktop at one time for specifically this. As I recall there was a small amount of enthusiast hardware released for people wanting to use Pentium Ms in desktops.

At one point I saw an article comparing one to an Athlon 64 FX-55. It wasn't very comparable given roughly equal clockspeeds except in one area, gaming. It actually gamed better than the FX-55 in many titles by a wide margin. In some titles it showed the same mediocre performance but in others it totally dominated.

Obviously there remained many issues to resolve with the architecture but the numbers were there. It simply didn't have any grunt at the time, being designed as a trade-off between power consumption and speed. When properly powered and cooled in high performance systems, some overclockers were able to make them do interesting things, but were still limited by the lightweight design. Particularly, with good cooling it was quite possible to push one to ~3GHz.

In short, the Pentium M was technically the fastest, most capable processor of its time, but the low clockspeeds hid that fact quite effectively.

 

Sorry to hear that Sam :S Did you do the full format on it? LOL! As time consuming as it is, I had to know that it could survive the full format, before I'd trust it with data. I realize this doesn't always discover a lemon, but it does certainly make me feel better. I have 2, and they've been running (Generally) non stop since purchase. Only a few shut off's.

 

I also do a full format at least the first time with every new drive. Even if it doesn't do a thing, I like to avoid any "bad magic"

 

I only normally use quickformat on any drive. Full formatting, apart from being a 10 hour+ process for 3TB drives, does not guarantee you will never suffer any data loss issues.

 

Yah, I know it's no guarantee. But it does give me piece of mind Usually it will find an immediate problem if a serious one exists. While others could quit months down the road. I wonder what the exact problem with yours is, eh?

 

Doesn't it decrease the chances of having problems or at least show you if you already have problems at that time? It might not be a perfect solution, but there is no perfect solution as far as I'm aware.

 

Yeah I'm not saying full formats are bad, it's a patience issue more than anything!

 

Indeed. I couldn't wait to begin using it/them But I'm a real stickler about them completing the first task

 

Yeah it does get to be a long wait on larger drives. Usually something I leave as an overnight project.

 

It does do a full check of the drive and mark bad or weak sectors in the drive table but it isn't a guarantee that the drive won't fail down the road for sure. Like Sam I normally only use quick format with exception to Refurbished drives, on them I will do a full format.

 

As a prime example, when I first upgraded to the 8 2TB drives, I wouldn't have wanted to wait 60 hours for them all to full format. Up until now it hasn't been a problem, and there are plenty of failures that can befall drives that won't show up in a full format, so it doesn't eliminate the need to backup. It's my own punishment for not having backed up the data due to it only having been there for a few days. That's the downside to downloading so much so quickly I suppose. On the upside, due tothe drive being so new I know exactly what's on it, and replacing it is straightforward (if time consuming). That's certainly not the case for any of the other drives!

 

Surely there's a way to format multiple drives simultaneously. I've never been faced with the situation, but I'm sure there are ways. At least I would think so.

I just like doing the long format, because if the drive is bordering on failure, a long format stands a chance of the problem presenting itself. I even took it a step further on one of my drives. I had everest run a Linear Read process. I forget which drive now though...
Usually when I purchase hard drives, I'm not desperate for the space yet. I still have sufficient space for my daily processes. I guess I plan ahead.(not suggesting you don't)

 

At the worst, multiple drives can be formatted at once by using multiple machines. I wouldn't wait for them one at a time if it would take them several days that way.

 

It's the size that kills for time, and if you are formatting a RAID/JBOD array it is treated as one drive effectively so formatting them singular would be a waist of time.

I have at least 8 machines at home so I can format multiple drives at one if needed and have done that at times. However it's just not necessary as quick formatting is just fine for most instances. If you really wanted to get carried away you could do a low level format on all drives using the manufactures utility software and then a full format but again you would just be wasting time.

 

If there's a minor head problem, or imperfection in the platter, it may go unnoticed for substantial time. A full format may increase the chance of quick failure. That's why I do it. But, I understand how this process is not for everyone

 

Not likely. It will go when it goes and doing a full format will not make a difference.

 

If there's a .01% chance that it could find a problem, I'll do it

 

Incidentally, before I RMA the failed drive, I'm going to full format it and see if it actually picks up anything - will be an interesting test I think. If it passes, I'll probably keep it for non-critical data, the process of sending back a dodgy drive is so infuriating, it's only borderline worthwhile for a drive worth $160+tax, and I haven't been able to fully vindicate the SAS controller it was connected to, which I do really want to do, in case I ever want to attach 3TB disks to it again in the future.

Bought five more WD20EARXes today at equivalent of $110+tax each, to start actually backing up some data, as well as to replace that 3TB drive in function. More will need to follow to be back where I was and have all the data backed up, but that's about all I could stomach for now!

 

I didn't look at the spec closely for your SAS controller, is it possible that you are limited to less than 2G drives?

 

Nah, although I admit I didn't check that before buying, 64-bit LBA support is specifically stated in the manual. That was my first hunch at the cause of failure though.