Reliability issues with 2 x 7200rpm 60Gb Drives

Have a solution, but most likely not one that will bode well with your current situation. Regardless, may benefit yourself or another, and thus willl include this information.

Hitachi actually manufactures a drive much more suited to this type of application than the drive(s) most likely residing in your machine at present. The 7200 RPM drives included with Sager Midern machines are of course of the Travelstar series, model 7K60. Overview summary of the drive can be found here, with drive general specifications found here. One will notice the specifications list the ambient operating temperature of the drive up to 55°C, though I do not believe that temperature to be a maxium threshhold - merely the normal operating ambient temperature. The drive with specifications that appear better suited to the desktop replacement application (especially when employing any disc array) would be model E7K60. Overview summary of the drive can be found here, with drive general specifications found here. Consulting the differences, one will notice the upper value of the ambient operating range a full 15°C lower - that is to say, the E7K60 drive runs far cooler than its 7K60 counterpart.

Was curious as to these specification differences, and contacted Hitachi concerning such. After speaking with a number of technical representatives, the consensus gave the edge to the E7K60, as it has greater temperature tolerance, both on the upper and lower extremes. Was informed the drives are primarily implemented in automobile applications or the like, and server enviornments, both where the drive can be subject to adverse heat/cold and long periods of operation (one should also notice the "“Always on” for 24x7 access" feature listed in the E7K60 drive overview section). It seemed a far better choice for a desktop replacement with thermal concerns, at least in my opinion.

Do hope this helps. Wish I had more information to help your precise situation, however.

There was a long discussion concerning the relability of RAID-0 and probability of failure a few months ago within this forum. Try searching for it.

I have had my 2x 5400rpm RAID-0 setup crashed twice now, both times hd#2 went griiind ker klunk... however after searching the forums I have never seen anyone else with this problem. So its probably a fluke with my 8790.

I dont put alot faith into the probablities either, as there is always unknowns you cant factor in. I dont think the manufacturer had something like the 8790 in mind when they put out the specs... two mobile hd's sitting side by side running raid0 with a very hot running cpu packed into a tight space running intense games for hours at a time... who can say how long they will last... heat kills.

One thing I did notice about heat though... while playing City of Heroes for long sessions... some of the keys on my keyboard would get so hot that I felt I would get burned if I held them down for more than a few seconds at a time... I think the machine itself just produces alot of heat from a combination of everything packed into it.

Or spin, your machine might have something wrong with it that is causing it to run too hot. Get Mobile Meter and let us know what the temps are and if you have a 1st or 2nd generation 8790. Do you use the Fn+F10 "High Speed Fan" Option?

Are you still overclocking your 3.2Ghz CPU to 3.5Ghz as you indicated in my 1st 8790 review thread: http://notebookforums.com/showthread...814#post216814

If so, that could be part of the "Heat Problem" that you express.

[/quote]Are you still overclocking your 3.2Ghz CPU to 3.5Ghz [quote]
NO! I only did that once, to run one benchmark.
Its been running 3.2 ever since then, havnt even oc'ed the vid card.

Its a first gen and the first hd failed right before the new bios came out. After installing the new hd, the first thing I did was get the bios and install it. I used Fn+F10 everytime I started up the computer after that. I had mobile meter, it never seemed to ever go past 40 during idle, 55 was the highest I saw during gaming. Allthough I never ran the game windowed to monitor that temp. So I cant be for sure, and I cant do it now cause its still in the shop... or being shipped back to me, hopefully the latter.

I asked them to check the Raid controller.

Sau,

Repeat your test scenerios to determine the 8790 temps in an environment where the room temperature is between 85 - 90 degrees F. This would simulate a type of "worst case" scenerio. The room temperature makes more of a difference than one would assume/think.