evidently seagate thinks it can control the power/heat of its new 3tb drives:
Interesting.
Do our Drobos support 3TB drives as it stands, or would we need a firmware update first?
I’m getting close to the 85% full slowdown limit on mine, so its time for a new drive. Can’t decide if I should get another 2TB WD Green today, or wait a few weeks and snag up a 3TB drive…
There is an article in the knowledge base saying they will make a firmware update available when the drives are available
Now that drives are available, any ETA on that firmware update?
They are?
The only ones I have seen thus far are sold inside external enclosures, and may or may not be fully compatible 3.5" sATA drives.
Where have you seen internal drives that can be used with the Drobo for sale?
Ahh,
Announced and available are two different things 
I haven’t seen them on Newegg yet.
if you read the article it doesn’t say announced, it says “available now”[hr]
and first review:
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Western-Digital-Caviar-Green-3TB-Hard-Drive-Review/
Available where?
When there is a major video card release, its timed to be available on Newegg at the same time the press release goes out.
I can’t find these 3TB drives on any major retailers site yet
http://cgi.ebay.com/WD-3TB-3-5-Caviar-Green-SATA-HDD-WD30EZRS-7200RPM-64MB-/230536459027
has them in hand
has them listed too[hr]
weirdly apparently it COMES WITH an HBA
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/storage/wd-launches-worlds-first-3tb-hard-drive-901696[hr]
the exact wording from the press release:
" available now in the U.S. at select resellers and distributors. "
give WD a call and see who they have sent them all too?
in the UK, Insight (one of my favourite retailers) are getting them drop-shipped:
http://uk.insight.com/apps/productpresentation/index.php?cm_mmc=Feed--GoogleMerchant--GoogleProducts-_-Product&utm_source=base&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=base&src=FRO1&product_id=WDGA07JY8[hr]
and now I’m impressed:
The new 3TB Caviar Green now consumes 3.89 watts at idle, from a previous 6.31 watts on the 2TB model.
I just searched the forum for WD30EZRSDTL and didn’t get any hits, so gonna add that to this thread.
I don’t know if Micro Center is local, or how many locations they have, but it’s now available for preorder, in-store pickup only, 10/29/2010. Link: http://goo.gl/eKT1
I’m tempted to buy one and hold onto it until we get a Drobo firmware upgrade.
I’d wait until the firmware is available, the only direction prices will go is down!
I think the SDTL part is because it comes with a bundled HBA, hopefully single drive OEM parts will be available soon and (without having the bundle an add-in card) cheaper!
So, the question becomes, at 2x the price of a 2TB model and 2.5x the price of a 1.5TB model, are they worth it?
If all of your Drobo slots are full of 2TB drives and you are running low on space, then certainly.
For the rest of us, this becomes a more difficult question.
I have the following arrangement:
- 2TB
- 2TB
- 1TB
- 250GB
- empty
(I also use dual disk redundancy)
So. if I add 2x3TB to my array today, due to the dual disk redundancy implying that space equal in size to the largest two drives is consumed for this purpose, I will only add 4TB to my array, the exact same as if I were to add 2TB drives.
In fact, the only way I would get the benefit today from a 3TB drive is if I bought 3 of them.
So for all intents and purposes, buying a 3TB drive today - for me - is an investment for the future, so that when the time comes to replace the 2TB drives with something larger, I’m not dragged down by having more than two 2TB drives…
So for someone like me, it becomes a question of, is it cheaper to buy 2TB drives today and replace more drives down the road when 3TB drives are cheaper, or is it cheaper to get 3TB drives now so I don’t have to upgrade them again sooner.
This becomes a tougher question due to the inability to predict the future of prices and available storage.
If the price were closer to the same price per GB as the 2TB drives, I would definitely consider it, at this price - however - I’m leaning towards going with 2TB drives the next time I order, also hoping that the new 3TB drives will drive them down in price a little bit)[hr]
Also. I’m curious… What do you do with all that space?
I thought my 5.25TB were ridiculous
The review I was reading of it earlier had it at 8cents/gb which was only a little more than the 7 cents a gb of the 2tb drive[hr]
oh and
[quote]Also. I’m curious… What do you do with all that space?
I thought my 5.25TB were ridiculous[/quote]
media library
and im up to 10 x 2tb drives now…
That’s a lot of media!
not at 20-40gb/movie and up to 700GB for a tv series (battlestar galactica & lost are both around that size)
Blu-rays?
You could compress th even a little, and save a lot of space without perceptible quality loss…
yeah i know, but thats way way too much work, im happy just to leave them in the original maximum quality form.
the only concession i do make is to strip out only the DTS/AC3 from the DTSHD/AC3HD streams (which can be about 5GB a movie just loosing the high def sound) and since its just stripping out a component, it doenst actually require any re-encoding of the audio, its just the original, untouched, standard def 5.1 stream