Arguments For An Enterprise-Level Hard Drive

After a late night bit or investigation on the net, I decided to consider changing the hard drives that I was planning to install in the Mac Pro.  To recap, I purchased two Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB HDDs that were going to be incorporated into a RAID 1 mirror set.  While lurking in various internet forums, namely MacRumors, I caught a "buzz" about issues with current Seagate drives. It may be hearsay, but a few seem to believe that Seagate drives have been prone to a higher rate of failure of late.  I realize that the vast majority of computer users simply do not post their thoughts or experiences for others to read, and are probably chugging along just fine with their Seagate drives, than you.  But it got me thinking . . . perhaps I should consider an enterprise-level hard drive.

Seagate Constellation ES                  

Enterprise-level drives typically are described as more robust and in many cases, a bit more thrifty in the power consumption department than their consumer counterparts.  Some examples are Hitachi's Ultrastar 7K3000 line, along with Seagate's Constellation offerings.  When comparing the 2TB Seagate Constellation ES to the 2TB Seagate Barracuda XT, both sport 7200RPM spin speeds, along with 64MB of cache.  According to this Tom's Hardware review, performance is pretty similar; understandable given the similar specs.  For me, the main drawing point was the difference in MTBF rating.  MTBF stands for Mean Time Between Failure, and is quite simply a measure of reliability of a system or component.  Compared to the Barracuda XT's MTBF of 75,000 hours, the Constellation ES is 62.5% greater at a whopping 1.2 million hours!  Take this with a grain of salt . . . there's no telling if you ultimately end-up with a lemon of a drive.  But with a price difference between the two models at about $50-75, I'd feel just a wee bit better with the Constellation ES.

Now after all this pontification, it seems that I cannot find a single Seagate Constellation ES 2TB drive, either locally or on the net.  The Hitachi drive seems to be available, but with a price tag north of $425, the cost of two of these wouldn't be easy on the wallet.  It seems that the hard drive crisis caused by the flooding in Thailand has really hit this home.  Because my Mac Pro must be ready to install MacPractice by week's end, it looks like I'll be taking my chances with the Barracudas.