My experiences with the ST31500341AS and WD15EADS differ from yours, but have been no less frustrating. I purchased 18 x ST31500341AS drives almost a year ago and started testing them for use in 3 software-based, RAID5 arrays. A surprising number of the drives began reallocating sectors during testing and I eventually returned all 18 drives to the retailer for a refund. You should take a look at the Seagate Forums thread with subject "Reallocated Sector Count increasing (ST31500341AS )." Once the WD15EADS hit retail channels, I bought a case of 20 and started testing. These drives performed much better out of the box, but some problems arose over time. I've run across numerous cases of non-zero Current_Pending_Sector, Reallocated_Sector_Ct, Multi_Zone_Error_Rate and Raw_Read_Error_Rate SMART attributes over the last 9 months. So far, I've returned 2 batches of 4 drives for RMA replacement by WD (in fact, I shipped out the second batch of 4 yesterday). It's worth noting that the first 4 replacement drives took quite awhile to arrive, but all have performed flawlessly so far. I'm knocking on wood as I type this, but I currently have 14 x WD15EADS drives running error-free in 3 arrays. Two of the arrays are installed in Xeon-based servers and comprise 5 drives each, all of which are active. The last array has 3 active drives and a hot spare and is installed in an old dual-PIII-based system. I'm using the same SIIG, sil-based, 4-port, SATA 150 controller in all 3 systems (two each in the Xeon-based servers to give me 5 ports). And I'm getting decent performance out of all of the arrays. For example, these are the results of some read tests I ran this morning using dd: PIII--101 MB/s over 8 sec, 103 MB/s over 80 sec and 105 MB/s over 800 sec; Xeon server--170 MB/s over 4 sec, 183 MB/s over 40 sec and 188 MB/s over 400 sec. Is there any chance that the controller you're using could be an issue? I had problems with the SIIG controllers until I removed the BIOS. Also, I'm running all of the WD15EADS drives with the SSC (spread spectrum clocking) jumper removed. Any chance that could be a factor?
My experiences with the ST31500341AS and WD15EADS differ from yours, but have been no less frustrating. I purchased 18 x ST31500341AS drives almost a year ago and started testing them for use in 3 software-based, RAID5 arrays. A surprising number of the drives began reallocating sectors during testing and I eventually returned all 18 drives to the retailer for a refund. You should take a look at the Seagate Forums thread with subject "Reallocated Sector Count increasing (ST31500341AS )." Once the WD15EADS hit retail channels, I bought a case of 20 and started testing. These drives performed much better out of the box, but some problems arose over time. I've run across numerous cases of non-zero Current_Pending_Sector, Reallocated_Sector_Ct, Multi_Zone_Error_Rate and Raw_Read_Error_Rate SMART attributes over the last 9 months. So far, I've returned 2 batches of 4 drives for RMA replacement by WD (in fact, I shipped out the second batch of 4 yesterday). It's worth noting that the first 4 replacement drives took quite awhile to arrive, but all have performed flawlessly so far. I'm knocking on wood as I type this, but I currently have 14 x WD15EADS drives running error-free in 3 arrays. Two of the arrays are installed in Xeon-based servers and comprise 5 drives each, all of which are active. The last array has 3 active drives and a hot spare and is installed in an old dual-PIII-based system. I'm using the same SIIG, sil-based, 4-port, SATA 150 controller in all 3 systems (two each in the Xeon-based servers to give me 5 ports). And I'm getting decent performance out of all of the arrays. For example, these are the results of some read tests I ran this morning using dd: PIII--101 MB/s over 8 sec, 103 MB/s over 80 sec and 105 MB/s over 800 sec; Xeon server--170 MB/s over 4 sec, 183 MB/s over 40 sec and 188 MB/s over 400 sec. Is there any chance that the controller you're using could be an issue? I had problems with the SIIG controllers until I removed the BIOS. Also, I'm running all of the WD15EADS drives with the SSC (spread spectrum clocking) jumper removed. Any chance that could be a factor?