No more WDLabs?

[BillStephenson]

I've seen a few posts on hacker news about Western Digital shutting down WDLabs.

That would suck because they are doing some cool stuff there.

[W. H. Heydt]

That's depressing news.

[PeterO]

That's a depressing rumour.

Fixed it Even the linked item says "Raspberry Pi devices are extremely popular, and talk that WDLabs may close should be chalked up as a mere rumor for now."

PeterO

[Heater]

On the other hand, WD make spinning hard disk drives. A technology that is under attack from SSD.

The whole company is going down soon enough.

[BillStephenson]

Their site says they sell SSD drives but I don't think they make one specifically for the Pi.

[Zebu]

We will still need mechanical drives for a while yet, Data on an SSD that's left turned off can be gone in as little as 12 months depending on the climate you live in.

Not great for archival data or backups.

It is of no real surprise that we are down to basically 2 hard drive manufacturers though.

[startrek.steve]

I emailed them to ask if they were making a Node zero with a Pi W version, and they were very cagey, I had to post two requests before I got an intelligible answer.

Steve

[Heater]

Zebu,

Data on an SSD that's left turned off can be gone in as little as 12 months depending on the climate you live in

Not true. Or at least a gross exageration:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2925173/ ... r-all.html
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9248/the- ... -retention

[BillStephenson]

Well, personally, I really like the case, drive, cables and power supply setup I got from WDLabs and the drive is pretty much silent.

It's by far the best setup I've used.

I really like the design of the "Pi-Desktop" too and the price is pretty reasonable. I might have to grab one of those.

[W. H. Heydt]

Well, personally, I really like the case, drive, cables and power supply setup I got from WDLabs and the drive is pretty much silent.

It's by far the best setup I've used.

I really like the design of the "Pi-Desktop" too and the price is pretty reasonable. I might have to grab one of those.

I've been generally happy with the Pi-related stuff from them as well, though at the moment I'm having some problems with a couple of SATA Adapter. I haven't finished all the testing I want to do (to try make sure to the extent I can that I haven't fouled up) before bringing the issues to the attention of WD.

[jamesh]

On the other hand, WD make spinning hard disk drives. A technology that is under attack from SSD.

The whole company is going down soon enough.

Doubt it. Spinning disk has quite some lifetime left, higher capacity at cheaper prices. I see the market going for SSD for OS and time critical plus another HDD for big stuff that doesn't need the high speeds of SSD. Video storage on a NAS is a good example. Limited by network speed anyway, so HDD are a perfect solution.

[RaTTuS]

^WHS
spinning disks have a lot of life left in them - see 10TB drives available now at good prces
and I would not want to use SSD on video surveillance disks -

[W. H. Heydt]

On the other hand, WD make spinning hard disk drives. A technology that is under attack from SSD.

The whole company is going down soon enough.

Doubt it. Spinning disk has quite some lifetime left, higher capacity at cheaper prices. I see the market going for SSD for OS and time critical plus another HDD for big stuff that doesn't need the high speeds of SSD. Video storage on a NAS is a good example. Limited by network speed anyway, so HDD are a perfect solution.

Which is why my nearly 1 year old desktop system has a 256GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. things like Raspbian downloads go to the HDD.

[jamesh]

On the other hand, WD make spinning hard disk drives. A technology that is under attack from SSD.

The whole company is going down soon enough.

Doubt it. Spinning disk has quite some lifetime left, higher capacity at cheaper prices. I see the market going for SSD for OS and time critical plus another HDD for big stuff that doesn't need the high speeds of SSD. Video storage on a NAS is a good example. Limited by network speed anyway, so HDD are a perfect solution.

Which is why my nearly 1 year old desktop system has a 256GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. things like Raspbian downloads go to the HDD.

Similar, I just have the home folder mounted on the HDD, all OS stuff on the SSD. Works fine.

[jahboater]

Which is why my nearly 1 year old desktop system has a 256GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. things like Raspbian downloads go to the HDD.

Mine has a (relatively) expensive small SSD for the OS and a couple of larger cheap/slow SSD's for media and other big stuff. Raspbian downloads go into /tmp which is tmpfs and has around 12GB of space. Ditto things like a new version of gcc - untar and build it in tmpfs, then install it from there.
No wear and tear on the SSD and very fast.

When I last used HDD's, they were 10,000rpm WD Raptor's, but any SSD, even a cheap one, is noticeably faster - and silent of course.

[W. H. Heydt]

Which is why my nearly 1 year old desktop system has a 256GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. things like Raspbian downloads go to the HDD.

Mine has a (relatively) expensive small SSD for the OS and a couple of larger cheap/slow SSD's for media and other big stuff. Raspbian downloads go into /tmp which is tmpfs and has around 12GB of space. Ditto things like a new version of gcc - untar and build it in tmpfs, then install it from there.
No wear and tear on the SSD and very fast.

When I last used HDD's, they were 10,000rpm WD Raptor's, but any SSD, even a cheap one, is noticeably faster - and silent of course.

I keep old versions of Raspbian around, so 12GB would be laughably small. I have a system I built in 2002 that has 3 Raptors. The original 36GB ones. The I/O speed on that stills blows a Pi away even with an SSD (I've run tests)., Unusually for when I built that system, it has always run 64-bit Linux (SuSE 9.2 originally) and the it has two Opteron-240 CPUs, plus 2GB of ECC RAM. For that time, it's a real beast and it weighs 40 pounds. I figure by the time we get to the Pi5B, said Pi will meet or exceed the specs in every particular. Assuming I live that long...

[davidcoton]

Unusually for when I built that system, it has always run 54-bit Linux

You're right, that is unusual.

[W. H. Heydt]

Unusually for when I built that system, it has always run 54-bit Linux

You're right, that is unusual.

Bloody typos...64-bit, of course. I'll fix it.

[W. H. Heydt]

I have received an e-mail from WD Labs. The shutdown is not a rumor.

[BillStephenson]

Thanks for the update.

I was afraid of that. I'm glad I got the case and drive when I did, but I'd really kind of hoped I'd be able to get more of those and hook some friends up with them. I wonder what they'll do with the tooling for those. I suppose they'll write it off and trash it, but it'd be great if someone else could pick it up.

[mikronauts]

Too bad.

I just received my PiDrive 375GB.

I have received an e-mail from WD Labs. The shutdown is not a rumor.

[gasha]

Any recommendations, which hard drive to buy for Raspberry?
Im using 314 Gb version of PiDrive and two 375gb drives.
Just read, that WD Mypassport is no linux friendly, Requires activation, etc...

What im looking for is reliable SATA or USB 2.5 inch drive, to build large storage setup with PI.
Or i can just go with SATA-USB cables and some scrap old SATA drives.