Fabian Fuller wrote:

FWIW, a couple years ago I went through a situation similar to what you're
going through. During my Internet research I learned that firmware versions
of controller boards may vary between otherwise identical looking drives,
and this might result in a compatibility problem. The person I learned this
from commented that after he went through swapping controller boards and
discovered the firmware difference, he made it his practice, when buying a
new hard drive, to always buy a second identical drive at the same time from
the same batch as the first (to ensure matching firmware) so he could
confidently swap the controller boards should he need to.

This in no way guarantees the drives will have the same firmware
version. There's every single chance that they could be from different
batches.

I don't understand why your friend didn't just run the drives in RAID 1
array.

The chances of them both failing together (unless they were both Maxtors
or some other cause) would probably be adequate, coupled with a backup
regime.


Odie
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