Dell Poweredge T330 vs. "regular Enterprise/NAS" SATA drives?

Basically slow consumer quality drives.

 "One of the definitions of consumer drives as compared to enterprise drives is that hard error rate is 1 bit in 10E14 bits for consumer drives and 1 bit in 10E15 bits"

5400 rpm drives? I assume speed is not on your criteria list at all

Have you calculated your rebuild rate? better hope all your rebuilds fall on a long extended holiday, expect complete raid failures. Keep your resume up to date.

I'll second that. NAS drives are a poor choice.

RAID 5 is also a poor choice for drives that are not high speed SAS or SSD. SATA drives that size should be in a RAID 6 or a RAID 10, etc.

You don't have to pay Dell's premium for Dell drives - purchase Dell drives from suppliers/resellers and you will get the same Dell product for much cheaper. Do it right. Don't skimp and buy the cheapest consumer-grade drives you can find (which is why so many people use the Reds) that are designed to be used in low-power software-driven NAS devices.

"So basically, you are saying that the WD REDs will not do the job right? hmm.."

Depends on your goals.......

If your applying to Ripley's believe it or not for the slowest benchmarked  raid, your in the running.

If your goal is to cripple your office production for a few days during a long rebuild, your on the path.

If you enjoy your boss and co workers breathing down your neck during long rebuilds, your on the path.

If you really hate IT work and want to change careers, your definitely going in the right direction.

Ok, besides the "black humour" (which I find entertaining I have to say) :) can you please tell me. Have you ever worked with QNAP NASes? You see, we have to keep the cost low on this.. :/

"Have you ever worked with QNAP NASes?"

No I have not.