Areca 1882ix w/WD Green disks (Server 2008)

[terayon1515]

Hey all,

I constantly gain intelligence from everyone here, especially the storage moguls who always have input and advice with higher-end RAID-HBA's and troubleshooting. I must thank everyone here for making this forum what it is.

I recently posted about an upgrade to an Areca 1882ix-12 card to move my essential disks off of softRAID:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1674754

I consistently hear horror stories about using these WD Green consumer drives without TLER on hardware RAID. I have this love relationship with WD drives, they have had very low failure rates with me. So before the upgrade I had 10+ Green and Blue drives to migrate to hardware RAID.

I bit the bullet and got the card, and am happy to report that I have had three arrays on the unit without any drops or any irregular behavior:

• 6x WD20EARS in RAID5
• 4x WD15EADS in RAID5
• 4x WD5000AAKS in RAID5

These arrays have been up for over 6 months now. Yesterday I completed an OCE of the 6x WD20EARS array adding two more WD20EARX drives bringing the array to 14TB. Drives operated flawlessly: 25hour array migration, 2hour volume expand.

Lastly, I must provide the amazing speeds this 8x WD 2TB array produces:

ATTO:

HDTune:

I hope this provides hope to those out there with WD Greens, Blues etc. w/o TLER looking to do hardware RAID.

All the best,
Jeremy

 

[1010]

Enjoy the card, Areca makes great products. However, I'd suggest in the future that you heed advice and warnings from those more knowledgeable or that have acted as guinea pigs testing compatibility.

With the exception of the new Red Series, a majority of Western Digital drives aren't highly recommended for parity RAID operations (RAID 5, RAID 6) because Western Digital intentionally crippled their consumer grade storage lines. A majority of WDC drives since 2009 (EARS series included) will not report ERC timeout values and will drop out of arrays at random.

 

[mwroobel]

Enjoy your card and the extraordinary luck you have had with those drives. You should also go buy a lottery ticket with this luck, as these drives tend not to cooperate with hardware raid cards (and the lottery winnings will help you afford a great backup system).

 

[odditory]

Enjoy your card and the extraordinary luck you have had with those drives. You should also go buy a lottery ticket with this luck, as these drives tend not to cooperate with hardware raid cards (and the lottery winnings will help you afford a great backup system).

The Areca 188x series cards are to thank, as they've become a lot more tolerant of the disk behavior of certain desktop class drives that used to make them false-positive timeout & drop these drives, especially in the newer firmware revs (1.49, 1.50, 1.51).

Regardless, The WD Greens are not ideal longterm even though the Areca tolerates them, due to the fact they've got minds of their own with the load cycling & APM/power mgmt behavior turned for desktop PCs. People with an existing investment in WD desktop class drives is one thing, but absolutely do not put NEW money into these drives for hardware RAID.

 

[Hammer!]

I'm in that boat. Since my array recently died, I've decided to build a new backup system and so need new drives. I've already decided on a 1882i card and am looking to see what drives are best. It's hard to find Hitachi's (what I have now, but unsure of warranty returns), and the WD Red's are somewhat expensive as well as unproven. I guess that leaves seagate's.

What would you recommend if I had to buy 20 3TB drives (16 for RAID 6) and a few spares/hot spares. Since the budget doesn't allow for enterprise drives, should I get more Hitachi's, the Red's or some model of Seagates?

Thank you!

 

[mwroobel]

I'm in that boat. Since my array recently died, I've decided to build a new backup system and so need new drives. I've already decided on a 1882i card and am looking to see what drives are best. It's hard to find Hitachi's (what I have now, but unsure of warranty returns), and the WD Red's are somewhat expensive as well as unproven. I guess that leaves seagate's.

What would you recommend if I had to buy 20 3TB drives (16 for RAID 6) and a few spares/hot spares. Since the budget doesn't allow for enterprise drives, should I get more Hitachi's, the Red's or some model of Seagates?

Thank you!

Personally I would buy them in this order (For Reasons Of Performance, Longevity & Compatibility)
1. Enterprise SAS
2. Enterprise SATA
3. Hitachi 5k/7k
4. WD Red
5. Seagate ST3000DM001

If you are buying 20, go with 20 of the same model. Buy them 5 per order, from 4 different resellers if you can (in case of multiple bad drives from 1 production run, best odds) and put them a few from each order in each array.

 

[Hammer!]

That was my thought as well. The only q I had was the vibration control features advertised for the reds. Is that just hype/marketing or are the hitachi's just as good? I am using a pretty dense chassis - supermicro 847JBOD which holds 45 drives in 4U. Thanks.

 

[mwroobel]

As long as you are using a decent enclosure made for multiple drives (Of which the SuperMicro is definitely a member) you will be fine. Depending on who you ask, Vibration is either an insidious villain threatening your drives on every rotation, or a non-problem that people overreact to. Personally, as long as you follow my first suggestion, or if you are just using a regular tower case you use vibration-reducing grommets and screws (Like the Lian-Li) you will be fine.

 

[odditory]

Personally I would buy them in this order (For Reasons Of Performance, Longevity & Compatibility)
1. Enterprise SAS
2. Enterprise SATA
3. Hitachi 5k/7k
4. WD Red
5. Seagate ST3000DM001

If you are buying 20, go with 20 of the same model. Buy them 5 per order, from 4 different resellers if you can (in case of multiple bad drives from 1 production run, best odds) and put them a few from each order in each array.

As a 2.5 option I'd suggest "Waiting for Toshachi's (Toshiba-Hitachi's) to hit the channel" if you can wait a few weeks.

 

[Hammer!]

Thanks. Good thought to wait...maybe the Reds will be a bit cheaper once the competition hits the shelves. Do you think in the October timeframe?