Recommend 8TB drives for ZFS mirror raid home server

[fmatthew5876]

Hi everyone,

I've been running a raidz2 (i.e. raid6) on FreeBSD with 10 1.5TB seagate disks. The array has been going strong for about 8 years now with no drive failures.

I'm ready to upgrade storage sometime near the end of the year and I'm trying to figure out which drives to buy. I plan to switch from raidz2 to mirrored vdevs.

My chassis can support up to 12 drives, but I don't think I will need that many at least initially. I'm thinking I'll probably try to get 8tb drives, but maybe 6tb's are ok as well if there is a price/gb deal that is really much better for a high quality drive.

I don't care about extra features like secure erase or drive encryption. I want drives that will last a long time and perform decently in a mirrored raid setup. I use them for long term storage, mostly reading but sometimes needing to do bulk writing when moving large files around. By "perform decently" I mean that I don't need the fastest drive out there but I also don't want something that's really cheap and not designed to work well in a raid array.

Noise is also a concern as I live in a small apartment and my server is sitting in the living room.

On the cheap end are the seagate archive drives. I read somewhere these may not perform well in a raid array so I'm not sure about that. Seagate seems to have a bad reputation nowadays but as I said mine have been working for 8 years with no hiccups.

Another option is WD Red. This is a bit more expensive but from what I understand it may be more performant and reliable than the seagates? I'm a bit concerned about the manufacturer recommendation of no more than 8 drives. Should such recommendation be taken seriously?

On the top end are the helium filled HGST enterprise drives. They carry a higher price tag but have the strongest claim on reliability and performance. One concern here though is noise.

If you were in my situation which drives would you be looking at?

Also, does anyone have any recommendations on ways to stay notified when these things go on sale somewhere? Buying a bunch of drives is a big purchase and it really makes sense to wait for a sale and try to get them cheaper.

Thanks!

 

[Concentric]

If this is just really a static media server you could look at the Seagate Archive 8TB (ST8000AS0002) - cheaper because designed for "archive" (i.e. write once and just make sure I can read it back at a reasonable rate if/when I need to) so not designed to give you great write performance (especially random) but I don't think that would really matter in your case.

 

[_Gea]

- Archive disks perform really bad on random writes, up to a dataloss due a disk timeout
- They are not designed to work well in a raid array unless the raid array cares about them (ZFS does not)

Do NOT use with ZFS

 

[Deleted member 126051]

- Archive disks perform really bad on random writes, up to a dataloss due a disk timeout
- They are not designed to work well in a raid array unless the raid array cares about them (ZFS does not)

Do NOT use with ZFS

I've seen people try to use Archive drives in NAS before. All they do is cook the drives and lose data. Don't waste your money.

Honestly, the whole point of the NAS is reliability. Were it up to me, I'd spend the price premium and go with the HGST drives.

And if you're going to be doing this in a small apartment where the only feasible location is the living room, you're kinda boned no matter WHAT solution you get. 10 drives, the CPU coolers, and and the case fans are going to generate significant noise (and no small amount of heat, you probably can leave the thermostat in your place turned off and the windows open).

 

[fmatthew5876]

I've seen people try to use Archive drives in NAS before. All they do is cook the drives and lose data. Don't waste your money.

This pretty much matches the sentiment I've heard elsewhere. Sounds likes its best to stay away.

Honestly, the whole point of the NAS is reliability. Were it up to me, I'd spend the price premium and go with the HGST drives.

I just saw the new seagate Ironwolf series. The 10TB version has a lot of features of enterprise drives and a fat 256MB cache. If prices go down by end of year this might be the way to go.

And if you're going to be doing this in a small apartment where the only feasible location is the living room, you're kinda boned no matter WHAT solution you get. 10 drives, the CPU coolers, and and the case fans are going to generate significant noise (and no small amount of heat, you probably can leave the thermostat in your place turned off and the windows open).

Not sure I believe you on this. My server box has already been running with 10 1.5TB drive in my living rooms and bed rooms for years. Its dead silent and I've never had a heating problem with the box. I've already spent a bit of effort getting the right case fans to maximize airflow and minimize noise. Unless you are claiming that the thermal demans and noise characteristics of modern 8TB+ drives are so much greater than the last generation??

 

[SirMaster]

And if you're going to be doing this in a small apartment where the only feasible location is the living room, you're kinda boned no matter WHAT solution you get. 10 drives, the CPU coolers, and and the case fans are going to generate significant noise (and no small amount of heat, you probably can leave the thermostat in your place turned off and the windows open).

Doesn't necessarily have to produce significant noise.

I have 2 servers in my bedroom:

Modded Supermicro SC846E16-R1200B

Custom Server Shelf/Rack

Each has 16 HDDs in them and they run all the time. They just use 1200rpm 120mm fans and they are so quiet that from across the room I can barely even tell they are on. Disk temps hover around 35C and I don't notice the room heating up or anything like that.

 

[fmatthew5876]

Doesn't necessarily have to produce significant noise.

I have 2 servers in my bedroom:

Modded Supermicro SC846E16-R1200B

Custom Server Shelf/Rack

Each has 16 HDDs in them and they run all the time. They just use 1200rpm 120mm fans and they are so quiet that from across the room I can barely even tell they are on. Disk temps hover around 35C and I don't notice the room heating up or anything like that.

You managed to get am SC846 quiet? I had one of those cases a long time ago and it sounded like a jet engine. The biggest problem was the power supply, but it looks like you solved that by ripping out the SuperMicro psu and using a standard one. Good work sir.

The other one looks like a Norco, those are pretty straightforward and quiet out of the box to begin with if you have a bracket with 120mm fans. I just moved my rig out of one of those cases too and when I was using Norco it was silent.

Now I'm using an SC742 chassis with a CSE-M35TQB for a total capacity of 12 drives. With 10TB drives available today and much larger sizes in the future, I don't see myself ever needing more than 12 of them at one time.

 

[Deleted member 126051]

Also, are you looking to stay SATA or going SAS 12GB?

 

[SirMaster]

You managed to get am SC846 quiet? I had one of those cases a long time ago and it sounded like a jet engine. The biggest problem was the power supply, but it looks like you solved that by ripping out the SuperMicro psu and using a standard one. Good work sir.

Yes, replaced the PSU with normal quiet fan ATX PSU. Also the Norco 120mm fan wall fits inside the SC846 which I used to hold the 120mm fans. And for the rear just twist tied some 120mm fans to the back and took out all the PCIe plates to allow some good airflow out. I mean it's just a home server sitting in my room, it doesn't have to be pretty but it's been really effective. It's no louder than the Norco but actually seems to cool better as the HDD trays have much more open airflow than the Norco trays.

I managed to pick up a 1200B on eBay last year for $290 shipped with SAS2 backplane and without PSUs or rails. I much prefer it to Norco as the build quality is higher, the cooling works a bit better, and the cabling is much better as it only needs half the molex power connectors of the Norco (6 vs 12) and only needs 1 or 2 mini-SAS connections to the backplane rather than the 6 of the Norco.

 

[fmatthew5876]

Also, are you looking to stay SATA or going SAS 12GB?

I'm using SAS 6GB for my topology with SATA drives. 12GB sounds nice but that hardware is expensive and I don't think I really need the extra speed. SATA drives as I see no reason for more expensive SAS drives.

Yes, replaced the PSU with normal quiet fan ATX PSU. Also the Norco 120mm fan wall fits inside the SC846 which I used to hold the 120mm fans. And for the rear just twist tied some 120mm fans to the back and took out all the PCIe plates to allow some good airflow out. I mean it's just a home server sitting in my room, it doesn't have to be pretty but it's been really effective. It's no louder than the Norco but actually seems to cool better as the HDD trays have much more open airflow than the Norco trays.

I managed to pick up a 1200B on eBay last year for $290 shipped with SAS2 backplane and without PSUs or rails. I much prefer it to Norco as the build quality is higher, the cooling works a bit better, and the cabling is much better as it only needs half the molex power connectors of the Norco (6 vs 12) and only needs 1 or 2 mini-SAS connections to the backplane rather than the 6 of the Norco.

Very cool that's a great deal. When I stared this storage game 8 years ago I first got one of those SuperMicro cases, I think it was an SC836 at the time?? I eventually gave up in favor of the Norco because the noise issue was just impossible and the Norco was much cheaper. I agree with you on all counts about the quality difference however. At the home user price point there's really no alternative to super micro if you want some confidence about the reliability and quality of your system.

I switched from the Norco to this Supermicro tower because the SC case and drive bays are higher quality. Also I don't ever expect needing more than 12 bays. Finally, since I'm no longer using a rack its much easier to put this tower on the floor. The Norco is a pain if you don't rackmount it because the ears cannot be removed so in the past I had to prop it up on bricks to have it sit on the floor properly. The Norco is also not very stable standing up on its side on the floor. If not supported by something else you could easily knock it over.

 

[Argentum]

Hi everyone,
If you were in my situation which drives would you be looking at?

Also, does anyone have any recommendations on ways to stay notified when these things go on sale somewhere? Buying a bunch of drives is a big purchase and it really makes sense to wait for a sale and try to get them cheaper.

If you want 8TBs on the cheap, consider buying 16TB MyBook Duos at $549 and shucking out the WD Reds inside, as the Duo cases are user serviceable. If you're good at tracking which drive came from where you could probably effectively retain your full warranty (the catch being you'd probably have to pull 2 drives from your array if one failed in order to do an RMA).

I bought some when there was a 20% off WD store coupon back in June (which was probably from the [H]otDeals forum) and I averaged $240/drive. I'm hoping something similar comes up again during the holidays.

 

[Deleted member 126051]

I'm using SAS 6GB for my topology with SATA drives. 12GB sounds nice but that hardware is expensive and I don't think I really need the extra speed. SATA drives as I see no reason for more expensive SAS drives.

Just figured I'd ask. Especially since the SAS 12GB versions of the same drives are nearly 2x the price.

 

[aaronspink]

Also, are you looking to stay SATA or going SAS 12GB?

There is quite literally no reason for a home user to worry about 12G unless they are using SSDs. There really aren't even any HDDs that will saturate even 3G speeds. 12G is basically only important for chassis to chassis connections and host to expander connections both with a lot of drives hanging off them outside of SSDs. 3G provides ~300 MB/s of performance and the fastest HDDs you can buy don't do much beyond 250 MB/s sequential.

 

[Deleted member 126051]

There is quite literally no reason for a home user to worry about 12G unless they are using SSDs. There really aren't even any HDDs that will saturate even 3G speeds. 12G is basically only important for chassis to chassis connections and host to expander connections both with a lot of drives hanging off them outside of SSDs. 3G provides ~300 MB/s of performance and the fastest HDDs you can buy don't do much beyond 250 MB/s sequential.

I know. Was simply asking out of curiosity and to make sure they weren't making an expensive mistake.

 

[Abula]

- Archive disks perform really bad on random writes, up to a dataloss due a disk timeout
- They are not designed to work well in a raid array unless the raid array cares about them (ZFS does not)

Do NOT use with ZFS

Will it be ok to use Archive drives with UnRaid, for data drives and then use a Enterprise drive for the parity?

 

[drescherjm]

Will it be ok to use Archive drives with UnRaid

You should be able use them with SnapRAID for the data or parity disks. Not sure about UnRaid.

 

[_Gea]

Will it be ok to use Archive drives with UnRaid, for data drives and then use a Enterprise drive for the parity?

Are they really as cheap as they are worse?

 

[fmatthew5876]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I think I'm going to go for the seagate Ironwolf 10TB series. They have a large 256MB cache and they are priced almost the same as HGST 8TB's.

Seagate is going to release another enterprise line soon so maybe that would bring the price down. Hopefully there will be some deals on Cyber Monday and/or Christmas Season to grab some.

 

[intransit]

seagate Ironwolf 10TB

Didn't know about those, will have to check them out, thanks!

Those big drives make me pretty nervous though for re-silvering and other related operations. I usually like to stay at least 1 size behind the maximum drive size of the day. That might just be me being spooked though.

 

[fmatthew5876]

Just snatched 2 of them last night for $399.99 each from newegg. I want to try to stagger the purchases to minimize correlation between failure rates.

The pricing of these on newegg is strange. Its changing so often. Last week they were $419, yesterday afternoon $448, and then yesterday evening $429 with a $30 instant rebate. Now they are $429 again with no rebate.

My target price is < $400.