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Which HDD For My NAS?

G

GreenLED

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 1, 2014
Messages
142
So, I'm starting to think about what would be a viable solution for the spinning media I want to put into my NAS. I'm sure there are plenty of opinions to go around as to what is the best drive. Maybe we can just make this a link-fest and post all the good drives out there. But, here's the current drives I'm come across so far that I think might work. I have a few questions about each of them.

I found some Toshiba drives on TD, but honestly I don't want to go through the pain of having to return half of them. Anyhow, I despise WD Greens. I hate power saving stuff, not because it's good to have power saving, but because most implementations of power saving features are terrible and they destroy the normal operations of things. Generally I find that anything that claims to have power efficiency has such a low margin of difference between the other product that it doesn't matter AND on top of that they spent all sorts of money and time researching it. I just have had so much bad luck with anything energy saving. I stay away from it. However, might there be a way to disable these features on the Western Digital Green drives or is it really not worth it?

I'm trying to keep each drive at around ~$100 each. Any suggestions?
 
I initially wanted to go with Reds. I saw a few things on this forum about TLER or TELR - can't remember the acronym. In any event, since I'm going to be using ZFS, I don't know if Reds will work worse than if I used some other drives that were not meant for NASs. I'm looking for some guidance on this. Hopefully someone can come out with some definitive answers as to how ZFS would perform with or without Reds. Plus I have a gift card from Amazon, so I'd definitely save some money there as well, and on TOP of that, I have Amazon Prime, so free 2-day hopefully on that item!
 
Is this a completely different project than the zfs one you have been discussing in other threads. I mean that 45 bay case we were discussing yesterday is nearly 2 thousand dollars US for the case alone. This seems to be totally incompatible in looking for only 2 or 3 $100 drives.

Edit: I see you say minimum 2 drives not 2 or 3. Sorry.
 
No, this is not a completely different project. Same one, just wanted to focus on the selection process of the HD. I will not be using that case you mentioned. I'm sorry if I mislead on that case. I will be working up to something like that, but for now, I'll be starting off with 12 drives.

After some hours of searching, I'm kind of liking this drive right here.

http://www.amazon.com/Hitachi-HUA72...ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1394112483&sr=1-2

What do you all think?
 
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I have 20 or so of those in my 70TB at work. 1 was DOA but the rest have made it 3 years. Although remember 20 is a very small sample statistically.

but for now, I'll be starting off with 12 drives.
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That sounds better. Considering raidz3?
 
When you say DOA, can you be more specific. To be honest, I have never had a DOA drive (KNOCK ON WOOD - HARD!). Was it clicking? Not recognized by the BIOS?
 
When you say DOA, can you be more specific.
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The motor never turned on. I do not think it was recognized in BIOS.


To be honest, I have never had a DOA drive
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I have had DOA drives from every manufacturer I can remember over the 17+ years that I have been in charge of the storage for my department at work.
 
Yes, I'm considering RZ3. What do you think about paying about $10 more and using Western Digital Greens instead of the Hitachi? Hitachi seems to have a lower failure rate, but that's based on stats that also say Western Digital drives last longer (on the average). I'd like to get a real world report from people, but I'm afraid that's not going to be a good indicator of what route I should take. Ugh, decisions, decisions.
 
What do you think about paying about $10 more and using Western Digital Greens instead of the Hitachi?
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Very bad move.

http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/01/21/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/

I'd like to get a real world report from people, but I'm afraid that's not going to be a good indicator of what route I should take.
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I agree. Considering that most people don't have 1000s of drives their experience doesn't say much statistically about the drive reliability. They could have been lucky or unlucky...
 
So, it sounds like you would stick with the Hitachi. Am I correct? That is my intention.

I just realized, the sample size of the Hitachi test is WAY bigger than the Western Digital sample size. Done and done!
 
GreenLED said:
So, it sounds like you would stick with the Hitachi. Am I correct? That is my intention.
Click to expand...

Yes. These are enterprise grade drives and the price is excellent. Get them while you can. I paid more than 2 times that per drive a few weeks ago for a different 2TB enterprise drive. Although I have to remind you that these drives may not be in production anymore because of the WDC purchase of hitachis storage division. However I believe its fine to mix and match similar drives in a raid. Some of my raids at work have enterprise drives from Seagate toshiba and hitachi.
 
drescherjm said:
Yes. These are enterprise grade drives and the price is excellent. Get them while you can. I paid more than 2 times that per drive a few weeks ago for a different 2TB enterprise drive. Although I have to remind you that these drives may not be in production anymore because of the WDC purchase of hitachis storage division. However I believe its fine to mix and match similar drives in a raid. Some of my raids at work have enterprise drives from Seagate toshiba and hitachi.
Click to expand...

I imagine that there will be enough stock for me to build out this first NAS. When the time comes to expand, I might start purchasing a new model bit by bit and save them up or something. I don't know at this point. In any event, I'm going to use these to get my feet wet.

I imagine these being enterprise drives, they're not going to have any kind of power saving crap on them?

Can't believe you had to pay almost twice, that must have hurt!
 
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I think they are different models of the same drive maybe before and after the WDC merger. Although I am not sure.
 
Yeah, I don't want to cheap out. I think I might go with the more expensive model. But, I'd like to see if anyone else can give me some insight into this.
 
The order is in. I think I should start a thread to journal my progress. Where should I put this thread?
 
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