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ZFS drives

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farscapesg1

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Aug 4, 2004
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I've been putting it off, but I really need to buy some new drives for my server. Currently running OpenIndiana but will be migrating to Linux with ZFS. I have 6 3TB Seagate drives in 3 2-disk stripped mirrors, and one died about 2 months ago. Yes.. I've been running for 2 months with a degraded mirror :eek:

I was putting it off hoping that there would be some good 5TB drive deals for BF/Cyber Monday.. but no luck.

I'm setting my budget at $150 so my current options appear to be (trying to avoid Seagate this time around)...

WD 3TB Red (WD30EFRX)
WD 4TB Red (WD40EFRX)
Toshiba 5TB (PH3500U-1I72)
Toshiba 4TB (PH3400U-1I72)
Toshiba 3TB (PH3300U-1I72)
HGST 3TB NAS (0S03660)

Obviously, the bigger the better, which has me leaning towards the Toshiba 5TB or WD 4TB. They both appear to have the same warranty period (3 years). The plan is to purchase one to finally replace the failed hard drive and then another each month to eventually bring them all up match.

Anyone with experience using the the Toshiba's on ZFS? Do the WD Reds have head parking issues?
 
I vote for the 4TB WD red.

I have 20 WD30EFRX drives in my system. I started buying them when they first came out and I had only one fail on me. Some of my drives are 4 years old and still going strong. I chose the reds because of the 24/7 certification and TLER setting.

Do you have the option of offloading the data temporarily? Raidz2 would be safer for your pool and give you some more space.

If you stick with mirrors, I would start by buying 2 drives, and replacing one, keeping a spare in a drawer somewhere. After that do the monthly switch.

If you can put the old disks on craigslist or something, maybe you can swing the 5TB reds...
 
I've had no issues with multiple red's (probably about 20 of them total). The HGST stuff typically shows good reliability results in the backblaze stats, and would be a bit faster being 7200 rpm vs 5400 of the red.
 
Yes, I do have the option of offloading all the data. I have a HP N54L that I use as a backup server. It's running XPenology with 5 2TB drives in a RAID5 configuration (SHR) made up of a combination of WD Greens and Hitachi drives. I also have my data backed up to a Drobo Pro, and critical data backed up to Crashplan. Yeah.. I'm a little paranoid after losing data in the past, which also explains why I've been willing to run the storage server with a degraded mirror for so long.

I've thought about dumping the array and rebuilding with my existing 5 3TB drives and whatever I buy. When i originally built the pool I was using it for a VMWare datastore via iSCSI, so the IOPS benefit of mirrors was the deciding factor. I've moved the datastores to separate pools (1 SSD RAIDZ pool and 1 7200 RPM striped-mirror pool).

Not sure I would feel comfortable dumping the Seagates on other users, Craigslist or otherwise. More likely I would put them in my Drobo Pro or N54L to increase my backup storage space, since my storage server will be increasing.
 
farscapesg1 said:
I've been putting it off, but I really need to buy some new drives for my server. Currently running OpenIndiana but will be migrating to Linux with ZFS. I have 6 3TB Seagate drives in 3 2-disk stripped mirrors, and one died about 2 months ago. Yes.. I've been running for 2 months with a degraded mirror :eek:

I was putting it off hoping that there would be some good 5TB drive deals for BF/Cyber Monday.. but no luck.

I'm setting my budget at $150 so my current options appear to be (trying to avoid Seagate this time around)...

WD 3TB Red (WD30EFRX)
WD 4TB Red (WD40EFRX)
Toshiba 5TB (PH3500U-1I72)
Toshiba 4TB (PH3400U-1I72)
Toshiba 3TB (PH3300U-1I72)
HGST 3TB NAS (0S03660)

Obviously, the bigger the better, which has me leaning towards the Toshiba 5TB or WD 4TB. They both appear to have the same warranty period (3 years). The plan is to purchase one to finally replace the failed hard drive and then another each month to eventually bring them all up match.

Anyone with experience using the the Toshiba's on ZFS? Do the WD Reds have head parking issues?
Click to expand...

I've been using 12 4TB Reds in two 6 disk RAIDZ2 VDEV's for about a year and a half now, and I've been very happy with them. Not a single issue. They just keep on churning.

Now 12 disks and 1.5 years isn't enough to overcome the good old "anecdotal evidence" test, but I'd buy again, if that counts for anything.
 
Zarathustra[H];1042020533 said:
I've been using 12 4TB Reds in two 6 disk RAIDZ2 VDEV's for about a year and a half now, and I've been very happy with them. Not a single issue. They just keep on churning.

Now 12 disks and 1.5 years isn't enough to overcome the good old "anecdotal evidence" test, but I'd buy again, if that counts for anything.
Click to expand...

That's great to hear. Have you messed with the 6TB drives at all? My 8x2tb setup is very full with no relief in sight - planning an upgrade soonish I hope.
 
I built a system with 10 6TB drives (RaidZ2) for a friend. I had no issues. I just find them expensive.
 
ziggo0 said:
That's great to hear. Have you messed with the 6TB drives at all? My 8x2tb setup is very full with no relief in sight - planning an upgrade soonish I hope.
Click to expand...

I haven't played around with them no.

I'd imagine they are similar to the 4TB units.

rsq said:
I built a system with 10 6TB drives (RaidZ2) for a friend. I had no issues. I just find them expensive.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I would agree.

The difference isn't HUGE though on a "per TB" basis.

4TB - $149 = $37.25 per TB
6TB - $247 = $41.17 per TB

So it's about $4 per TB more expensive.

It's not HUGE but it makes a difference. That, and I usually expect a volume discount when I go up in size, not for it to get more expensive :p
 
Thanks for all the input. I'm leaning towards going with the 4TB REDs. Since I've moved all the VMs off to their own datastores, I really just need this for mass storage. The slower spindle speed (less heat/power) should still be more than capable for Plex streaming and basic storage needs.
 
Something else to consider is that the 5 and 6 TB RED's have 5 platters (5x1 and 5x1.2).

More platters means more heads, and more hardware that can fail. It also puts more load on the bearings, and more power consumption.

I tend to stick to the 4 platter drives for the above reasons.
 
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