Need advice for NAS drives. To buy refurbished or not.

SpittingLlama · August 20, 2014

So I'm looking into making my own FreeNAS box.

I'm thinking of going RAID 1 but also thinking of RAID 5. Advice?

So atm I'm looking at pricing of HDD. I can buy refurbished drives but I won't know what type, RPM nor cache will come with it.

Also, I've heard that the 4GB drives fail a lot. True?

WD 4GB

Red: 160euro
Green: 140euro
Refurbished: 130euro

WD 3GB
Red: 130euro
Green: 120euro
Refurbished: 99euro

WD 2GB
Red:110euro
Green: 95euro
Refurbished: none

Seagate 3GB
Baracuda: 155euro

NAS: 130euro
Refurbished: none

Seagate 2GB

Baracuda: 125euro

NAS: none
Refurbished: 85euro

ShadowCaptain · August 20, 2014

If you data is important to you, I would not touch refurbished drives

Also as far as raid goes it depends how much redundancy you require, and how many drives you need as well as how much storage

IMO raid 10 > Raid 5/6 > Raid 1 > Raid 0 - as far as redundancy goes

alpenwasser · August 20, 2014

Also, I've heard that the 4GB drives fail a lot. True?

I have seen no credible hard data which points to larger drives being

inherently less reliable than smaller ones, only hearsay and nothing

more. Until I see some solid numbers on this, I will presume it to

not be true.

As for refurbished drives: On one hand, an HDD is a mechanical device,

and as all other mechanical devices it has a finite lifespan. A refurbished

drive has already "used up" some of that, so to speak. However, I can't

really say what HDD manufacturers actually do to get refurb drives up

to snuff again (for example, if they replace the bearings and other

parts liable to wear and tear, the HDD might actually be as good as

a new one, but as said, I have no idea if that is actually done, or

if they just do a drive validation and if it still works they slap

a sticker on it and done).

On the other hand, if you have a proper backup plan in place, then

a refurb drive failing a bit earlier than a new one won't really

have any effect on the security of your data, and since you didn't

pay as much for it as you would have for a new drive, it lasting

not quite as long seems like an acceptable tradeoff (depending on

how much use you get out of the drive and how much you paid for it,

naturally).

In the end, if your data is important to you, you should have a

good backup of it anyway (or several), so going with less reliable

drives (at least for a home setup) doesn't seem like such a big

deal to me (and hey, depending on how many drives you have, you

could put some of the money saved on cheaper drives towards a

good backup solution).

Having said that, so far I tend to buy my drives in new condition,

less because I'm afraid for my data and more because dealing with

drive failures and such is just a bit annoying.

Dimwitted · August 20, 2014

If you're going with refurbs in a RAID I'd be cautious. At best I'd pair a new drive with a refurb that way you won't lose anything if they prematurely fail. (assuming that you're not being foolish and doing RAID0)

As for type only use NAS drives like the RED or the Seagate NAS drives. Not Barracudas or Greens.

MoonSpot · August 21, 2014

Well first thing to consider is that WD greens will effectively turn off when not in use after "x" minutes. They'll stop the platters spinning and basically go to sleep until the next request comes along.

This does mean they take some time to spin up and get going again, which means they have slower performance on the whole then other drives. However once they've spun up and are active, the experience is just like any other drive over a network. Say for when streaming a HD video to a tablet.

I personally like this since I don't access my NAS several times a day and prefer to have the drives "off" when not in use.

There are a lot of people I've seen curse the WD greens up and down(since the red came out...oddly) and they've even go so far as to say that the WD reds are more power efficient, which is completely subjective and total bollocks for my usage. Since the WDReds("NAS" drives) are always on, spinning and ready to go.

So if you're going to be active with the use of your NAS I would not recommend Greens since you'll be looking at your screen for about 5 seconds while the drives kick into gear each time you go to access it. However if you're going to jump in once or twice a day tops, greens are worth considering.

With the above in mind, now consider their unit costs and choose.

BTW, I've never had good luck with refurbs, always bad and do not recommend it. But the dice are in your hands.

SpittingLlama · August 21, 2014

Thanks for the reply's. No refurbished drives then

As MoonSpot said, I wont be accessing the NAS to much. It's will mainly be used as a media box for 6 users, and will function as a backup drive for pictures and documents.
And possibly for some other stuff in the future.

R2D2_WD · August 21, 2014

Hi there,

All of you seem to have a good point. I will add just a few things.
You should know that the WD recertified drives are fully functional drives that go through the extensive testing, made on the brand new drives and meet all the quality standards.
Regarding the RAIDs, RAID5 may be the better option, but requires more drives, which should be taken in consideration. As I see it, your best scenario is to do RAID5 with WD Red drives.
I would not choose the Green drives. They are designed for storage purposes and may not perform well in RAID configuration, because of their longer error recovery time. On the other hand, the WD Red line is meant to be used in NAS devices. I leave you some more details about WD drives and RAID configurations.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3272/ - What are recertified drives
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2767/ - The advantages of different RAIDs
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/internal/desktop/ - the WD drives
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1397 – Difference between desktop edition drives and RAID drives.

Hope this helps

SpittingLlama · August 21, 2014

Well I found a nice little blog. Pretty solid numbers.
They would advice Hatachi drives but that's a piece of history.

So now they advice 3TB WD RED and no refurbished ones.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/

R2D2_WD · August 22, 2014

We can not be 100% sure if the numbers or the information on this website are correct. Either way, the advice is good. The WD Reds really are the solution for NAS and the capacity is up to you

alpenwasser · August 22, 2014

Well I found a nice little blog. Pretty solid numbers.

They would advice Hatachi drives but that's a piece of history.

So now they advice 3TB WD RED and no refurbished ones.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/

We can not be 100% sure if the numbers or the information on this website are correct. Either way, the advice is good. The WD Reds really are the solution for NAS and the capacity is up to you

Ah yes, that caused quite a ruckis when it came out.

Here's a contrary POV: http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/6028/dispelling-backblaze-s-hdd-reliability-myth-the-real-story-covered/index.html

And a rebuttal of that one: http://www.zdnet.com/trust-backblazes-drive-reliability-data-7000025575/

Personally, I'm a bit on the fence. Yes, Backblaze's data is real-world

data, no disputing that (unless you just assume they're lying, which I

have no cause to at the moment), no fancy controlled test environment

and so on. Upside of that: It's real-world data. Downside of that: I'm

not really sure how their data would translate to my own needs to be

honest. Having accurate(-ish) data on the conditions under which the

different drives run would be useful to draw some conclusions IMHO.

Also interesting articles about drive reliability:

Google study on drive failures and what they are influenced by