Jump to content

Using WD Green Drives in Raid

sandals100
By sandals100
in Storage Devices
 Share
Posted

Hi guys so I have 2 WD green drives both of which are 1TB however their model numbers are slightly different due to the fact that one of them was pulled from an external HDD. The model numbers are: WDC WD10EZRX ,  WDC WD10EADS. Like I stated before both drives are 1TB capacity and connected via SATA 6 on a Asus Z87m-Plus mobo.

 

I am planning on running either Raid 1 or 0 but am not sure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Why raid?

If you ever need help with a build, read the following before posting: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/3061-build-plan-thread-recommendations-please-read-before-posting/
Also, make sure to quote a post or tag a member when replying or else they won't get a notification that you replied to them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Why raid?

Is there any particular reason he shouldn't raid two green drives? If so do enlighten me please!

Like watching Anime? Consider joining the unofficial LTT Anime Club Heaven Society~ ^.^

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Why raid?

Well my games are taking alot longer to load since I had to take every single one of them off my SSD since i was running out of space on it. I heard that using raid 0 improves it quite significantly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

if you are just doing raid 0 for like a games and steam drive it should be fine but i wouldn't stick anything you dont want to lose on it mainly because i dislike green drives

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

if you are just doing raid 0 for like a games and steam drive it should be fine but i wouldn't stick anything you dont want to lose on it mainly because i dislike green drives

Why is that?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Why is that?

Out of all current WD drives, they fail the most IIRC.


CPU: Intel i5 4570 | Cooler: Cooler Master TPC 812 | Motherboard: ASUS H87M-PRO | RAM: G.Skill 16GB (4x4GB) @ 1600MHZ | Storage: OCZ ARC 100 480GB, WD Caviar Black 2TB, Caviar Blue 1TB | GPU: Gigabyte GTX 970 | ODD: ASUS BC-12D2HT BR Reader | PSU: Cooler Master V650 | Display: LG IPS234 | Keyboard: Logitech G710+ | Mouse: Logitech G602 | Audio: Logitech Z506 & Audio Technica M50X | My machine: https://nz.pcpartpicker.com/b/JoJ

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Is there any particular reason he shouldn't raid two green drives? If so do enlighten me please!

It wasn't a loaded question. The question was to help understand what would be suit the OP's needs. 

Why is that?

In raid 0, the data would be lost if any of the one drives failed. It's basically doubling the chance of failure. 

Raid 1 does help read speeds and creates redundancy so that the data would still be intact if one of the drives failed. 

If you ever need help with a build, read the following before posting: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/3061-build-plan-thread-recommendations-please-read-before-posting/
Also, make sure to quote a post or tag a member when replying or else they won't get a notification that you replied to them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

It wasn't a loaded question. The question was to help understand what would be suit the OP's needs. 

I know, I was just asking. I wasn't trying to be condescending or anything. 

 

Text is horrible at carrying emotions.

Like watching Anime? Consider joining the unofficial LTT Anime Club Heaven Society~ ^.^

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

It wasn't a loaded question. The question was to help understand what would be suit the OP's needs. 

In raid 0, the data would be lost if any of the one drives failed. It's basically doubling the chance of failure. 

Raid 1 does help read speeds and creates redundancy so that the data would still be intact if one of the drives failed. 

 

So would raid work with these 2 drives irrelevant to their slight model number differences.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

WD Green drives are meant for power efficiency and not so much speed. I would think that RAID 0 would be the best option, but dont stress them out too much doing things like daily massive file writes.

317 is watching. 317 is everywhere. 317 is life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

So would raid work with these 2 drives irrelevant to their slight model number differences.

Yep! I've put two completely different drives (different capacities even) in RAID 0

317 is watching. 317 is everywhere. 317 is life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

WD Green drives are meant for power efficiency and not so much speed. I would think that RAID 0 would be the best option, but dont stress them out too much doing things like daily massive file writes.

 

Yep! I've put two completely different drives (different capacities even) in RAID 0

Oh ok, well my computer isn't going to be doing massive file writes so I'll give it a crack!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Oh ok, well my computer isn't going to be doing massive file writes so I'll give it a crack!

Would you mind posting read and write speeds after you get them setup? I'm interested in how well they stack

317 is watching. 317 is everywhere. 317 is life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Would you mind posting read and write speeds after you get them setup? I'm interested in how well they stack

Sure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

I can say that WD Green drives will not work on a Dell Perc5 raid card when in any type of raid mode (1 or 0) however they work just fine connected to the card as single drives.

In raid mode they drop out of the array all over the place when power saving and no settings in the Perc cards can fix it.

 

No big deal but worth knowing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Would you mind posting read and write speeds after you get them setup? I'm interested in how well they stack

I used CrystaldiskMark 3.0.3 and did a Sequential test with 5 runs and 1000mb test size, I got a read of 94.09 mb/s and a write of 102.1 mb/s :P.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

I used CrystaldiskMark 3.0.3 and did a Sequential test with 5 runs and 1000mb test size, I got a read of 94.09 mb/s and a write of 102.1 mb/s :P.

dat write speed!

317 is watching. 317 is everywhere. 317 is life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Really good. With the reliability of Green drives and the speed of a single Black drive, you've got the best of both worlds.

317 is watching. 317 is everywhere. 317 is life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

@Bottomburp Does that mean the whole array would stop working?

 

Yeah. WD Green drives with my Dell Perc5 card in a mirrored array would not last long enough for me to even start using them. They just seem to vanish from the array and refuse to come back.

 

The same Perc5 card has WD Red drives in a mirrored array and has worked perfectly for a couple of years now. 

 

On a side note, One of the WD red drives was very slow for some reason when I bought it and WD France got me a replacement delivered within 48 hours so a big thumbs up for them. :)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Greens are about power effiency all the way, so they e.g. power down in between. This can potentially make them drop out of a RAID, so personally I'd not use them in RAID, only as single storage drives (e.g. for backups).

[Main rig "ToXxXiC":]
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K | MB: ASUS Maximus VII Formula | RAM: G.Skill TridentX 32GB 2400MHz (DDR-3) | GPU: EVGA GTX980 Hydro Copper | Storage: Samsung 850 Pro 256GB SSD + Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSD (+NAS) | Sound: OnBoard | PSU: XFX Black Edition Pro 1050W 80+ Gold | Case: Cooler Master Cosmos II | Cooling: Full Custom Watercooling Loop (CPU+GPU+MB) | OS: Windows 7 Professional (64-Bit)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
Hi there.

 

The WD Green is a very good drive but it was designed mostly for secondary storage and back up purposes. For a RAID – I would suggest you to check some drives that were specifically designed for RAID environment. They have RAID specific built-in features (like TLER – helps the drive recover faster in case of read/write error and the drive doesn’t drop off the RAID) that the other hard drives don’t have.

 

But since you already own the two Green drives they should work fine as long as they have the same capacity, cache size and RPM.

 

Greets,

Mighty Miro

If this post helped you, please like and choose it as a best answer.   :)
http://www.wdc.com/en/

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Yeah. WD Green drives with my Dell Perc5 card in a mirrored array would not last long enough for me to even start using them. They just seem to vanish from the array and refuse to come back.

 

The same Perc5 card has WD Red drives in a mirrored array and has worked perfectly for a couple of years now. 

 

On a side note, One of the WD red drives was very slow for some reason when I bought it and WD France got me a replacement delivered within 48 hours so a big thumbs up for them. :)

 

 

 

Greens are about power effiency all the way, so they e.g. power down in between. This can potentially make them drop out of a RAID, so personally I'd not use them in RAID, only as single storage drives (e.g. for backups).

 

I have found methods online to increase the time the needle parks from 8 seconds to ridiculously large amounts of time or just disable it completely. I havent had any problems so far so I see no need to do this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing Storage Devices

×