Can I use NAS drive in a PC or a DAS?

[grangervoldemort]

Can I use NAS drive in a PC or a DAS?

 

I can get 20% off Western Digital drives.

2 x 10TB WD RED's after discount with free delivery comes to £511 (rounded up) - 3 year limited warranty

 

2 x 10TB Seagate Barracuda Pro's not including delivery comes to £650 (rounded up) - 5 year warranty

[Electronics Wizardy]

yep, there just normal hdds with a few firmware and hardware tweaks to work better in dense and multi drive configs.

[grangervoldemort]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

yep, there just normal hdds with a few firmware and hardware tweaks to work better in dense and multi drive configs.

I edited my OP. Take a read please. As for what you wrote, a computer store repair guy told me that it's not ok to use NAS drives in anything other than a NAS. He said they are designed to be left on 24/7 and that they will break down fast if you use them in a PC or DAS where they will be turned on and off multiple times a day.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, grangervoldemort said:

I edited my OP. Take a read please. As for what you wrote, a computer store repair guy told me that it's not ok to use NAS drives in anything other than a NAS. He said they are designed to be left on 24/7 and that they will break down fast if you use them in a PC or DAS where they will be turned on and off multiple times a day.

Well that guy seems wrong, I have used nas drives in manay a desktop with no issuse. There really not that different.

 

Id get the wd reds of those options.

 

If you want a even cheaper drive, you can get these https://www.amazon.co.uk/WD-WDBWLG0100HBK-EESN-Elements-Desktop-Storage/dp/B07G364YHX/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=10tb+hdd&qid=1565467828&s=gateway&sr=8-1

and there normal drives in side.

[grangervoldemort]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Well that guy seems wrong, I have used nas drives in manay a desktop with no issuse. There really not that different.

 

Id get the wd reds of those options.

 

If you want a even cheaper drive, you can get these https://www.amazon.co.uk/WD-WDBWLG0100HBK-EESN-Elements-Desktop-Storage/dp/B07G364YHX/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=10tb+hdd&qid=1565467828&s=gateway&sr=8-1

and there normal drives in side.

I have a discussion here about those drives. They are NOT WD RED's 'normal drives':

How long have you used the WD RED's in a NON NAS environment? You wrote in past tense 'HAVE'. Did the drives fail?

I edited my OP again to include warranties.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, grangervoldemort said:

I have a discussion here about those drives. They are NOT WD RED's 'normal drives':

How long have you used the WD RED's in a NON NAS environment? You wrote in past tense 'HAVE'. Did the drives fail?

I edited my OP again to include warranties.

I have some of those drives from externals, about 8 of them and there all working after a few years. Id just get those, the price differnce is enough to make up for a potientally slightly higher failure rate.

 

I move my drives around a lot, but they were in a desktop for about a year. No failures. I have about 120 hdds personally, and don't have many failures(maybe one a year).

[grangervoldemort]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I have some of those drives from externals, about 8 of them and there all working after a few years. Id just get those, the price differnce is enough to make up for a potientally slightly higher failure rate.

 

I move my drives around a lot, but they were in a desktop for about a year. No failures. I have about 120 hdds personally, and don't have many failures(maybe one a year).

120. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY hard drives? WTF? Why?! One a year is a lot. I have NEVER had a HDD failure.

 

I will NOT be using a NAS. I cannot afford to lose my data 'the price differnce is enough to make up for a potientally slightly higher failure rate.'
It is mission critical. I will be using the elements for backups in case you are wondering what I will do to ensure data safety. RAID is a luxury.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, grangervoldemort said:

120. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY hard drives? WTF? Why?! One a year is a lot. I have NEVER had a HDD failure.

Yep got a spreedsheet to manage them all. I just get them from random place.

 

I once got 22 working 2tb hdds on craigslist for free cause he though they were dead. 

 

Of that one a year, most of those are very used drives I get from old pcs that already have many years on them.

[grangervoldemort]

Anyone else?

[thedangerine]

Right now I have two Seagate ironwolfs in a RAID 1 that have been excellent for over a year. I have a third on the way now to make a RAID 5. can't recommend those drives enough

[Metalshark]

The difference you'll care about is TLER:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_recovery_control#Desktop_computers_and_TLER

 

If an error is detected, instead of immediately handling the error like a desktop drive (a WD Blue/Black for instance) it jams up for 7 seconds so that a RAID controller has a chance to handle the error instead. So you'll certainly notice it hanging more if the drive becomes degraded.

 

Otherwise, everything else is more or less like a normal drive. WD's warranty doesn't mention anything special about on/off cycles (which are recorded in S.M.A.R.T.)

 

Would personally grab the Barracuda Pros, unless you are using RAID 1 and a dedicated RAID controller (e.g. not software RAID).

[Metalshark]

@grangervoldemort just double-checked
https://www.wd.com/solutions/nasware-technology.html

and the error recovery is the only difference I can see anyone caring about (happy to be corrected here).

[tikker]

On 8/10/2019 at 10:16 PM, grangervoldemort said:

I will NOT be using a NAS. I cannot afford to lose my data 'the price differnce is enough to make up for a potientally slightly higher failure rate.'
It is mission critical.

In my experience not wanting to lose data is exactly the reason why people get a NAS in some sort of RAID or RAID-like configuration, e.g. have the stuff wherever it is, and make regular backups to the NAS.

 

Aside from that. I've been running a WD Red 3 TB as a storage drive in my PC for a few years now, no problems. The main difference, as mentioned, is TLER.

[grangervoldemort]

1 hour ago, tikker said:

In my experience not wanting to lose data is exactly the reason why people get a NAS in some sort of RAID or RAID-like configuration, e.g. have the stuff wherever it is, and make regular backups to the NAS.

Yes but backup>RAID. RAID is a luxury.

Quote

Aside from that. I've been running a WD Red 3 TB as a storage drive in my PC for a few years now, no problems. The main difference, as mentioned, is TLER.

Do you not notice ANY difference at all?

How often does that tler thing affect you?

 

Seagate told me that the head parks more often on their NAS drives, so that makes more noise they said than the desktop versions. Any ideas on noise?

Also note that the WD RED's come with only a 3yr warranty. Barracuda Pro's come with 5yr.

[seagate_surfer]

If you would like to find out more in detail how much specifically in decibels an HDD makes noise then open the datasheet and write "acoustic":

1. https://www.seagate.com/support/internal-hard-drives/hdd/barracuda/
2. https://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/hdd/ironwolf/#support-tab

Yes! It is true that NAS type HDDs like IronWolf make more noise, although they are also HDDs that offer enterprise like value thou...

[grangervoldemort]

22 minutes ago, seagate_surfer said:

If you would like to find out more in detail how much specifically in decibels an HDD makes noise then open the datasheet and write "acoustic":

1. https://www.seagate.com/support/internal-hard-drives/hdd/barracuda/
2. https://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/hdd/ironwolf/#support-tab

Yes! It is true that NAS type HDDs like IronWolf make more noise, although they are also HDDs that offer enterprise like value thou...

Doesn't work? https://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/product-content/barracuda-fam/barracuda-new/en-us/docs/barracuda-pro-ds-1901-6-1701us.pdf

[seagate_surfer]

6 minutes ago, grangervoldemort said:

Doesn't work? https://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/product-content/barracuda-fam/barracuda-new/en-us/docs/barracuda-pro-ds-1901-6-1701us.pdf

Oh yeah! You're right my friend, I'm sorry! Please open the User Manual instead. Some of the data sheets like the one you opened will not reflect this data.

[grangervoldemort]

1 hour ago, seagate_surfer said:

Oh yeah! You're right my friend, I'm sorry! Please open the User Manual instead. Some of the data sheets like the one you opened will not reflect this data.

So ermmmm I don't get what bels are and how loud a bel is.... I see the bel ratings for each drive.

[tikker]

11 hours ago, grangervoldemort said:

Yes but backup>RAID. RAID is a luxury.

RAID is a luxury, but a pretty damn nice one to have sometimes. I'm not saing RAID is better than a backup, because it's not. In the scenario I'm describing the NAS _is_ your backup of important stuff that is on other devices. You can put your NAS in RAID 1,5,6 w/e to protect your backed up data should one or more of its drives fail. If you are really concerned about protecting your data you should put your data in multiple places, e.g. a backup in case one of your devices fails, a backup of your backup in case your backup fails and an offsite backup of your backup in case your house burns down and takes everything with it.

 

11 hours ago, grangervoldemort said:

Do you not notice ANY difference at all?

How often does that tler thing affect you?

 

Seagate told me that the head parks more often on their NAS drives, so that makes more noise they said than the desktop versions. Any ideas on noise?

Also note that the WD RED's come with only a 3yr warranty. Barracuda Pro's come with 5yr. 

They're optimized for efficiency, they'd be online basically 24/7 in a NAS, so they are maybe a bit slower than other drives? I don't really care about speed since it's for mass storage. My games are on their and it never bothers me. Maybe some loading takes a little bit longer once in a blue moon. As for TLER, it just means the drive won't spend more than 7 second trying to recover from bad sectors, whereas a normal drive will keep trying to recover forever. Bad sectors are bad though, so if you start seeing them you probably don't want it as a backup drive anymore, seeing how much you care about the data that's supposed to go on it.

 

I even have some at least 5 year old WD Greens that have seen heavy usage in a small cluster environment and they're still running fine.

 

The Red Pro has a 5 year warranty.

 

9 hours ago, grangervoldemort said:

So ermmmm I don't get what bels are and how loud a bel is.... I see the bel ratings for each drive.

https://generatorpower.com.au/generator-blog/generator-sound-levels-explained-noise-reduction/attachment/decibel-scale/

Decibels indicate how loud something is. It's logarithmic, so 10 dB increase means a factor of two in perceived loudness. You can Google around to find different examples.

[Metalshark]

@grangervoldemort head parking is more a Seagate issue nowadays. It's configurable on Western Digital drives (many utilities to change it for their entire range) and you'll not hit issues with the default (20 minutes of inactivity before parking which takes 2-3 seconds to respin back up to full speed).

 

TLER is only an issue when the drive starts failing exactly as @tikker describes.

 

If you're thinking about performance then Tom's Hardware has some decent analysis:

 

https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/wd-red-10tb-8tb-nas-hdd,review-34230-2.html

https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/seagate-barracuda-pro-10tb-hdd,review-34183-2.html

 

TL;DR Seagate wins Sequential and WD Red wins random

[seagate_surfer]

There is a "feature" to put it in a way that can be de-enabled to help reduce noise (PowerControl) but first a little background on why Seagate uses proprietary technology that can be disabled and why it is not disabled by default. In HDDs standards, there is one that's used as an automatic power-saving feature that is activated during very brief periods of command inactivity without impacting performance, it is called PowerTrim technology, but PowerChoice now called Power Control technology (a proprietary implementation of T10 Approved Standard No T10/09-054 and T13 Standard No T13/452-2008) complements PowerTrim technology by enabling even greater power reductions that cover idle periods greater than one second. The result? PowerChoice technology decreases drive power consumption by up to 54 percent in enterprise environments. For example, a 1U rack filled with twenty-four 500 GB Constellation drives that have entered PowerChoice technology C mode delivers 12 TB of storage, yet consumes only 43W or slightly more power than a single 40W light bulb! Delivering a combination of energy efficiency and user flexibility.

 

Now I introduce you SeaChest, to use this tool you have to be familiar with executing command lines or it will complicate everything a bit, the download link is here: https://www.seagate.com/support/software/seachest/ To learn more about PowerChoice (PowerControl) you can open the User Manual from the link above and go to the section:

• ================================
  How PowerChoice Technology Works
  ================================

I will now paste some screenshots of the command lines that will help you disable PowerControl and thus getting a lower noise from the HDD that support this: 

How to disable EPC (Extended Power Conditions)
Note: PowerChoice has now been replaced with PowerControl

1. Download the latest SeaChest and install it in Windows.
2. Next, confirm if EPC is supported and Enabled for the drive in question. First. get the drive's Handle which could be PD0, PD1, or PD2, etc. Copy and Paste or type in this command then Enter:

   • SeaChest_PowerControl --scan

   • 

3. Now copy and paste or type in this command then Enter.

   • SeaChest_PowerControl -d PD(N)

     • Replace (N) with the handle of the target disk

   • Scroll to Features Supported and look for EPC [Enabled]

   • 

4. To disable EPC on the drive Copy and paste or type this command then Enter:

   • SeaChest_PowerControl -d PD(N) --EPCfeature disable

   • Replace (N) with the handle of the target disk

   • Wait for a message stating EPC was disabled successfully

   • 

5. Now we need to confirm that EPC is disabled. Repeat step 3, Copy and paste or type in this command then Enter

   • SeaChest_PowerControl -d PD(N)

     • Replace (N) with the handle of the target disk

   • Scroll to Features Supported and look for EPC

     • [Enabled] should no longer be seen

     • 

6.  Shut down the computer then reinstall the drive into the NAS if it was the case.

If you type in Google disable epc site:seagate.com you will notice that many models show up because many models support the EPC and thus giving one more option to help you reduce noise from your machine.

 

[grangervoldemort]

12 hours ago, tikker said:

The Red Pro has a 5 year warranty.

I never wrote the Pro version. The Pro is not available as far as I can see on WD's site, so no 20% discount.
The 10TB WD RED Pro retails for £383 https://www.scan.co.uk/products/10tb-wd-red-pro-wd101kfbx-35-nas-hdd-sata-iii-6gb-s-7200rpm-256mb-cache-shock-sensor-ncq-oem

12 hours ago, tikker said:

https://generatorpower.com.au/generator-blog/generator-sound-levels-explained-noise-reduction/attachment/decibel-scale/

Decibels indicate how loud something is. It's logarithmic, so 10 dB increase means a factor of two in perceived loudness. You can Google around to find different examples.

He wrote BELS. Not Decibels.

[tikker]

37 minutes ago, grangervoldemort said:

I never wrote the Pro version. The Pro is not available as far as I can see on WD's site, so no 20% discount.
The 10TB WD RED Pro retails for £383 https://www.scan.co.uk/products/10tb-wd-red-pro-wd101kfbx-35-nas-hdd-sata-iii-6gb-s-7200rpm-256mb-cache-shock-sensor-ncq-oem

He wrote BELS. Not Decibels.

Calm down. The unit is bel, "deci" is a prefix meaning "a tenth", so 10 decibel is 1 bel.