WD Red 8/10/12 TB Reliability

[79wjd]

I'm looking to expand my current FreeNAS setup (currently 3 4TB Reds and 1 HGST5K40001). They're currently not in any form of RAID, which I know isn't ideal, but the most critical data is backed up elsewhere as well. I'm leaning towards adding an 8/10/12TB WD Red and don't really foresee myself buying 4 additional 4TB drives to switch to a Z2 configuration (with an additional 8TB of storage). Regarding the single 8/12TB drive route, I was wondering if there are any current reliability benefits to one over the other (I remember long ago that drives with 1.5TB platters tended to be less reliable than others, but I don't know if there is still some similar phenomenon).

There are obviously other pros/cons to larger/smaller drives, but that's something else that I'll have to give some thought over before making my final decision. At the moment, all are approximately the same $/gb.


4x 4TB Iron Wolf -- $420 (Combined into a Z2 array with my 3 existing CMR 4TB Reds and 1 HGST5k400001).
1x 8TB WD Red -- $205
1x 12TB WD Red -- $305


P.s. I might end up putting two of the 4TB Reds in a mirror configuration for the most important data (currently on a mirrored pair of Blues) assuming I go with the 8/12tb route.

P.p.s I was also considering a WD Easystore 8/10/12 if these still have CMR Whites (Reds), but I would also need to replace my PSU (RM650x) since it doesn't support the SATA 3 spec regarding the 3.3v pin and I'm not interested in modding/taping molex connectors, so that route is likely to be less cost effective.

[LIGISTX]

I don’t know of any reliability issues. I would google backblaze Reliability metrics, they publish info every quarter and they have LOTS OF DRIVES to do good statistics on.

 

I would consider RAID, but it just depends on your use case I suppose. 

[79wjd]

3 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

I don’t know of any reliability issues. I would google backblaze Reliability metrics, they publish info every quarter and they have LOTS OF DRIVES to do good statistics on.

 

I would consider RAID, but it just depends on your use case I suppose. 

I would of course prefer a z2 array with approximately 24-30TB usable, but $$ and all that good stuff. Adding four 4TB drives onto my existing four 4TB drives could in theory get me to the lower end of that threshold while also not being too cost prohibitive, but I'd be mixing onto four 4tb drives that are 5 years old and also still only being at the lower end of my target capacity while costing more than double what a single 8tb would cost and tying me into smaller capacity drives.

 

I also looked a bit more (and past my slight bias towards WD since I have Reds already) and have a few other options on the table that all are a bit more economical than Reds and on paper have better reliability ratings.

• 8tb WD Ultrastar HC320 -- $175
• 8tb Seagate Exos 7E8 (ST8000NM0055)-- $193
• 14tb Seagate Exos x14 -- $307
• 8tb Red -- $205
• 12tb Red -- $305
• 12tb Seagate Exos X16 (ST12000NM001G) -- $276

There isn't much Backblaze data on most of the drives available at reasonable prices with only the 7E8 really having some usable worthwhile data. The 7E8, Ultrastar, or X16 seem like the best options of the bunch.

[LIGISTX]

34 minutes ago, 79wjd said:

I would of course prefer a z2 array with approximately 24-30TB usable, but $$ and all that good stuff. Adding four 4TB drives onto my existing four 4TB drives could in theory get me to the lower end of that threshold while also not being too cost prohibitive, but I'd be mixing onto four 4tb drives that are 5 years old and also still only being at the lower end of my target capacity while costing more than double what a single 8tb would cost and tying me into smaller capacity drives.

 

I also looked a bit more (and past my slight bias towards WD since I have Reds already) and have a few other options on the table that all are a bit more economical than Reds and on paper have better reliability ratings.

• 8tb WD Ultrastar HC320 -- $175
• 8tb Seagate Exos 7E8 (ST8000NM0055)-- $193
• 14tb Seagate Exos x14 -- $307
• 8tb Red -- $205
• 12tb Red -- $305
• 12tb Seagate Exos X16 (ST12000NM001G) -- $276

There isn't much Backblaze data on most of the drives available at reasonable prices with only the 7E8 really having some usable worthwhile data. The 7E8, Ultrastar, or X16 seem like the best options of the bunch.

Mixing and matching with older drives isn't really an issue. But yea, its not a cheap investment. I added a single 10 TB drive not in RAID for "throw away data" recently. My 10x4 TB array was up past 70% usage so I figured I would offload some throw away data to a single drive.

 

Too bad backblaze doesn't have good data, I guess in that case just get whatever is cheaper tbh. All will be damn near the same, and really just end up being luck of the draw.

[79wjd]

3 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

Mixing and matching with older drives isn't really an issue. But yea, its not a cheap investment. I added a single 10 TB drive not in RAID for "throw away data" recently. My 10x4 TB array was up past 70% usage so I figured I would offload some throw away data to a single drive.

 

Too bad backblaze doesn't have good data, I guess in that case just get whatever is cheaper tbh. All will be damn near the same, and really just end up being luck of the draw.

It's not a compatibility issue that would concern me with mixing drives but rather the age of the mix. Namely that half the array would be significantly older with a significant number of running hours (40k~/drive). So, I'd be spending a decent chunk of money on low capacity drives solely because I have existing low capacity drives to pair with.

[LIGISTX]

5 minutes ago, 79wjd said:

It's not a compatibility issue that would concern me with mixing drives but rather the age of the mix. Namely that half the array would be significantly older with a significant number of running hours (40k~/drive). So, I'd be spending a decent chunk of money on low capacity drives solely because I have existing low capacity drives to pair with.

So, yea. But what you could do is pick up some 6 TB drives instead, use those with the 4 TB drives, and as the 4 TB's get older they will start to present issues, and then you can start rebuilding with 6 TB drives. Once all drives are 6 TB, you will gain that new effective space. Thats one way to go about it...

[79wjd]

2 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

So, yea. But what you could do is pick up some 6 TB drives instead, use those with the 4 TB drives, and as the 4 TB's get older they will start to present issues, and then you can start rebuilding with 6 TB drives. Once all drives are 6 TB, you will gain that new effective space. Thats one way to go about it...

I don't think I'd bother with 6tb drives. It seems like too small of a bump and likely not "future proof" enough to account for when/if I ultimately update the rest of the array. 8TB would be my minimum and even then I've considered that if/when I decide to add the remaining drives to complete an actual z2 array that 8tb drives might seem like a silly option. Then again, paying a premium now for the off chance in the future is a bit more silly (especially since I had the same thought with these 4tb drives).