Split between various potential 4TB NAS drives.

[Vitalius]

Hi guys, 

Here are the 4 drives:

Seagate ST4000VN000 4TB 7200RPM - $170
Seagate ST4000VM000 4TB 5900RPM - $185

Not sure on the difference between the two aside from the RPM and price difference. Why is one cheaper than the other, but slower? Older model?

WD Red WD40EFRX 5400 RPM 4TB - $180

WD SE WD4000F9YZ 7200 RPM 4TB - $260 (with shipping)

I see the obvious differences, but are the extra RPMs worth the extra money? Is there something else about the SE drives that I don't know that makes the extra money worth it?

Use case:

Streaming, backup, and such things on my NAS. I could be streaming up to 2 1080p movies at once, while doing a system backup, while downloading files to it (separate from the backup). In such a scenario, I'd prefer more transfer speeds, but I don't know how big of a difference 7200 RPM is over the other options (5900 and 5400). 

I'll be actively adding choices to the questions as unique answers come up in the thread.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Vitalius.

[xXxYOLOxSWAGxXx_420BlazeIt]

Are you using RAID or ZFS? Do you have any SSDs for cache?

[Vitalius]

Note: I edited the poll so you can vote "Nope." Instead of the Other (Comment in Thread) ones. 

My bad. Forgot how polls work (you have to vote for each question). I thought you could just vote on one and leave the rest blank. Dumb.

 

Are you using RAID or ZFS? Do you have any SSDs for cache?

ZFS. FreeNAS. RAID 10 is the eventual goal, but for now it will be RAID 1 between 2 drives (I already own a Seagate 4TB 5900RPM drive). However, since I intend to upgrade as time goes on, the bottleneck of RAID 1 with a 5900RPM and a 7200RPM can be ignored since the Seagate drive will eventually be replaced.

I have a 32GB Cache for the whole setup. However, that is very small considering the media will be rarely touched (i.e. cache won't be useful). Cache should help the backups and file transfers, but still, I wonder how much. 

Note that the SSD is limited to SATAII (I got it for free).

[Atlantisman]

I would go with the WD Reds probably. Very reliable drives in my experience. You don't need the extra RPMs, the Reds should last longer because they won't get as hot, or vibrate as much.

 

Edit: i have 3x 3TB WD Reds in a ZFS RaidZ-1 and i have had zero problems with them. They run way cooler than my other drives too. 

[Vitalius]

I would go with the WD Reds probably. Very reliable drives in my experience. You don't need the extra RPMs, the Reds should last longer because they won't get as hot, or vibrate as much.

 

Edit: i have 3x 3TB WD Reds in a ZFS RaidZ-1 and i have had zero problems with them. They run way cooler than my other drives too. 

Cool. I added the "They're reliable" option to the poll if you want to change your vote.

Thanks. I intend to read up on the differences between Seagate NAS drives and WD NAS drives. I just wanted to start with asking the community about the differences first.

[Ssoele]

Keep in mind the Reds do not spin at 5400 RPM, but they vary between 5400 and 7200 RPM.

[alpenwasser]

Keep in mind the Reds do not spin at 5400 RPM, but they vary between 5400 and 7200 RPM.

I have no source for this, so take it with a grain of salt, but

I read somewhere that their rpm is actually constant, they just

don't say what it actually is (so, the "our rpm is between 5.4k

and 7.2k" is just a marketing thing). Allegedly it's ~5900 rpm,

at least that's what I read somewhere once IIRC, but not sure

anymore.

What I can say is that in the months I've had my reds, I have

never noticed any pattern indicating that their rpm actually

varies. I would expect to hear that TBH, a change in tone should

be noticeable IMO.

Anyway, as said, I have no reliable source for this, I think I

read it in a review of the Red when they came out, but no idea

where anymore.

As for the drive itself: I've had no problem with them so far,

seem to work nicely, and indeed they stay very cool even with

minimal ventilation.

EDIT:

Managed to find something. Apparently it's not 5.9k rpm, but

around 5.4k. The guys from silentpcreview did an analysis of

the drive's sound:

 

It's quite simple, really. Most of a drive's power is consumed by the motor that spins the disk inside the drive. Reduce the speed of the disk, and you reduce the amount of power required. However, Western Digital doesn't want to say that they're selling 5,400 RPM drives — those became second class in the desktop market years ago. Instead, they rate the drive's speed as "IntelliPower" and take pains to emphasize that there are other factors that affect performance.

Western Digital has caught a lot of flak for withholding the rotation speed of the Green Power, especially when the product was first launched and the marketing material listed the rotation speed as 5,400-7,200 RPM. This led some to speculate that the rotation speed changed dynamically during use — which would have been an impressive engineering feat had it been true. The reality is revealed by a sentence that Western Digital added to the description of IntelliPower: "For each GreenPower™ drive model, WD may use a different, invariable RPM." In other words, Western Digital reserves the right to release both 5,400 RPM and 7,200 RPM drives under the Green Power name — without telling you which are which.

We were able to confirm that our 750 GB Green Power had a spindle speed of 5,400 RPM by analyzing its sound spectrum. Why sound? Sound is vibration; the pitch of the sound corresponds to the frequency of the vibration. Hard drives vibrate at the speed of their motor, so they produce a noise at the same frequency as their rotation speed. Our sample had a sharp spike at exactly 90 Hz (cycles per second). Multiplying that number by 60 (to get cycles per minute) yielded a measured rotation speed of 5,400 RPM.

They also have a plot of the analysis in their article if

anyone's interested. But the bolded quote is from WD

themselves apparently, so I'd say that's pretty reliable.

Edited March 14, 2014 by alpenwasser

[Ssoele]

-snip-

 

Interesting, but it could still mean that the RED drives run at a higher RPM however.

[alpenwasser]

Interesting, but it could still mean that the RED drives run at a higher RPM however.

Yeah, from what I understand it could be anything between 5.4k and 7.2k,

but it would be constant. Assuming they prioritize power consumption (as

they claim to), I would not expect it to be far above 5.4k though, although

for that I definitely don't have any reliable sources, just guesstimation

on my part.