WD Ultrastar HC550 (WUH721818ALE6L4) - not good for a NAS RAID?

[nicolaidenmark]

Hi all,

 

I was browsing for an additional HDD for my DS918+ and came across this drive with 18TBs. It's much cheaper than the equivalent WD Gold, however, on a comparison site, I noticed it's listed as not optimized for RAID?

So, should I really get the WD Gold vers. or is the comparison site site incorrect?

Thanks,

[Jarsky]

It's incorrect, WD Golds and DC HC550s are essentially the same drive. The DC in the name means Datacenter. 

The Gold is a drive based off their original line, while the Ultrastar is from HGST IP which they aquired about 4-5 years ago. Not sure at this point if there is even a difference between the 2 other than perhaps firmware. 

 

Just make sure if you get an HC550 you get that version (WUH721818ALE6Lx) as there is also a SAS version of the drive. 

[OhioYJ]

It's just what used to be the HGST version. Careful though, if you want a warranty you need to buy it through an authorized retailer. Lots of places sell these and the HGST drives cheaper, same with the Gold drives, just you end up with little or essentially no warranty. You'll notice you end up with a year warranty through the seller, rather than the 5 year warranty through WD in some of these deals.

[nicolaidenmark]

Seller is legit and 5 year warranty. Looks like I'm good.

[nicolaidenmark]

17 hours ago, Jarsky said:

It's incorrect, WD Golds and DC HC550s are essentially the same drive. The DC in the name means Datacenter. 

The Gold is a drive based off their original line, while the Ultrastar is from HGST IP which they aquired about 4-5 years ago. Not sure at this point if there is even a difference between the 2 other than perhaps firmware. 

 

Just make sure if you get an HC550 you get that version (WUH721818ALE6Lx) as there is also a SAS version of the drive. 

I notice a slight difference in write speeds (WD Gold 26+ vs US: 260.

Other than that itt looks like a good drive and sound levels are probably the same(?).

Would it be an issue to put this drive in my NAS which currently has 2 x 10 tb HGST Deskstar NAS 7,200 RPM and 256 MB Cache?

[jde3]

Sort of answered this before just make sure you have monitoring setup correctly and you test it and you probably don't need to worry about it too much.

[Jarsky]

15 hours ago, nicolaidenmark said:

I notice a slight difference in write speeds (WD Gold 26+ vs US: 260.

Other than that itt looks like a good drive and sound levels are probably the same(?).

Would it be an issue to put this drive in my NAS which currently has 2 x 10 tb HGST Deskstar NAS 7,200 RPM and 256 MB Cache?

 

 

Yeah the differences in them are absolutely minor. No issue using them in a NAS, but keep in mind your configuration on the NAS.

If youre running those drives in a mirror (RAID1) then you'll need to configure it seperately, if you have it setup in an SHR storage pool then best to add it to the pool. 

[nicolaidenmark]

1 hour ago, Jarsky said:

 

Yeah the differences in them are absolutely minor. No issue using them in a NAS, but keep in mind your configuration on the NAS.

If youre running those drives in a mirror (RAID1) then you'll need to configure it seperately, if you have it setup in an SHR storage pool then best to add it to the pool. 

SHR-1 here.

By monitoring the drives, I take it what is meant is setting up the monthly disc stattus reports in DSM (No faults detected on the drives in DSM)?

And the SMART checks?

[jde3]

13 hours ago, nicolaidenmark said:

SHR-1 here.

By monitoring the drives, I take it what is meant is setting up the monthly disc stattus reports in DSM (No faults detected on the drives in DSM)?

And the SMART checks?

Using Cron or ZED (ZFS Event Daemon) Alerts. Usually email. If you setup and get your email working on FreeNAS it just work but make sure you test it.

An alternative if you are not using FreeNAS is NetData. https://www.netdata.cloud/ (tho you will have to configure that some for it) NetData is a way to get deep system statistics and alarms but by default it's a little bit noisy.

[Jarsky]

On 2/9/2022 at 9:23 AM, jde3 said:

Using Cron or ZED (ZFS Event Daemon) Alerts. Usually email. If you setup and get your email working on FreeNAS it just work but make sure you test it.

An alternative if you are not using FreeNAS is NetData. https://www.netdata.cloud/ (tho you will have to configure that some for it) NetData is a way to get deep system statistics and alarms but by default it's a little bit noisy.

 

He's using Synology (hence talking about DSM & SHR-1). 

 

But yes setup email notifications. For all my systems i have an SMTP relay on my home network, which relays through Gmail. You can just use Gmail in DSM by default which is an easy setup for just the NAS itself. 

 

You can customise what notifications you want in Notifications > Advanced in DSM.

I dont use Synology at home (but we manage them for some of our customers), but personally I just have a monthly health report and notifications for Critical issues for my home NAS systems. You'd probably really just be focused on some of hte notifications under Internal Storage. 

[nicolaidenmark]

@Jarsky

I have seen example of Synology users not having an 18TB disk recognized by DSM. The biggest capacity (officially) supported by Synology is 16TB. Should I gamble or play safe with the 16 TB vers.?

 

[Jarsky]

On 2/21/2022 at 9:41 AM, nicolaidenmark said:

@Jarsky

I have seen example of Synology users not having an 18TB disk recognized by DSM. The biggest capacity (officially) supported by Synology is 16TB. Should I gamble or play safe with the 16 TB vers.?

 

I cant tell you definitively yes or no, I don't see why a NAS would support 16TB but not 18TB.

 

The main issue with older hardware is support 512e/4Kn drives, but thats practically everything that is a larger drive these days, 512n drives are mostly obsolete. 

You should also stick to "SE" (Secure-Erase) drives rather than "SED" (Self-Encrypting Drives), im not completely sure what the reliance is on hardware for SED drives. 

 

If you're shucking drives from USB enclosures, those drives typically have a 3.3v power signal pin which you have to do a work around for  

[nicolaidenmark]

8 hours ago, Jarsky said:

I cant tell you definitively yes or no, I don't see why a NAS would support 16TB but not 18TB.

 

The main issue with older hardware is support 512e/4Kn drives, but thats practically everything that is a larger drive these days, 512n drives are mostly obsolete. 

You should also stick to "SE" (Secure-Erase) drives rather than "SED" (Self-Encrypting Drives), im not completely sure what the reliance is on hardware for SED drives. 

 

If you're shucking drives from USB enclosures, those drives typically have a 3.3v power signal pin which you have to do a work around for  

Just found this:
 

Looks to be the exact drive I plan on purchasing. Should be good then, right?

[Jarsky]

So to break down that drive WUH721818ALE6L4

 

W = Western Digital

U = UltraStar

H = Helium

72 = 7200rpm

18 = Max Capacity in this range (18TB)

18 = This specific model (18TB)

A = 1st Generation

L = 26.1mm height

E6 = 512e SATA

L4 = SE (No Encryption)

 

 

So its a 512e SE SATA drive, should be just fine despite not being in the compatibility list

[Needfuldoer]

3 hours ago, nicolaidenmark said:

Just found this:
[snip]
Looks to be the exact drive I plan on purchasing. Should be good then, right?

To me, that error says those drives aren't on Synology's qualified hardware list yet.

 

There's no reason they shouldn't work, but Synology can't guarantee they will until they test them themselves.

[nicolaidenmark]

3 hours ago, Jarsky said:

So to break down that drive WUH721818ALE6L4

 

W = Western Digital

U = UltraStar

H = Helium

72 = 7200rpm

18 = Max Capacity in this range (18TB)

18 = This specific model (18TB)

A = 1st Generation

L = 26.1mm height

E6 = 512e SATA

L4 = SE (No Encryption)

 

 

So its a 512e SE SATA drive, should be just fine despite not being in the compatibility list

Awesome post for future drive purchases and understanding of drive labeling.

I've just purchased and put the drive in my DSs918+.

I got the "Not tested" message and hit continue. Everything seems fine and the drive is being added to the pool as we speak (estimated time to completion: 10 days + (yawn!)).

[nicolaidenmark]

I may be imagining things but:

Besides the Ultrastar disk mentioned, I have 2 x HGST Deskstar NAS 10TB 256 MB cache.

I realize the 18 is taken for redundancy but when writing to my NAS via Windows Mapped Network drives in MakeMKV, I get only 93 MB/sek speed. Also with Black Magic Disk Test. Isn't this a bit low and what can I do to improve it?

NAS is not indexing or anything like that.