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Help me choose my new NAS drives :)

azdaspaz
By azdaspaz
in Storage Devices
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Hey guys, just waiting to gauge everyone opinions on which drives I should purchase. 

 

So here's the deal; I need to upgrade the storage of my FreeNAS box as I am running out of space, and I am unsure whether I should go with certified NAS drives from either WD or Seagate, or just go for standard drives (like I'm running now).

 

Current configuration: 

3 x 2TB Seagate Barracudas running in RAIDZ1

 

Planned configuration:

3 x 3TB [insert new HDD here] in RAIDZ1

 

The drives that are currently in the system have been running flawlessly for ~1.5 years, which is making me question the need for either WD reds or the Seagate NAS drives.

 

I am aware of the benefits of "NAS" drive i.e. Less noise, vibration, power. 

 

Throw your opinions and stories at me and help me come to a conclusion :D

 

Edit: Added Poll 

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any chance of a poll?

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WD Greens?

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any chance of a poll?

Great Idea. Added one. :) 

 

WD Greens?

Not really keen on Greens, as they have power management which make them turn off etc. Read or heard somewhere a few times they're not very good for NAS application. 

 

3TB WD RED and go RAID Z2, not Z1 IMO

 

edit: sry, didn't read you only want to go for 3 drives.. For RAID Z2 you would want to go for at least 6 drives, but i guess that's out of price range..

anyway, the WD REDs are awesome for any NAS configuration.

Yeah not keen on the 6 drive idea, not enough SATA ports... and money. 

How long have your REDs been running for? any issues?

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6 x 3tb WD Red running 24/7 Raid Z2 with FreeNAS on a Supermicro board with an i3 for half a year now. No issues so far. HDD temps under load are sth. between 35° and 40°. Idle a little lower (like 30°). Ambient temps are like 25°C. FreeNAS is booting from a USB-drive. Power comsumption of the whole system are when idling like 30w, under load 60w with peaks up to 90w.

Nice, thanks for the info. Running my NAS on an asus board with an A4-4000 APU and 8GB RAM, so I have the power to run relatively large pools. My power consumption is similar, I know that it peaks around 102W forgot the idle.

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Hey there azdaspaz,

 

As IdeaStormer showed in his link, it is important for a NAS Drive to have TLER in order to keep your work going smoothly in case a bad sector appears.

I would check out the WD Red series since they come with a build-in NASware 3.0 technology, reducing concerns about compatibility, reliability and integration. Since they are designed specifically and tested for NAS systems, they also have TLER. They also have Streaming Support, SCT (SMART Command Transport) support, Power Management Support and BIC Performance for more optimized NAS usage.

Here's a link to check all these features: http://goo.gl/JeeHQ

 

Hope this helps,

 

Captain_WD.

If this helped you, like and choose it as best answer - you might help someone else with the same issue. ^_^
WDC Representative, http://www.wdc.com/ 

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To be quite honest, I would go with whatever is cheaper bergen WD Reds and Seagate NAS drives, you won't notice a difference.

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Posted

Hey guys, just waiting to gauge everyone opinions on which drives I should purchase. 

 

So here's the deal; I need to upgrade the storage of my FreeNAS box as I am running out of space, and I am unsure whether I should go with certified NAS drives from either WD or Seagate, or just go for standard drives (like I'm running now).

 

Current configuration: 

3 x 2TB Seagate Barracudas running in RAIDZ1

 

Planned configuration:

3 x 3TB [insert new HDD here] in RAIDZ1

 

The drives that are currently in the system have been running flawlessly for ~1.5 years, which is making me question the need for either WD reds or the Seagate NAS drives.

 

I am aware of the benefits of "NAS" drive i.e. Less noise, vibration, power. 

 

Throw your opinions and stories at me and help me come to a conclusion :D

 

Edit: Added Poll 

What are you going to be doing with this system?

 

If it's just a backup machine or an archive of photos and video then get the WD Red or Seagate NAS, whichever is cheaper.

 

If it'll be active a lot (such as hosting virtual machines or you have programs installed on it over the network), maybe pick up the NAS drives. They do perform better than the WD Red, and are more performance consistent since they run at a constant speed (and faster than the Red).

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Build Logs: Tophat (in progress), DNAF | Useful Links: How To: Choosing Your Storage Devices and Configuration, Case Study: RAID Tolerance to Failure, Reducing Single Points of Failure in Redundant Storage , Why Choose an SSD?, ZFS From A to Z (Eric1024), Advanced RAID: Survival Rates, Flashing LSI RAID Cards (alpenwasser), SAN and Storage Networking

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While the Greens do turn off, you have to consider what the usage of your NAS is. From what you have posted, it seems like it is just a simple media? Red's are rated for continuous use and really shine with greater number of drives due to vibration. 

 

I have a NAS setup with greens, and from idle to active, there is maybe a 2 second delay, once it is on, it doesn't turn off for a while so continuous seeks are fast. If the drives are not constantly active, you would definitely save power and perhaps prolong the life of the drives.

 

Also, many NASes will automatically spindown drives anyways to reduce power. 

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Hey there azdaspaz,

 

As IdeaStormer showed in his link, it is important for a NAS Drive to have TLER in order to keep your work going smoothly in case a bad sector appears.

I would check out the WD Red series since they come with a build-in NASware 3.0 technology, reducing concerns about compatibility, reliability and integration. Since they are designed specifically and tested for NAS systems, they also have TLER. They also have Streaming Support, SCT (SMART Command Transport) support, Power Management Support and BIC Performance for more optimized NAS usage.

Here's a link to check all these features: http://goo.gl/JeeHQ

 

Hope this helps,

 

Captain_WD.

Thanks man, I'll definitely give that a look over, gathering all the information I can 

 

Sounds good. Do you use ECC RAM?

Na, not using ECC RAM, board doesn't support it and it wasn't in the budget at the time of the build 

 

 

 

What are you going to be doing with this system?

 

If it's just a backup machine or an archive of photos and video then get the WD Red or Seagate NAS, whichever is cheaper.

 

If it'll be active a lot (such as hosting virtual machines or you have programs installed on it over the network), maybe pick up the NAS drives. They do perform better than the WD Red, and are more performance consistent since they run at a constant speed (and faster than the Red).

It's a general purpose NAS, backs up all the PC's in my house, holds all my media and a solid ISO collection. 

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Thanks man, I'll definitely give that a look over, gathering all the information I can 

 

 

Hey, sure thing!
If you have any questions, feel free to ask away!
 
Captain_WD

If this helped you, like and choose it as best answer - you might help someone else with the same issue. ^_^
WDC Representative, http://www.wdc.com/ 

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