Need help with storage configurations

[Masfiras]

So guys, I need 4TB of storage for my media files that I use on Premire Pro projects and rendering, such as audio recorded files, video files. and they're large, about 600GB of materials collected from each project.

And the drives need to be @ 7200RPM.

 

Should I get a single 4TB (such as WD Black or Seagate NAS),or a RAID 1 with 4x 2TB (Seagate Barracuda or NAS), or a RAID 10 with the same amount of drives ? 

 

This configuration will be done on-board with Intel chipset, and doesn't matter if it is Sata II or III, but needs to be 7200RPM drives. 

[denestmor3]

If you can get one single 4tb WD black drive it will be faster then a NAS because of all the other bottlenecks (such as cables and network and controler)

[Blade of Grass]

If you can get one single 4tb WD black drive it will be faster then a NAS because of all the other bottlenecks (such as cables and network and controler)

The only problem with that is 4TB drives (from all manufacturers) have higher failure rates.

[Whaler_99]

I would get yourself 4 x 2TB WD Red drives. These are 7200 RPM, SATA III drives and are rated for exceptional use and NAS configs. They can usually be found on sale at one of the various etailers and are very cost effective. I would then make a RAID 10 - excellent data protection and performance. you would get roughly 3.4 TB of space. If you need at least 4TB, go for 4 x 3TB drives then... Red's again...

[alpenwasser]

I would get yourself 4 x 2TB WD Red drives. These are 7200 RPM

I read once in a review of a Red drive that it's actually somewhere around 5900 rpm.

I haven't been able to find anything official on it, and my memory is rather hazy on

the subject. WDC's point with "Intellipower" seems to be that they release different

drives at their allegedly optimal rpm according to this article.

For the WDC Green they tested "Intellipower" seemed to mean 5400 rpm if I understand

correctly, but seeing as that article is from 2007 there is of course no info on the

Reds.

If you have any reliable sources about the 7200 rpm I would definitely be interested in

that, I have been looking for reliable info on that for quite a while. I bloody hate

marketing speech, just give me the damn specs! :(

Either way, I have some 3 TB Reds and can definitely agree with the recommendation. Decent

performance and 24/7 rating for a very good price IMHO.

[stevv]

WD Blacks (5 year warranty) if you don't mind little extra noise/vibration and don't do 24/7. Reds if you plan 24/7. But with 5+ years warranty...I ran mine 24/7 since 2009 lol.

edit: Alternative to RAID10, 1 drive for less complexity, add a second as RAID1 later for better read speed.

Other than that,

Interesting read: Has some numbers to consider for project sizes (in terms of how many video streams in one screen).

http://www.larryjordan.biz/musing-why-hard-disk-speed-isnt-everything/

Though the main concern is MB/s rather than platter speed since it's a combination of speed and platter density. Other things are like seeking ability, which is only noticeable with my raptors compared to the greens (though my raid5 (4x 2TB greens) can easily read/write 200-300MB/s. I wonder how much different it makes in real. Maybe I can fire up Premier Pro 4 and do 4 streams of 1080p h.264 over 1gb network vs RE4 vs wdblue vs ssd. If anything, it would be the seaking while editing.

[alpenwasser]

But with 5+ years warranty...I ran mine 24/7 since 2009 lol.

Yeah I have some Samsung drives which are definitely not rated for 24/7 and they ran pretty

much 24/7 since early 2008 until two months ago without problems. Fantastic drives.

I think the 24/7 moniker is a bit overrated in the consumer sector. It's a nice marketing

label (the drives rated for 24/7 do often offer other advantages though, such as the tendency

not to get dropped from RAID arrays or low power consumption etc.), but I have had excellent

experiences with running non-24/7 drives around the clock for many years (not in a RAID

config though).

[Masfiras]

I like your advice guys, but i'm still with the same doubt.

 

So basically,

 

WD Black 4TB is really fast has 5yr warranty but has high failure rates and not recommended for 24/7 working loads.

WD Red is optimized for NAS so support a 24/7 working loads, but the Intelipower makes the drive runs slower aprox. 5900 RPM.

 

But I didn't heard anything about Seagate NAS and WD SE.

 

So basically I need drives that are fast (7200 RPM) and very reliable, that's why I'm going with RAID 1 or 10 cause if one drive fails I can restore most of my data.

 

And if i'm going with onboard RAID solution, should I stay with RAID 1 or try RAID 10 ?

[stevv]

I think the 24/7 moniker is a bit overrated in the consumer sector. 

 

There's 24/7 just powered on and active sometime, and then there's 24/7 actively used in random small file access crammed in small space (like a racked web server, email server that actively being used.. etc).  I guess with improved manufacturing these few years, the line is less clear.  Look at Backblaze and there use of desktop drive in 24/7 storage.  The mostly likely to kill drive is too high of heat and lots of head moving (hot air, less dense air, plus vibrations ==> head crashing on platter)

 

 

I like your advice guys, but i'm still with the same doubt.

 

So basically,

 

WD Black 4TB is really fast has 5yr warranty but has high failure rates and not recommended for 24/7 working loads.

WD Red is optimized for NAS so support a 24/7 working loads, but the Intelipower makes the drive runs slower aprox. 5900 RPM.

 

But I didn't heard anything about Seagate NAS and WD SE.

 

So basically I need drives that are fast (7200 RPM) and very reliable, that's why I'm going with RAID 1 or 10 cause if one drive fails I can restore most of my data.

 

And if i'm going with onboard RAID solution, should I stay with RAID 1 or try RAID 10 ?

 

Not sure about how the high failure rate numbers for WD blacks (reference?), but there's bad luck when it comes down to it.  Have a previously used mainly Seagate drives for a couple of small servers and they all failed on my like a time bombs (all within a few months of each other, but that's over 4 years use), and have not had that with WD drive (so far, with larger drives I also switched to RAID1 setup).  There are others with the opposite experience.  So I'm not going to judge base on that.  I did switch over to WD because they first had better support.. as in they send me the drives overnight with just a deposit as opposed to Seagate.  I think Seagate changed that policy.  Same with why I used to always buy Kingston as opposed to patriot memory (they sent me the ram first where patriot took months and sent me a broken one... while my laptop was down the whole time)... ok I digress.

 

My  recommendation: 

Setup:

RAID 1 for fault tolerance (aka hardware failure) to start off.  It's also more (relatively) simple to manage.

 

Drives: 

It's Seagate NAS vs WD SE 4TB (It cost less then the Blacks and the closest you can come to the RE4 drives).

 

Review: http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_nas_hdd_review

 

My thoughts:

• The WD SE is clearly faster + 2yr extra warranty, but at a price.  
• Black 4TB is out of the picture.  
• Seagate Desktop HDD.15 ST4000DM000 4TB is still faster than the Seagate NAS.  
• RED's are outperformed by the Seagate NAS and no 4TB version.

interesting note: Non-recoverable read errors per bit read: <10 in 10^{15  vs} 10¹⁴ | seagate nas vs wd se)

 

Sort term wise, with the seagate nas option, that's $160 savings =).  For a few drives, I still go with the WD SE and a couple weeks living off instant noodles lol (but that's just me). Now if it's like 8+ drives... that's another story.

[Masfiras]

 

There's 24/7 just powered on and active sometime, and then there's 24/7 actively used in random small file access crammed in small space (like a racked web server, email server that actively being used.. etc).  I guess with improved manufacturing these few years, the line is less clear.  Look at Backblaze and there use of desktop drive in 24/7 storage.  The mostly likely to kill drive is too high of heat and lots of head moving (hot air, less dense air, plus vibrations ==> head crashing on platter)

 

 

 

Not sure about how the high failure rate numbers for WD blacks (reference?), but there's bad luck when it comes down to it.  Have a previously used mainly Seagate drives for a couple of small servers and they all failed on my like a time bombs (all within a few months of each other, but that's over 4 years use), and have not had that with WD drive (so far, with larger drives I also switched to RAID1 setup).  There are others with the opposite experience.  So I'm not going to judge base on that.  I did switch over to WD because they first had better support.. as in they send me the drives overnight with just a deposit as opposed to Seagate.  I think Seagate changed that policy.  Same with why I used to always buy Kingston as opposed to patriot memory (they sent me the ram first where patriot took months and sent me a broken one... while my laptop was down the whole time)... ok I digress.

 

My  recommendation: 

Setup:

RAID 1 for fault tolerance (aka hardware failure) to start off.  It's also more (relatively) simple to manage.

 

Drives: 

It's Seagate NAS vs WD SE 4TB (It cost less then the Blacks and the closest you can come to the RE4 drives).

 

Review: http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_nas_hdd_review

 

My thoughts:

• The WD SE is clearly faster + 2yr extra warranty, but at a price.  
• Black 4TB is out of the picture.  
• Seagate Desktop HDD.15 ST4000DM000 4TB is still faster than the Seagate NAS.  
• RED's are outperformed by the Seagate NAS and no 4TB version.

interesting note: Non-recoverable read errors per bit read: <10 in 10^{15  vs} 10¹⁴ | seagate nas vs wd se)

 

Sort term wise, with the seagate nas option, that's $160 savings =).  For a few drives, I still go with the WD SE and a couple weeks living off instant noodles lol (but that's just me). Now if it's like 8+ drives... that's another story.

 

 

ok so i'm going with WD, I just asked with Seagate NAS is a nice option.

 

And I definitely not going with a single 4TB because I need a way that I don't loose all my data if one of my drives fails, so I'm going with RAID 1 or RAID 10 (4x 2TB).

 

With what drive should I go and what kind of RAID, 1 or 10? Seagate NAS, WD SE or  WD RE ? (Remembering that I need fast drives @ 7200 RPM and 4x 2TB)

[Masfiras]

Okay, guys, so here a poll to be more organized.

 

 

[alpenwasser]

stevv, on 19 Jul 2013 - 11:05 PM, said:

There's 24/7 just powered on and active sometime, and then there's 24/7 actively used in random small file access crammed in small space (like a racked web server, email server that actively being used.. etc). I guess with improved manufacturing these few years, the line is less clear.

Agreed.

 

stevv, on 19 Jul 2013 - 11:05 PM, said:

Look at Backblaze and there use of desktop drive in 24/7 storage. The mostly likely to kill drive is too high of heat and lots of head moving (hot air, less dense air,

Google actually did a study a few years back where they found temperature to be much less

of an influencing factor than commonly thought. Also, workload was not very influential

either.

There recently was a topic with a similar question (disk temperatures and failure rates),

I linked the study and quoted some excerpts in that thread if you want to read more about

it.

Agreed on the air density, although usually the altitude in which a drive is supposed to be

run is usually indicated on it I think (not totally sure).

 

stevv, on 19 Jul 2013 - 11:05 PM, said:

plus vibrations ==> head crashing on platter)

They did say that they don't have reliable data about the influence of vibrations on

drive failure rate somewhere in the study. Personally I tend to agree that lots of

vibrations probably aren't very healthy for your drives (most mechanical systems

respond to vibrations with unfavorable results in the long run).

I think it's important to note that usually a head crash is the result of shocks and

not the "normal" vibrations encountered in the disks environment (even in the worse

ones like high-density racks), at least to my knowledge (though I haven't been able

to find any reliable data on that and am willing to be proven wrong).

EDIT:

I have some RE4's, and I really love them. I think the WD SE's are a pretty great

option.

[Whaler_99]

I am a Red guy myself - WD does have some higher end drives, but for the cost, and the technology they bring, Red drives are very cost effective. I have used these for the past year in multple builds and have had zero issues with performance. I have some clients using these with 16 IP cameras writting to RAID 10 arrays 7/24 with no issues.

[alpenwasser]

I am a Red guy myself - WD does have some higher end drives, but for the cost, and the technology they bring, Red drives are very cost effective. I have used these for the past year in multple builds and have had zero issues with performance. I have some clients using these with 16 IP cameras writting to RAID 10 arrays 7/24 with no issues.

True, price/performance is really good IMO (I have a few of them as well). I love my RE4's, but

if the Red had been out when I bought them I would probably have gone for them (although I did

manage to buy my RE4's right before the floodings and the prices went through the roof). I like

the SE's, but they do cost quite a bit more. Whether or not that additional cost is worth it to

anyone is for them to decide though.

[stevv]

ok so i'm going with WD, I just asked with Seagate NAS is a nice option.

 

And I definitely not going with a single 4TB because I need a way that I don't loose all my data if one of my drives fails, so I'm going with RAID 1 or RAID 10 (4x 2TB).

 

With what drive should I go and what kind of RAID, 1 or 10? Seagate NAS, WD SE or  WD RE ? (Remembering that I need fast drives @ 7200 RPM and 4x 2TB)

 

Here are my picks according to your need for the fastest ones.

 

2 x Western Digital WD SE WD4000F9YZ 4TB in RAID 1

 

or if you can't fook over the extra $, Then

 

2 x Seagate Desktop HDD.15 ST4000DM000 4TB in RAID 1

 

 

Other thoughts

• WD RE version too expensive.  
• Seagate NAS and WD Red are 5900 rpm.
• why RAID1.  
  • Simple to manage and troubleshoot if any error.
  • you can expand easier in future.  
  • Double drive count, double chances of a failure.
  • 4 drives cost more than 2 drives now (used to be the other way around not long ago)
• ​why pay extra $$
  • ​more overall performance
  • extra warranty (you can sell them off at year 3 and still make over $100 each!)
  • bragging rights of enterprise drives  :D 

 

Okay, guys, so here a poll to be more organized.

 

Poll only had 2TB, though I'm assuming you meant 4TB if you plan a for RAID1.

 

Agreed.

Google actually did a study a few years back where they found temperature to be much less

of an influencing factor than commonly thought. Also, workload was not very influential

either.

There recently was a topic with a similar question (disk temperatures and failure rates),

I linked the study and quoted some excerpts in that thread if you want to read more about

it.

Agreed on the air density, although usually the altitude in which a drive is supposed to be

run is usually indicated on it I think (not totally sure).

They did say that they don't have reliable data about the influence of vibrations on

drive failure rate somewhere in the study. Personally I tend to agree that lots of

vibrations probably aren't very healthy for your drives (most mechanical systems

respond to vibrations with unfavorable results in the long run).

I think it's important to note that usually a head crash is the result of shocks and

not the "normal" vibrations encountered in the disks environment (even in the worse

ones like high-density racks), at least to my knowledge (though I haven't been able

to find any reliable data on that and am willing to be proven wrong).

EDIT:

I have some RE4's, and I really love them. I think the WD SE's are a pretty great

option.

 

Backblaze also mentioned in their blog post  that they found very little correlation between temperature and failure rates of the desktop drives they use, and even goes to say which drives  B).

 

 

 

 

I am a Red guy myself - WD does have some higher end drives, but for the cost, and the technology they bring, Red drives are very cost effective. I have used these for the past year in multple builds and have had zero issues with performance. I have some clients using these with 16 IP cameras writting to RAID 10 arrays 7/24 with no issues.

 

I'm a Green guy. lol.  I got a bunch of them before the huge price jump.  Got them mainly in backups and cramped storage places..  The RED's where too expensive at the start, but the price has come down considerably.  Now with direct competition from Seagate, this will be interesting.  If you think about it, the WD SE cost about the same as the RED drives when they first came out, and the 4TB cost less then 2x2TB now!  

 

 

 

 

Here's some more food for thought:

 

So I fired up Premiere Pro CS4 and tested with some storage devices and 10 x 1080p videos (1440 x 1080 h.264 from canon camcorder)

videos: 10 videos, various length, total 3.2GB

 

Importing time:

• 1Gb/s network (from dedicated win server+raid5) : 9.7 - 11 sec
• WD Blue 250GB: 4.2 - 4.6 sec
• WD RE3 250GB: 3.4 - 4.1 sec
• Samsung 830 256GB: 2.6 sec (consistant)

Rendering Drive Read:

• I made a video consisting of 10 simultaneous streams... like those youtube menus.  no effects added.
• MAX drive read (Using SSD to rule out bottleneck):
  • rendering preview: 59MB/s
  • redering 1080p@60fps: 46MB/s 
  • 12min 32sec for 30sec clip.
• 

 

So my processor is: 2600K@ 4.8Ghz

I have a 680GTX, but I think that's only for effects.

 

So unless I'm doing something wrong, my WD Green drive can handle that with ease lol.