NAS Drives

[Emmien]

I have an UnRaid NAS, which had a 250GB test drive, but now, an old 2TB Samgsung from another PC.

The Samgsung HDD's smart report says everything is either in old age or failure is imminent (How reassuring...), so I am looking to replace it.

 

I want two 2TB drives, one as the parity disk, and one for data. Is this the best configuration, or is there a better RAID configuration for two disks?

I also want the fastest possible speeds.

 

I was planning on WD reds, but people have recommended Toshiba and HGST consumer drives. 

 

If I use a standard PC HDD in a NAS, will the warranty be void if it fails?

 

I have used a lot of hard drives, and I have never, ever, ever had one fail. The oldest disk still in daily use here is from 2000, and it still works perfectly. I have not been too worried about data loss because I have never seen a drive fail, but reading stories on here has made me decide to have some sort of backup.

 

And can I mix and max disks? Can I say, have two 2TB reds in RAID, and two 2TB Toshiba drives in RAID, and a 1TB green, and have them all as separate shares and all work at their normal speed?

 

Thanks.

[Oshino Shinobu]

RAID 0 is really the worst solution. It offers no redundancy (actually, it reduces it) and for a NAS, you're not going to see any speed benefits as the network is going to limit you long before you reach the maximum speed of a single drive, unless you're using 10GbE networking. 

 

WD Reds are the best solution, as they're designed for NAS and RAID operation and are relatively cheap compared to other NAS/server focused drives. That said, if it's just two drives, using consumer drives would be fine as you're not as likely to encounter the issues that larger NAS setups can with lots of vibration. 

 

The warranty depends on the company. Even if it does void it, there isn't any way for the company to know it was in a NAS unless you tell them it was. 

 

For RAID, it is strongly advised to match the disks exactly for the best results. However, having multiple RAID volumes with different drives is okay, as long as each individual RAID volume uses the same drives. With the situation in your last question, you'd be wanting to go for all NAS focused drives, such as WD Reds, as you'd be much more likely to see a consumer drive fail with the increased vibrations. 

[Emmien]

1 minute ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Using 10GbE networking. 

I am considering it for the future. I can't afford it yet, but I can slowly buy components until I am ready to set it all up.

 

3 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

RAID 0 is really the worst solution.stion, you'd be wanting to go for all NAS focused drives, such as WD Reds, as you'd be much more likely to see a consumer drive fail with the increased vibrations. 

I edited the post just as you replied. I meant RAID 1 when I typed it, but I changed it to 

18 minutes ago, Emmien said:

Iis there a better RAID configuration for two disks?

 

I never considered vibration. The place where the NAS is actually vibrates a lot. There are several other PCs and some pre-built NAS drives.

[Oshino Shinobu]

10 minutes ago, Emmien said:

I am considering it for the future. I can't afford it yet, but I can slowly buy components until I am ready to set it all up.

 

I edited the post just as you replied. I meant RAID 1 when I typed it, but I changed it to 

 

I never considered vibration. The place where the NAS is actually vibrates a lot. There are several other PCs and some pre-built NAS drives.

For two drives, RAID 1 is the only RAID available. RAID 0 is, but it's technically not RAID and I wouldn't consider it at all

 

As you expand the NAS, RAID 1 quickly becomes very wasteful as you can only add more redundancy and not increase any capacity. You can move to RAID 10, but the worst case failures (and best case, for that matter) are not good. It also doesn't scale well. 

 

My suggestion for anything of 4 drives or more is a RAID 5 setup, or RAID 6 for 5 or more drives if you want a higher level of redundancy. Both RAID 5 and 6 scale well and are much less wasteful than most other types of RAID. I would definitely advise WD Reds for it, though. 

 

The main concern with vibrations is of those in close proximity, typically in the same case. For drives that are not equipped to compensate for it, it can be a quick drive killer. There are also some things that NAS drives deal better with, such as the constant up state and type of data access typically for a NAS. Unless you're really on a tight budget, I would go for NAS drives straight away.