WDD Black vs Seagate IronWolf

[iiNNeX]

Hey guys,

 

I am basically being given 2 Seagate IronWolf 6TB 7200RPM NAS hard drives for free and am wondering if I should put them in my upcoming build or sell them.

 

My plan was to originally use a Samsung 960 Evo 1TB M.2 nvme drive and a 4TB WD Black HDD. How do these seagate drives compare to the WD Black? Should be the same speed right?

 

Because if so, i definitely won't pass up 12TB of storage for content creation

 

Thanks!

[Himommies]

Do you need that much storage?I would keep the anyways though.Their really isn't a market for used hard drives

[iiNNeX]

4 minutes ago, Himommies said:

Do you need that much storage?I would keep the anyways though.Their really isn't a market for used hard drives

They are brand new. Retail value is £180 per drive at the moment.

 

And I always need more storage, I create videos for youtube so a lot of the RAW files get saved for "later use", and they take up a lot of space...

 

I am just wondering if WD Black is worth dropping from my shopping list for these 2, it seems that the controller is different on the WD Black but sequential speeds are somewhat the same.

[AnalogCanavity]

1 minute ago, iiNNeX said:

They are brand new.

 

And I always need more storage, I create videos for youtube so a lot of the RAW files get saved for "later use", and they take up a lot of space...

 

I am just wondering if WD Black is worth dropping from my shopping list for these 2, it seems that the controller is different on the WD Black but sequential speeds are somewhat the same.

Keep the seagate

[Himommies]

1 minute ago, iiNNeX said:

They are brand new.

 

And I always need more storage, I create videos for youtube so a lot of the RAW files get saved for "later use", and they take up a lot of space...

 

I am just wondering if WD Black is worth dropping from my shopping list for these 2, it seems that the controller is different on the WD Black but sequential speeds are somewhat the same.

Oh you haven't bought the Black yet.Then sure keep it and don't buy the Black

 

[iiNNeX]

Just now, Zic05 said:

Keep the seagate

That's the plan for now, have you had any experience with seagate drives before? The warranty on the WD Black is much bigger, I wonder if that is a hint for something...

[ARikozuM]

Keep the IronWolfs for RAID1 on your desktop and get the 960 EVO 1TB.

[iiNNeX]

Just now, ARikozuM said:

Keep the IronWolfs for RAID1 on your desktop and get the 960 EVO 1TB.

Was thinking RAID 0 to get the full extent of the 12TB, not sure what the failure rate on these is though. RAID 1 is also a good option but ideally I'd like as much storage as possible.

 

I have a NAS box next to me with 32TB WD Red Pro drives which backs up all my PCs every weekend, so I guess the failure of a drive in RAID 0 is not as bad. 

[skimmilk5]

21 minutes ago, iiNNeX said:

Was thinking RAID 0 to get the full extent of the 12TB, not sure what the failure rate on these is though. RAID 1 is also a good option but ideally I'd like as much storage as possible.

 

I have a NAS box next to me with 32TB WD Red Pro drives which backs up all my PCs every weekend, so I guess the failure of a drive in RAID 0 is not as bad. 

Considering the fact that this machine is being used for content creation and losing data SUCKS, especially if you have to forfeit your entire drive pool if one drive goes out, I would use RAID1 (I do that personally).

I don't know what your workflow is, but when I work for clients, I cannot afford to lose time with a dead drive, forcing me to pull data off of a backup or an external box. It is critical for me to be able to go to the manufacturer's website and get a replacement while keeping the other drive in full use.

[iiNNeX]

17 hours ago, kimsejin5 said:

Considering the fact that this machine is being used for content creation and losing data SUCKS, especially if you have to forfeit your entire drive pool if one drive goes out, I would use RAID1 (I do that personally).

I don't know what your workflow is, but when I work for clients, I cannot afford to lose time with a dead drive, forcing me to pull data off of a backup or an external box. It is critical for me to be able to go to the manufacturer's website and get a replacement while keeping the other drive in full use.

I can see your point but how often do good quality drives really fail? If something such a seagate or WD has a few years worth of warranty, would you expect it to fail before that?

[ARikozuM]

7 hours ago, iiNNeX said:

I can see your point but how often do good quality drives really fail? If something such a seagate or WD has a few years worth of warranty, would you expect it to fail before that?

Anything can fail at anytime. Most of my HDD's that didn't die within six months went on to live for eight or nine years. I've got one WD 320GB that's been around for nearly 12 years (NAS usage). Average life of an HDD is around six years before you replace with higher capacity. 

[AnalogCanavity]

On 9/4/2017 at 9:45 AM, iiNNeX said:

That's the plan for now, have you had any experience with seagate drives before? The warranty on the WD Black is much bigger, I wonder if that is a hint for something...

I have a seagate barracuda, and it doesn't really matter with HDDs because, all you have to do is make sure there reliable

[dalekphalm]

On 04/09/2017 at 10:50 AM, iiNNeX said:

Was thinking RAID 0 to get the full extent of the 12TB, not sure what the failure rate on these is though. RAID 1 is also a good option but ideally I'd like as much storage as possible.

 

I have a NAS box next to me with 32TB WD Red Pro drives which backs up all my PCs every weekend, so I guess the failure of a drive in RAID 0 is not as bad. 

As others have mentioned, I'd really suggest doing a RAID1 instead of a RAID0. HDD's can die at any time. A drive with a 3 year warranty is probably gonna last you like 7-10 years. But it might die next week.

 

IF you are dead-set on using RAID0, I would increase your backup frequency to DAILY instead of just on weekends.

 

Imagine if one drive died on a Friday, right before the backup? An entire weeks worth of data lost...

[iiNNeX]

33 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

As others have mentioned, I'd really suggest doing a RAID1 instead of a RAID0. HDD's can die at any time. A drive with a 3 year warranty is probably gonna last you like 7-10 years. But it might die next week.

 

IF you are dead-set on using RAID0, I would increase your backup frequency to DAILY instead of just on weekends.

 

Imagine if one drive died on a Friday, right before the backup? An entire weeks worth of data lost...

I can do daily yeah, might have to get a few more 6TB WD Reds to put into the NAS though, RAW video footage takes so much bloody space... I only keep the RAW stuff 2 weeks after a video has been released then  I delete it but yeah, I guess Daily backup will have to do if I go RAID 0.

 

Thank you for your input guys!

[dalekphalm]

Just now, iiNNeX said:

I can do daily yeah, might have to get a few more 6TB WD Reds to put into the NAS though, RAW video footage takes so much bloody space... I only keep the RAW stuff 2 weeks after a video has been released then  I delete it but yeah, I guess Daily backup will have to do if I go RAID 0.

 

Thank you for your input guys!

Do you do full backups, or incremental backups? Incremental would save a lot of space. You could also look to see if your NAS supports deduplication, which would save additional space.

[iiNNeX]

3 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Do you do full backups, or incremental backups? Incremental would save a lot of space. You could also look to see if your NAS supports deduplication, which would save additional space.

I do full as it's done once a week. If it's daily it most likely won't be full, but yeah I will look into it and see what I can do. 

 

Worst case scenario I just run the Ironwolfs in raid 1...

[Guest]

+1 for Iron Wolves in RAID 1.

 

 

[Arika]

if you're getting the ironwolf for free keep them. best price to performance ratio that way.

 

if you're storing value/irreplaceable data on them it doesn't matter which one of the two you use as long as it's being backed up, so +1 for RAID 1.

[seagate_surfer]

Hi iiNNeX,

 

as others have already stated, we would also recommend keeping the IronWolfs; most importantly because of your projected (RAID) purpose! The IronWolf is a NAS-optimized drive and recommended for RAID, whereas the WD Black is not. The corresponding WD drive would be the WD Red - however, since you already have the free IronWolfs, you got the right drives for the job!

 

Let us know how your project works out...

[The Print Craftsman]

Aren't the IronWolfs for NAS boxes only that provide error correction since the IronWolf drives do not provide error correction on their own?  I may be wrong but I'm thinking throwing these into a generic RAID configuration without a controller to manage the error correction will be a problem.  But I might be wrong.  I'm looking at putting a RAID into my new build I'm doing but it was my understanding I wouldn't want to use the IronWolfs for that.  I do have 3 10TB IronWolfs in my Synology DS916+ NAS box.  They are sweet!  Well the space is.

[ARikozuM]

4 minutes ago, The Print Craftsman said:

Aren't the IronWolfs for NAS boxes only that provide error correction since the IronWolf drives do not provide error correction on their own?  I may be wrong but I'm thinking throwing these into a generic RAID configuration without a controller to manage the error correction will be a problem.  But I might be wrong.  I'm looking at putting a RAID into my new build I'm doing but it was my understanding I wouldn't want to use the IronWolfs for that.  I do have 3 10TB IronWolfs in my Synology DS916+ NAS box.  They are sweet!  Well the space is.

I haven't used any, but most NAS-oriented OS's perform error-checking on their own. WD's TLER only limits the amount of time spent trying to recover an error before it is marked for rewrite. IronWolfs(ves?) will work in RAID very well from what I've been told. 

[Columbo]

There is no point running a RAID 1 unless you are a server farm or data center. Setup a RAID 0. For the price of WD black drives, way overpriced. The vast majority of HDD failures early on are operator error. Idiots who do not know what they are doing. I am not saying HDD's do not fail, they do. I have a couple of Samsung F3's that I retired from my RAID 0. Scanned them both and neither have errors and are completely healthy. Both manufactured in Jan 2010. 500GB platters and those HDD's are still beasts which tells you something about the spinner drive evolution over the years. 

 

O