HDDs for 24/7 File/Plex Server?

[leasoncre]

I have a new machine that i've built with some new hardware (and some stuff that's been lying around)

What I'm not so hot on is what drive i should consider the best value for the purpose of the machine

-24/7 Data Storage Server, not expecting high volume users, (but considering planning for it), 

Considering the following:

+WD Red 6TB 5400RPM - 184$ | https://www.amazon.com/Red-6TB-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B00LO3KR96/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524082372&sr=8-1&keywords=6TB+HDD&refinements=p_89%3AWestern+Digital

+WD Red Pro 6TB 7200RPM - 252$ | https://www.amazon.com/3-5-Inch-7200rpm-128MB-Internal-WD6002FFWX/dp/B01CHP20MG/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1524082372&sr=8-9&keywords=6TB+HDD&refinements=p_89%3AWestern+Digital

+WD Gold 6TB 7200RPM - 232$ - currently what i'm most liking | https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AV168FS/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

+HGST 6TB 7200RPM - 149$ - cheepest, but sketchiest.    | https://www.ebay.com/itm/HGST-Ultrastar-He6-HUS726060ALA640-0F18335-6TB-7200RPM-SATA-6Gb-s-3-5-64MB-HDD/292149743023?epid=175845408&hash=item44057b4daf:g:HIMAAOSwozRZyR7u

 

Query:

1. I've seen 5400RPM drives in laptops and they are god awful slow, are they even worth considering?

2. The drives will be used primarily for backup, heavy write to copy data to them initially, then mostly reads and smaller write periods

3. Since these drives aren't going in a NAS-specific system, would they still work (WD Reds)? or would there be certain features that would mess things up or just be left unused?

4. RAID controller bottlenecks? i did some research, looks like it'll be good. pcie2.0 or pcie3.0 importance?

 

Implimentation: 

2(min), 3(prefered) dives per RAID 1. | 3x RAID volumes that will have existing data migrated to them.

+Data Backup

+Plex Video Server

+1 VM running VCS to manage ESXi hosts.

+Server 2016

Existing hardware specs stuff:

Roswell https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N9CXGSO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

(update the rest of this more thoroughly later tonight when i'm home)

quad core CPU + hyperthreading (AIO cooler)

4 sticks of 4gb RAM (non-ECC, mobo does not support ECC) = 16GB RAM

Gigabyte mobo with a broken x8 slot (old thing i've had lying around for years, still works!)

LSI pcie2.0 8port SAS (4 drive bays, aka 3rd array will be run off the MOBO) | https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-SAS9211-8i-PCI-e-RAID-Controller-Card-8-Port/282918119133?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

Quad port NIC

 

My old system has 2x RAID 5's running on 20x 2TB WD Green drives. While these worked well in the past, they have a slow spinup on initial call. (yeah, expected, green drives) the drives still work, but the system is showing it's age. (even less specs than above, not the most responsive) will be retiring old stuff when moved to new system. (anyone interested in the old stuff? -sale date tbd)

 

Money is a concern, but so is reliability, warranty, and redundancy.

Thanks for reading, hope someone can help give me a second opinion

[Mira Yurizaki]

9 minutes ago, leasoncre said:

1. I've seen 5400RPM drives in laptops and they are god awful slow, are they even worth considering?

For a server? Probably not  worth considering but only for capacity reasons. I have a 1TB 5400 RPM drive in my desktop and for what I use it for (storing media and documents), it's plenty fast.

9 minutes ago, leasoncre said:

2. The drives will be used primarily for backup, heavy write to copy data to them initially, then mostly reads and smaller write periods

 

9 minutes ago, leasoncre said:

3. Since these drives aren't going in a NAS-specific system, would they still work (WD Reds)? or would there be certain features that would mess things up or just be left unused?

Drives advertised for a specific use case have features either in the firmware or other mechanisms. Basically, these features are freebies and mostly deal with the type of environment they're expected to run in, not for any particular performance requirement. For example, in the case of WD Reds, there's structural improvements to work close to other drives for vibration resistance and there was something with the head parking (the interwebs when I last cared to look said Reds will wait longer to park the head, and the head can only park so many times)

9 minutes ago, leasoncre said:

4. RAID controller bottlenecks? i did some research, looks like it'll be good. pcie2.0 or pcie3.0 importance?

That depends on the expected bandwidth you need. But for the most part, even if you were to stream four instances of the gold standard video I have for UHD HDR 60 FPS (which is approximately a 65Mbps video), it won't saturate a first generation SATA bus.

[cflanders]

1. You may be seeing that with Windows 10 laptops, they aren't the end of the world in Windows 7 laptops. However, I would recommend using the 7200 RPM ones.

2. No Question

3. Red drives (and other NAS recommended drives) are rated for continuous operation so they should be fine in any situation that benefits from that. No, not many of the features would go unused. Again no on the features messing anything up.

4. I am not sure just how many drives you are talking about using, but if you are moving a TON of data at once, then PCIE 3.0 might be better than 2.0 for speed reasons only. 

 

Something Else: Amazon doesn't always have the best price on drives. Check newegg business as they seem to have better prices (in my past experience). I haven;t felt with Red Pro or Gold drives though, so see what you like about them better and see if they are worth it. 

[leasoncre]

3 minutes ago, cflanders said:

Something Else: Amazon doesn't always have the best price on drives. Check newegg business as they seem to have better prices (in my past experience). I haven;t felt with Red Pro or Gold drives though, so see what you like about them better and see if they are worth it. 

I noticed that, drives were only 10 bucks cheeper, but required a business account. I didn't look into getting one though. I'm just an individual for this purchase.

 

And i do shop around (mostly with google shopping, and a few other sites i frequent), but amazon had the lowest price AND the quantity i am looking for (6-9 drives, 1 purchase) Newegg wouldn't let my buy more than 1 or 3 on their site at a time

[jj9987]

WD Red or Seagate IronWolf.

If performance is really big matter, then Red Pro or IronWolf Pro. Otherwise you're just paying extra for faster drives.

[cflanders]

1 hour ago, leasoncre said:

I noticed that, drives were only 10 bucks cheeper, but required a business account. I didn't look into getting one though. I'm just an individual for this purchase.

 

And i do shop around (mostly with google shopping, and a few other sites i frequent), but amazon had the lowest price AND the quantity i am looking for (6-9 drives, 1 purchase) Newegg wouldn't let my buy more than 1 or 3 on their site at a time

I see that they are doing that now. It just depends on the supply at the time. All it takes is putting in your address of where to ship the drives, and what that business deals in. I am not sure if it checks if the address is valid though since I have only set it up for a business. Check back later as that restriction is always changing. At number of drives though $90-130 savings is not half bad.

[brob]

I like using HGST Deskstar NAS for this sort of thing. HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage) is a WD brand. The drives are 7200 rpm and have NAS features like vibration sensors.

[seagate_surfer]

Regardless of which brand you choose to go with, you will want to go with drives engineered for NAS. Even if you aren't using a NAS vendor's box such as Synology, QNAP, Asustor, etc., if you go with RAID, then you still want these quality of drives because the same things that make them good for a NAS make them good for any RAID, and most NAS devices tend to be running some flavor of RAID anyways. It may seem tempting to just go with whichever desktop drive you can get your hands on in a budget pinch, but the thinking behind NAS drives is that by having drives equipped both physically and with firmware to handle the wear-and-tear of a RAID environment, you better protect your investment by keeping both performance and longevity a priority when you purchase the drives up-front. RAID arrays create a lot of heat & vibration considerations, and the firmware on NAS drives takes this into consideration to protect your drives in ways that normal desktop drives can't/don't.

Here are a couple of our resources which may help better understand choosing the right drive for the right job:

YouTube Vid: Right Drive, Right Job
StorageReview Article: Pick The Right Drive for the Right Job - 24/7 NAS HDDs vs Desktop HDDs

Edited April 19, 2018 by seagate_surfer
Linked back to forum post, meant to link to article, fixed

[leasoncre]

5 minutes ago, seagate_surfer said:

StorageReview Article: Pick The Right Drive for the Right Job - 24/7 NAS HDDs vs Desktop HDDs

for some reason this one links to this LTT forum post for me *scratches head*

[seagate_surfer]

1 minute ago, leasoncre said:

for some reason this one links to this LTT forum post for me *scratches head*

Fixed, sorry, link wasn't set up right. It should be now. *hangs head in shame*

[leasoncre]

2 minutes ago, seagate_surfer said:

Fixed, sorry, link wasn't set up right. It should be now. *hangs head in shame*

meh, --bleep-- happens. To EvErYoNe.  thanks for correcting the issue