Inexpensive large laptop drives for FreeNAS

[FreeNASBob]

I am very happy to report that the Toshiba Canvio Basics 2.0TB portable hard drives (HDTB220XK3CA) contain the MQ01ABB200 SATA drive inside, and that the case is very easy to open with no damage using a sharp knife. I was nervous cracking open a $90 portable drive in case it wasn't what I hoped, but now people know. The MQ01ABB200 is $124.99 on NewEgg, but Amazon has the HDTB220XK3CA for $94.99. Saved me $180 on drives for the FreeNAS box.

 

[BigDave]

If I was a seller of these drives, after reading this, the price just went UP! lol

 

[AlainD]

Nice find.

Do I understand it correct that the drive could be placed back inside the enclosure after a while and that it would work back?
(or another 2.5"sata drive?)


Is there a problem with mixing 3.5" and 2.5" disks in one zpool (zraid-2), considering a 1Gb LAN?

 

[jgreco]

I don't know about the Toshiba drives specifically, but it is fairly common to shuck the shells off USB external drives. Backblaze did it for a while during the Thailand drive crisis. You might or might not be able to obtain warranty repair services on the mechanism inside, depending, and typically if you can it is under the least favorable terms, such as the OEM 1 year warranty, not the full retail drive warranty.

Placing the drive back in the shell for warranty purposes only works if it can be done without leaving lots of telltale signs you opened the shell. Putting the drive back in the shell for any other reason should be just fine as long as you are careful.

Mixing drive sizes within a single vdev is probably not a great idea, as the laptop drives are typically slower than desktop drives. However, it should work, and the resulting vdev should have similar performance characteristics to the slowest device in the vdev.

 

[AlainD]

Thanks, I know the Backblaze story.

For warranty : I would certainly do a reasonable burn in in the enclosure (usb 3.0).

I suspect that the only performance penalty would be with random IO. Those would be used inside a "backup server".

 

[Ericloewe]

Keep in mind that some new USB-SATA bridges have transparent encryption (some of them can be made to ask for the decryption key with special software), so moving them arbitrarily between USB and SATA may destroy the data. It's also possible the bridge chip has a list of allowable drives, which would limit it to the same (or similar) drive it came with.

 

[jgreco]

Thanks, I know the Backblaze story.

For warranty : I would certainly do a reasonable burn in in the enclosure (usb 3.0).

I suspect that the only performance penalty would be with random IO. Those would be used inside a "backup server".

Actually a 2.5" drive has some potential to shine on random I/O. For enterprise SAS drives, back in 2010 an unscientific sample was found to be about 25% slower than the larger drive but also much more power efficient, but the full stroke times should always be better. I'll leave whether or not the performance results actually are up to the benchmark geeks.

Data transfer rates are typically slower than 3.5" simply because there's less platter passing under the heads.

The problem with most 2.5" drives, though, is that they are notebook - not performance - drives. The notebook use model includes aspects such as low power consumption, which typically translates to lower performance as the drive leisurely seeks its heads around.

 

[jgreco]

It's also possible the bridge chip has a list of allowable drives, which would limit it to the same (or similar) drive it came with.

Especially some of these newer custom-made bridge chips which go to great lengths to mask the identity of the drive inside.

 

[Z300M]

I don't know about the Toshiba drives specifically, but it is fairly common to shuck the shells off USB external drives. Backblaze did it for a while during the Thailand drive crisis. You might or might not be able to obtain warranty repair services on the mechanism inside, depending, and typically if you can it is under the least favorable terms, such as the OEM 1 year warranty, not the full retail drive warranty.

Placing the drive back in the shell for warranty purposes only works if it can be done without leaving lots of telltale signs you opened the shell. Putting the drive back in the shell for any other reason should be just fine as long as you are careful.

Mixing drive sizes within a single vdev is probably not a great idea, as the laptop drives are typically slower than desktop drives. However, it should work, and the resulting vdev should have similar performance characteristics to the slowest device in the vdev.

The 3.5" Seagate drive I removed from its external USB shell a year or so back turned out to be a 5400rpm model rather than a 7200rpm one. I don't recall whether the original description of the drive had included that information.

And, especially with the external drives designed to be more portable (the 2.5" drives), is the warranty the same as for the same drive sold without the case? I should not be surprised if the one in the portable configuration had a shorter warranty because of the greater likelihood of it being dropped.

 

[jgreco]

The 3.5" Seagate drive I removed from its external USB shell a year or so back turned out to be a 5400rpm model rather than a 7200rpm one. I don't recall whether the original description of the drive had included that information.

The externals tend to be 5400 because they run cooler and USB never performs all that well anyways/

And, especially with the external drives designed to be more portable (the 2.5" drives), is the warranty the same as for the same drive sold without the case? I should not be surprised if the one in the portable configuration had a shorter warranty because of the greater likelihood of it being dropped.

No, please reread the last sentence of the first paragraph there you quoted, where I explicitly addressed the issue.

 

[FreeNASBob]

Yeah, the bare drive has a three-year warranty, but the portable version is one year. I suppose if it becomes an issue I could see if they'll accept the manufacture date on the drive as the beginning of the warranty since I don't have a receipt for the bare drive. That would still get me 2.5 years of warranty. I'm stoked about having 8TB of storage at a cost of only 4.2W at idle. I'm not worried about transferring 100GB in a minute as this box will primarily serve as mapped network drive for family members. It will hold their email, browser profiles, "My Documents" and the like.

 

[jgreco]

No, you really need to go re-read what I said. The bare drive very possibly also has a one-year or possibly less OEM warranty. The only way to identify that is to run the drive through the warranty check process, and there are also tales of people who've shucked drives being denied warranty coverage at all (which I'd call a 0-year warranry).

 

[cyberjock]

I know Seagate won't honor a warranty if you've removed the disk from the external chassis.

Friend bought one from Walmart, worked great for about 45 days, then died. So he called Seagate for an RMA. He gave the serial number on the outside of the chassis and Seagate said the serial was invalid. After some discussion they *told* him to open the chassis to get the serial number from the disk itself. Not surprisingly that one wasn't valid either. Turned out the chassis serial number holds the "warranty" and the guy had a typo.

So they mailed a replacement. He got an internal drive which he assumed meant he'd swap disks and mail back the bad disk while keeping the chassis. No problem!

They email him about 2 weeks later that his return was denied because the hardware wasn't authorized for an RMA. So he called to find out what was going on and they told him they wanted the whole thing (chassis and hard drive) back. Of course, they screwed up and mailed him an internal disk (sigh) so he did what he thought was right.

So he explained the whole thing to them and for more than a week their story was that since he opened the chassis the warranty is void and he's have to pay for return shipping of the failed disk if he wanted it back but he'd have to pay retail price for the internal disk (which was about 25% more than the price on Newegg and Amazon). After 3 or 4 phone calls he finally got them to straighten themselves out and they took it back and called it even.

 

[joeschmuck]

Agreed, go online and to a warranty check, that is the only way to know how long the drive is covered. I'd be curious to know what the OP shows for this.

 

[joeschmuck]

I know Seagate won't honor a warranty if you've removed the disk from the external chassis.

Friend bought one from Walmart, worked great for about 45 days, then died. So he called Seagate for an RMA. He gave the serial number on the outside of the chassis and Seagate said the serial was invalid. After some discussion they *told* him to open the chassis to get the serial number from the disk itself. Not surprisingly that one wasn't valid either. Turned out the chassis serial number holds the "warranty" and the guy had a typo.

So they mailed a replacement. He got an internal drive which he assumed meant he'd swap disks and mail back the bad disk while keeping the chassis. No problem!

They email him about 2 weeks later that his return was denied because the hardware wasn't authorized for an RMA. So he called to find out what was going on and they told him they wanted the whole thing (chassis and hard drive) back. Of course, they screwed up and mailed him an internal disk (sigh) so he did what he thought was right.

So he explained the whole thing to them and for more than a week their story was that since he opened the chassis the warranty is void and he's have to pay for return shipping of the failed disk if he wanted it back but he'd have to pay retail price for the internal disk (which was about 25% more than the price on Newegg and Amazon). After 3 or 4 phone calls he finally got them to straighten themselves out and they took it back and called it even.

What a pain in the butt that must have been.

 

[Starpulkka]

A small tip. some harddrives and cases have serialnumber barcode, wich is much easier to read a laser barcode reader to computer so there is no human error in between. (exept if you aim for wrong barcode lol ). I just used that method last week for reading seagate drives numbers and models, but drive was 6 years old so no warranty this time. Also a list or a sticker to hdd helps where you have bought that hdd if, you not rma directly from manufacturer.

But nice find, i also starting to think that it might be profit for buy external ones, as they will fail pretty soon or then in a out of warranty time.

 

[FreeNASBob]

Agreed, go online and to a warranty check, that is the only way to know how long the drive is covered. I'd be curious to know what the OP shows for this.

I entered the HDD serial number (not the external case) here. Toshiba reports it as in warranty until 2015 (one year).

 

[jgreco]

I entered the HDD serial number (not the external case) here. Toshiba reports it as in warranty until 2015 (one year).

Then it is reasonably likely that they'll honor that. It is still possible for them to deny it or pull other bad stuff though.

 

[FreeNASBob]

I wish somebody had the same model purchased as OEM to check. That's supposed to come with a three-year warranty. I don't know whether Toshiba's warranty checker defaults to one year without a receipt (because that's the shortest warranty available on these drives), or if the advertised three year warranty is bogus. I suppose they could be tracking which serial numbers are used for portable drives, but that seems like more effort than it's worth to avoid replacing a small number of them that fail between year one and three where the owners crack open the case and return the bare drive.

 

[jgreco]

Why do you say that? Hard drive manufacturers have almost always differentiated OEM drives from retail drives. It isn't rocket science.