A question about Seagate 10 TB drives

[Plato]

I want to build a new RAIDZ2 pool with 10x10TB drives... I plan to use Seagate drives for this. I saw they have some problems with SAS cards, but I want to use them with SATA slots, so I hope it will not be a problem.

My question is there are two 10 TB drives, ST10000NM0016 ( Enterprise ) and ST10000VN0004 ( IronWolf )... The thing is while Enterprise costs higher on Amazon US than IronWolf, it's cheaper where I live. So what do you suggest? Should I choose Enterprise over IronWolf?

 

[IceBoosteR]

Hi,
in my personal opinion you can use the IronWolves. Make sure the drives are isolated with anti-vibration stuff so the drives are not "disturbing" the other ones. Enterprise drives are often amde for Racks without anit-vibration caddys, and need to have some technique to counteract to the vibrations.
What case do you want to use?
And in case that you do not case much about vibrations, Linus from LinusTechTips has just filled a server with 12x10TB Seagate IronWolf HDDs, and I am sure he knows what to do.
For home usage, IronWolf should be fine.
Just me 2 cents ;)

When Enterprise disks are cheaper where you live, make sure that these are the latest models. There might be no disadvatages over the IronWolves, maybe the power consumption.

 

[Chris Moore]

I want to build a new RAIDZ2 pool with 10x10TB drives... I plan to use Seagate drives for this. I saw they have some problems with SAS cards, but I want to use them with SATA slots, so I hope it will not be a problem.

My question is there are two 10 TB drives, ST10000NM0016 ( Enterprise ) and ST10000VN0004 ( IronWolf )... The thing is while Enterprise costs higher on Amazon US than IronWolf, it's cheaper where I live. So what do you suggest? Should I choose Enterprise over IronWolf?

If the Enterprise drive is less expensive, get that because there is no advantage to the IronWolf over the EXOS. They are virtually identical mechanically with just a few additional sensors on the PCB of the EXOS drive which should make it more expensive, but if you can get it for less, it is meant to be the better drive. It is like the difference between the WD Red Pro and the WD Gold Datacenter drive. They are virtually identical and you should see no difference in usage. I have a 60 drive server chassis at work where we have been replacing the failed WD Red Pro drives with WD Gold drives and the differences are not worth mentioning.

One thing that might be worth noting, the EXOS (ST10000NM0016) is supposed to be self encrypting, so when it is time to dispose of the drive, you can just reset the encryption key and nobody can read your data. No need to reformat the drive to erase the data.

 

[Plato]

Hi,
in my personal opinion you can use the IronWolves. Make sure the drives are isolated with anti-vibration stuff so the drives are not "disturbing" the other ones. Enterprise drives are often amde for Racks without anit-vibration caddys, and need to have some technique to counteract to the vibrations.
What case do you want to use?
And in case that you do not case much about vibrations, Linus from LinusTechTips has just filled a server with 12x10TB Seagate IronWolf HDDs, and I am sure he knows what to do.
For home usage, IronWolf should be fine.
Just me 2 cents ;)

When Enterprise disks are cheaper where you live, make sure that these are the latest models. There might be no disadvatages over the IronWolves, maybe the power consumption.

Actually I have a rack I use but it's filled to the brim with WD Red 6 TB drives, and they're attached to the Intel SAS expander card. I'll use the Seagate disks on a Big Tower case.. A question though. Is it feasible to use them in 5,25" -> 3,5" bays? I have two of them which could contain 5 disks each... They have their own ventilation etc, and I have 11x5,25" slots on my case ( Very old case by the name Truvatek Phalanx )
I could also attach them in the case, it's big enough to contain 16 disks easily. What do you suggest?

 

[Chris Moore]

Actually I have a rack I use but it's filled to the brim with WD Red 6 TB drives, and they're attached to the Intel SAS expander card. I'll use the Seagate disks on a Big Tower case.. A question though. Is it feasible to use them in 5,25" -> 3,5" bays? I have two of them which could contain 5 disks each... They have their own ventilation etc, and I have 11x5,25" slots on my case ( Very old case by the name Truvatek Phalanx )
I could also attach them in the case, it's big enough to contain 16 disks easily. What do you suggest?

The enterprise (EXOS) drives should be better at handling vibrations and you said they are less expensive, so it is a simple answer, but you might want to go with the new 12TB model.
https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Enterprise-Capacity-ST12000NM0007-7200RPM/dp/B0759Q9FXZ

 

[Plato]

Actually from your answers I decided on EXOS drives. 12 TB model's price/capacity rating is over the top.. I think 10TB is enough for now. I was asking about container for the disks.. I have a bad case of overheating disks in the past and while the room I put the case is big enough, my previous case was just an ITX case with 10 disks in it ( 9 HDD + 1 SSD ).. It was good enough when it has been in my room, but when I put it in the smaller room it overheated when scrubbing on a hot summer day (5 disks dead from 9 disk pool )... Fortunately the data in it was just entertainment material, so it was not a big issue..

BTW, the case I plan to put them is just like this:

 

[IceBoosteR]

Hi,
your drive temperatur should always be under ~40 degree. So airflow is key.
You should have some fans for blowing fresh air into the case where the drives are located.
And regarding your previous question. yes it is possible to put up to 5 3,5 inch drives in a 3x5,25 inch case. Mostly they are called hot-swappeble cases. But they are expensive, around 100 bucks or more for a good model. It is also possible to put 3 3,5 inch drives in a 2x5,25 inch case.

 

[Chris Moore]

I was asking about container for the disks.. I have a bad case of overheating disks in the past and while the room I put the case is big enough, my previous case was just an ITX case with 10 disks in it ( 9 HDD + 1 SSD ).. It was good enough when it has been in my room, but when I put it in the smaller room it overheated when scrubbing on a hot summer day (5 disks dead from 9 disk pool )... Fortunately the data in it was just entertainment material, so it was not a big issue..

ITX cases are terrible for overheating because they are so small and restrict airflow. If you want to put five 3.5 drives into three 5.25 bays, this is pretty much the ideal system for it.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121405
The case you have pictured should be able to mount four of these unless there is some obstruction on the front of the case that I can't see from the photo.
This one is almost as nice but a little less expensive.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133030
You may have to go with something similar that is more widely available, but be sure there is plenty of airflow and the ambient temperature must be kept low enough to be able to cool the drives. This is not the kind of thing that can exist without air conditioning.

 

[joeschmuck]

BTW, the case I plan to put them is just like this:

Those all look like eleven 5.25" drive bays so you have a few options for mounting your hard drives. The thing we cannot see is if there is space in front of the case to mount cooling fans so if you could take a few more photos of the case depicting fan locations that would be handy.

So for drives that have the option to have a fan mounted in front of them you could use a 5.25" to 3.5" drive adapter like this for example: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...Qn4Hf2YmFMlV-emgb55ezIZegY_3n3kRoCWcgQAvD_BwE

I have some of these which came free with my hard drives over a decade ago.

The other option is what the oters above have said, to use those nice adapters and those have fans in them to ensure you get good airflow. You will need to bend the drive sitting tabs down as you cannot install these cases with those interfering but that is an easy task. With that said, monitor your drive temps and if they are too high, rebuild the fan design. I modified one of these devices to replace the 40mm fan with an 80mm fan, worked like a champ. Then I mirgated my hard drives to a pure SSD setup and ended up removing the fan as the normal case air flow is enough to keep these drives cool. And making a completly silent computer was on my agenda.

If you need to make case modification, be smart about it. Don't cut into metal until after you haev removed the motherboard. Clean everything out really well and deburr any metal you cut. You know those scent sticks that you light and then they just put out secnted smoke? Those are good to watch air flow but you may need a few of those sticks to generate enough smoke.

P.S. Ten 10TB drives in a RAIDZ2? I would recommend a RAIDZ3 due to the amount of time it could take to resilver a 10TB drive however since you have been running FreeNAS for a while now, I'm sure you know what you are getting into. The most important thing is to ensure you have a backup of your important data.

 

[Scharbag]

I have been running 20+ desktop HHDs for years in my system. Aside from the 3TB Seagate HDDs (which were simply a f*#$ing disaster), I have not had any problems with them due to vibration. I run these in Norco 4220 and 4224 cases.

Keeping stuff coolish is key. My servers sit in my utility room so in winter, if I close the door when the furnace is running, they will see 39ºC. Usually they run at ~32ºC.

Code:

System Temperatures - Wed Dec 27 05:10:00 CST 2017
FreeNAS-11.1-RELEASE (dc7d195f4)

System Load: 1.11, 1.22, 1.07

HDD Temperatures:
da0: C - Hours -
da1: C - Hours -
da2: 32 C - 22077 Hours - ST4000DM000-1F2168
da3: 33 C - 19587 Hours - ST4000DM000-1F2168
da4: 33 C - 10221 Hours - ST4000DM000-1F2168
da5: 33 C - 10222 Hours - ST4000DM000-1F2168
da6: 33 C - 20637 Hours - ST4000DM000-1F2168
da7: 34 C - 26178 Hours - ST4000DM000-1F2168
da8: 33 C - 10383 Hours - ST4000DM000-2AE166
da9: 34 C - 26178 Hours - ST4000DM000-1F2168
da10: 33 C - 26178 Hours - ST4000DM000-1F2168
da11: 34 C - 23743 Hours - ST4000DM000-1F2168
da12: 33 C - 23713 Hours - ST4000DM000-1F2168
da13: 33 C - 26178 Hours - ST4000DM000-1F2168
da14: 30 C - 9573 Hours - INTEL
da15: 30 C - 9572 Hours - INTEL
da16: 29 C - 5184 Hours - Crucial_CT525MX300SSD1
da17: 37 C - 8931 Hours - ADATA
da18: 35 C - 8931 Hours - ADATA
da19: 30 C - 30438 Hours - Crucial_CT480M500SSD1
da20: 33 C - 28175 Hours - ST3000DM001-1CH166
da21: 31 C - 7870 Hours - ST3000DM008-2DM166
da22: 33 C - 28241 Hours - ST3000DM001-1CH166
da23: 31 C - 26053 Hours - ST4000DM000-1F2168
da24: 31 C - 25657 Hours - ST3000DM001-1ER166
da25: 32 C - 28213 Hours - ST3000DM001-1CH166
da26: 32 C - 25837 Hours - ST3000DM001-1CH166
da27: 33 C - 25670 Hours - ST3000DM001-1CH166
da28: 30 C - 14291 Hours - ST3000DM001-1CH166
da29: 32 C - 9594 Hours - ST4000DM000-1F2168
da30: 32 C - 10245 Hours - ST3000DM001-1ER166
da31: 31 C - 26078 Hours - ST3000DM001-1ER166
da32: 26 C - 7587 Hours - INTEL
da33: 29 C - 22076 Hours - ST4000DM000-1F2168
da34: 31 C - 26123 Hours - Crucial_CT480M500SSD1

Some of the drives (mostly cheap Seagate spinning rust) are starting to get a little old but so far so good. So, as others have said, if you can buy the enterprise drives cheaper than desktop drives, do it. If not, the desktop drives should be just peachy. The whole point of Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks and all that!

Cheers,