Cool running 8-10 TB drives?

[Kevin Horton]

My main FreeNAS box has just hit 50% full, so I'm starting to think about expansion. I'm looking for advice on which 8-10 TB drives currently on the market are cool running and suitable for use as a backup pool in FreeNAS. I'm willing to sacrifice some speed to get cooler running drives, as I'm not yet convinced that my current rig will have a huge amount of cooling margin once I add eight more drives.

I have several months before I need to add more storage, so I'd like to select one or more candidate drive models, then wait until someone has them on sale before buying them. I'd appreciate any advice on which makes and models I should be keeping an eye on. My priorities are reliability, cool running and cost, in that order. Performance isn't critical, as these drives will go in a pool used as a backup.

I'll start another thread later to discuss my plan for the storage upgrade, both in terms of the planned end state and the process to transition from the current pool configuration to the end state.

 

[MatthewSteinhoff]

I'd buy the least expensive conventional high capacity 5400 RPM drive and not give it a second thought. I've not seen any meaningful temperature difference inside a revolution class.

At the rate your data is expanding (adding 20 TB in the next six to eight months?), you'll replace the drives before you ever hit their expected endurance. (Assuming the drives don't blow up in the first 24 hours.)

Cheers,
Matt

 

[Stranded Camel]

FWIW, I've got 5 WD Gold Enterprise 10 TB drives that I've been writing to for 24 hours straight (cloning an old volume to a new one), and their temperatures range from 28ºC to 32ºC. Ambient temperature here right now is 20º outside, so probably 22ºC-23ºC inside.

For comparison, the three 4 TB drives I have (which I've been reading from for the same amount of time) are at 37ºC (WD Red), 46ºC (WD Black) and 36ºC (Seagate Barracuda).

Everything is in a spacious Fractal Design R5 case.

 

[Kevin Horton]

FWIW, I've got 5 WD Gold Enterprise 10 TB drives that I've been writing to for 24 hours straight (cloning an old volume to a new one), and their temperatures range from 28ºC to 32ºC. Ambient temperature here right now is 20º outside, so probably 22ºC-23ºC inside.

For comparison, the three 4 TB drives I have (which I've been reading from for the same amount of time) are at 37ºC (WD Red), 46ºC (WD Black) and 36ºC (Seagate Barracuda).

Everything is in a spacious Fractal Design R5 case.

That data is very unexpected, as the WD spec sheet says the WD Gold 10TB drives should be using quite a bit more power than the WD Red 4TB and the Seagate Barracuda 4TB drives (the spec sheet for the Blacks say they draw more power than the Golds). Power used has to get turned into heat, so you would expect the Golds to run warmer. But, actual data trumps theory anytime.

It would be interesting once the clone is complete to sway the WD Gold drives with drives in other slots, and see if the cool temperatures are due to the drives, or due to better cooling in some slots than others.

 

[MatthewSteinhoff]

I've got 5 WD Gold Enterprise 10 TB drives that I've been writing to for 24 hours straight and their temperatures range from 28ºC to 32ºC. For comparison, the three 4 TB drives I have (which I've been reading from for the same amount of time) are at 37ºC (WD Red), 46ºC (WD Black) and 36ºC (Seagate Barracuda).

That makes perfect sense. The 10TB drives are writing in a straight line, their heads are relatively static, just finding the next sequential block. The drives from which you are reading have a lot of head movement because the data they are pulling is scattered across the platters so they are working harder and much warmer.

Cheers,
Matt