Fascinating (anti-)little document about building a server

[joeschmuck]

WD says that NASware 3.0 products are good for up to 8 drives in an enclosure. You have 11 of them. And it is quite possible that your older 4 TB Red is NASware 2.0 only, which is said to be good up to 5 drives in an enclosure. (Currently shipping WD40EFRX are NASware 3.0, but they were 2.0 until 6TB drives were introduced.)

I don't believe the marketing either. My WD Reds are still very quiet and have virtually no vibration (need to touch them to feel that they are running) and we are over 4.5 years runtime.

@melp Wow, that is one long write up! I have only barely touched it but I should finish it today. Lots of information there. If this were the very first article I read on FreeNAS, I might have been scared away. I'm not saying this as a negative, I love the detail you put into this. Do you think we could force every new user to read this before trying out FreeNAS? It would certainly reduce the number of half brained users. (If any of you have only half a brain, I appoligize to you.)

 

[acp]

@melp, thank you for the guide.

Since you wrote "select server-grade components wherever appropriate", and commented on choices made, I dare to have a question about the number of drives.

WD says that NASware 3.0 products are good for up to 8 drives in an enclosure. You have 11 of them. And it is quite possible that your older 4 TB Red is NASware 2.0 only, which is said to be good up to 5 drives in an enclosure. (Currently shipping WD40EFRX are NASware 3.0, but they were 2.0 until 6TB drives were introduced.)

After reading your capacity calculations, I want to upgrade my home system from 8x6TB to 11x10TB drives (WD100EFAX), so I wonder about your thoughts around NASware 3.0 advertised capabilities.

Thank you in advance !

I have 11 drives between 2tb and 4tb Wd red in the same enclosure. I have another drive that is not Wd in there as well. I never had a major issues with drives failure.

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