Hard disk advice

[exhaler]

Hello all,

Short summary, I have a FreeNAS setup at home with 4 x 3TB Seagate HDDs in a RAIDZ1 setup and yesterday one of the HDD failed (seems i'm on Santa's naughty list). It starting making ticking noises and when I logged in I got an alert "server state is degraded", I placed it offline to stop the ticking noises and looking up buying a new HDD to replace it.

However I have a few concerns as all the HDDs have been bought together 4 years ago:

1. Is there a high probability of the other HDDs failing?
2. Is it a good idea to replace the malfunctioning HDD with another 3TB brand, WD red? because 3TB Seagate is currently unavailable where i live and need to wait at least 10 days for a shipment to arrive.
3. Buying a new set of 4 x 4TB Seagate Ironwolf and replacing all existing HDDs. Seagate has a cheaper price compared to WD, for example: 4TB Seagate is $139 while WD 3TB is $107. Side note: should I increase the RAM if I get 4 x 4TB, current setup has 8GB RAM.

I would appreciate the communities feedback and Merry Christmas to all.

 

[Arwen]

...
However I have a few concerns as all the HDDs have been bought together 4 years ago:

1. Is there a high probability of the other HDDs failing?
2. Is it a good idea to replace the malfunctioning HDD with another 3TB brand, WD red? because 3TB Seagate is currently unavailable where i live and need to wait at least 10 days for a shipment to arrive.
3. Buying a new set of 4 x 4TB Seagate Ironwolf and replacing all existing HDDs. Seagate has a cheaper price compared to WD, for example: 4TB Seagate is $139 while WD 3TB is $107. Side note: should I increase the RAM if I get 4 x 4TB, current setup has 8GB RAM.

...

Here are my thoughts;

1. Yes and no. Some of the older drives, (I think 1.5TB, but could include 3TB models), had manufacturing issues. I would say you should plan on another drive failing soon, but assuming you have good backups, don't panic.
2. I would say buy the largest drive your budget allows, (or the best price per TB). Then as you replace your drives, you can increase your pool size.
3. A. I would not buy a new set of 4. If you feel the desire, maybe buy 2 replacements, to allow one to be used as a cold spare.
   B. No need to add more memory unless you have a need. The old 1GB of memory for 1TB of disk does not really apply to small office or home users.

For #2, I personally think it is reasonable to have mis-matched disks in a RAID-Zx pool. Meaning if the best price per TB today is a 4TB disk, then use it for today's failure. Later, when the next 3TB disk fails, perhaps a 6TB disk will have the best price per TB.

Of course, RAID-Z1 with larger disks tend to increase the chances of URE, (Un-recoverable Read Error), during rebuild. That's why some of us use RAID-Z2.

 

[Constantin]

Is there a high probability of the other HDDs failing?

Many electronic components follow a "Bathtub"mortality chart where you initially have a relatively high chance of failure (infant mortality), followed by many years of trouble-free service, and then the failure rate sky-rockets again. Not sure how much HDDs follow this chart, most of us likely replace the bulk of our hard drives due to obsolescence before actual failure.

Is it a good idea to replace the malfunctioning HDD with another 3TB brand, WD red? because 3TB Seagate is currently unavailable where i live and need to wait at least 10 days for a shipment to arrive.

There are multiple hard drive choices, whether you decide to follow the advice of backblaze and go with 3TB HGST units (7K4000 series, et al), or a competitor isn't as important in my mind as getting something in there to provide redundancy. Whatever the slowest drive is (let's say a 5400 RPM in a pool of otherwise 7200RPM drives) will determine the speed of the pool.

Now whether you stick to 3TB or go larger, is really up to you. I just cast off my 3TB drives in favor of 10TB units, largely because I wanted to expand storage and reduce the number of hard drives in my pool.

Lastly, do consider always having a burned in drive on hand to plop in once a drive goes. Then order the next one or get the dead one RMA'd. It's cheap insurance. Cheers!

 

[Chris Moore]

Short summary, I have a FreeNAS setup at home with 4 x 3TB Seagate HDDs in a RAIDZ1 setup and yesterday one of the HDD failed (seems i'm on Santa's naughty list). It starting making ticking noises and when I logged in I got an alert "server state is degraded", I placed it offline to stop the ticking noises

Because you have a RAIDz1 configuration and you have already offlined the drive that was clicking, you currently have no redundancy and any additional failure will cause total pool failure. I would say that regardless of brand or price, your first priority should be to get a drive of 3TB or larger in that pool ASAP just to restore the redundancy factor to protect your data. I always suggest keeping a cold spare on the shelf as a safeguard against a failure.

 

[exhaler]

Thank you all for the advice, I managed to backup all the important stuff. I'm going to follow @Arwen's advice and get one 4TB HDD (IronWolf 4TB ST4000VN008) to replace the the failed one.
In case in the future another failed will replace it with another 4TB and so on, hoping I don't have 2 HDD failures as the same time, that way I increase my pool size without breaking my wallet :)

 

[jgreco]

Hello all,

Short summary, I have a FreeNAS setup at home with 4 x 3TB Seagate HDDs in a RAIDZ1 setup and yesterday one of the HDD failed (seems i'm on Santa's naughty list). It starting making ticking noises and when I logged in I got an alert "server state is degraded", I placed it offline to stop the ticking noises and looking up buying a new HDD to replace it.

However I have a few concerns as all the HDDs have been bought together 4 years ago:

1. Is there a high probability of the other HDDs failing?

Yes, there is. The 1.5TB and 3TB Seagate desktop drives are notorious for their high failure rates. Be at least a little scared.

 

[Constantin]

Do consider getting two replacement drives just so you have a on-site spare going forward. Test the spare vigorously and then set it aside.

 

[jgreco]

Do consider getting two replacement drives just so you have a on-site spare going forward. Test the spare vigorously and then set it aside.

That, by the way, is excellent advice.

 

[Chris Moore]

If you are able to copy all your data to an alternate storage location temporarily, you can destroy the existing pool and rebuild it as RAIDz2 using five or six drives, which will give you two drives of protection instead of a single drive. It is actually the suggested situation with larger drives instead of RAIDz1.
Please read this article if you have a few minutes:

Why not to use RAID-5 or RAIDz1
https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/

 

[Chris Moore]

Not sure how much HDDs follow this chart, most of us likely replace the bulk of our hard drives due to obsolescence before actual failure.

I replaced all of my drives in my two home NAS systems at the end of 2017 because of that failure rate increasing situation. It varies by manufacturer and model, but drives tend to fail more often around the five year mark and I had a quantity of drives that were all over five years such that I was having a failure (or two) every month.

I bought replacements:

Financially, it is probably better to replace then one or two at a time, but I was in a situation where I had two servers full of drives that were all about the same age.

 

[exhaler]

Do consider getting two replacement drives just so you have a on-site spare going forward. Test the spare vigorously and then set it aside.

Right now i'm on a tight budget and cannot spend a lot on HDDs, as @Chris Moore mentioned I should focus on restoring the redundancy factor to protect my data for now.

If you are able to copy all your data to an alternate storage location temporarily, you can destroy the existing pool and rebuild it as RAIDz2 using five or six drives, which will give you two drives of protection instead of a single drive. It is actually the suggested situation with larger drives instead of RAIDz1.
Please read this article if you have a few minutes:

Why not to use RAID-5 or RAIDz1
https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/

Thanks for the link, however I can't backup all my data just the important stuff. Furthermore I only have 4 HDD slots because I have a HP ProLiant ML310e Gen8 v2 4u Micro Server Tower that has a capacity for 4 LFF HDDs

 

[Chris Moore]

You will need to be extra vigilant with the health of your drives. Good luck.