HDD's these days

[essg88]

I havnt seen any recent discussions on hard drives. What are you guys using these days? I was originally planning on picking up some HGST's but am now leaning toward WD Reds. Has there been any recent development/news with HDD's to look out for?

I havnt heard of any issue's with either brand, but wanted to ask in case I was out of the loop with anything. I'm looking to get 4tb drives at the minimum, at least 4-5 of them.

Here is what the rest of my setup looks like (So far)

Motherboard: Supermicro X9-SCM-F-O
CPU: Xenon E3-1230 V2
Memory: Hynix HMT41GU7MFR8C-PB 16GB (Never heard of this brand, Got this off of SuperMicro's website as tested memory for this board. Hope these are good sticks)

I also have the IBM raid card to flash for addition HDD's

My current USB drive is a weak 2GB stick, I will obviously be changing this over to a good legit 8+GB USB stick considering they are cheap.

I'm hoping to take advantage of some of the deals going on this weekend and get closer to finally completing this build. I've had my motherboard and cpu just sitting for a while and my current build is just about full. I'm hoping to complete this and transfer all my files over.

 

[BigDave]

Your hardware choices are great, I've not heard anything negative about the red Nas disks lately.
I will tell you that I've had bad personal experience with drives shipped long distances.
They always take an absolute pounding during the handling process and arrived damaged
about 35% of the time. Burn in your new drives before placing any important data on them.
Don't get in a hurry and you will be glad you took the extra effort. A forum search will lead
you to jgreco's post regarding the drive "burn-in" process. I followed this and have not had
one bit of trouble with my pool.
Here's the Link

 

[sfcredfox]

I think I have seen some people post they believe the reds run a little bit warm? I can't remember, but might research it in the forum more and be prepared to ensure sufficient cooling for them. Check for posts by cyberjock, I want to say he mentioned that.

 

[Ericloewe]

I think I have seen some people post they believe the reds run a little bit warm? I can't remember, but might research it in the forum more and be prepared to ensure sufficient cooling for them. Check for posts by cyberjock, I want to say he mentioned that.

Don't remember any of that. The Red Pros would fit the description, since they're 7200RPM drives.

I havnt seen any recent discussions on hard drives. What are you guys using these days? I was originally planning on picking up some HGST's but am now leaning toward WD Reds. Has there been any recent development/news with HDD's to look out for?

I havnt heard of any issue's with either brand, but wanted to ask in case I was out of the loop with anything. I'm looking to get 4tb drives at the minimum, at least 4-5 of them.

Here is what the rest of my setup looks like (So far)

Motherboard: Supermicro X9-SCM-F-O
CPU: Xenon E3-1230 V2
Memory: Hynix HMT41GU7MFR8C-PB 16GB (Never heard of this brand, Got this off of SuperMicro's website as tested memory for this board. Hope these are good sticks)

I also have the IBM raid card to flash for addition HDD's

My current USB drive is a weak 2GB stick, I will obviously be changing this over to a good legit 8+GB USB stick considering they are cheap.

I'm hoping to take advantage of some of the deals going on this weekend and get closer to finally completing this build. I've had my motherboard and cpu just sitting for a while and my current build is just about full. I'm hoping to complete this and transfer all my files over.

Don't worry about Hynix. They're one of the RAM big guys (Samsung and Micron being the others, now that Elpida was acquired by the latter).

 

[essg88]

Thanks guys. Was just looking at some of the red reviews and still seeing mixed issues with DOA drives and some even with firmware issues etc.

However the ones without issues seem to be performing well. I think I may go back to the HGST route as I like the specs and hopeful reliability a little more.

Regardless, a burn in test is a must before doing anything.

 

[Fraoch]

My Reds run quite cool, currently at 24-25 C at idle. They maxed out to just over 30 C during heavy benchmarking - no concern at all. I did try to ventilate them well though.

Regarding testing after shipping, there's a SMART test specifically for this, "conveyance". It's covered in this very useful thread:

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/checking-new-hdds-in-raid.12082/#post-85381

A good burn-in procedure is the SMART short, long and conveyance tests, the dd tests and the iozone tests covered in that thread. That last iozone command kicked the !@#$ out of my array for almost two weeks straight! The recommended burn-in time is 1000 hours (yes) and those iozone tests will take up a lot of that.;)

 

[DKarnov]

My Reds run quite cool, currently at 24-25 C at idle. They maxed out to just over 30 C during heavy benchmarking - no concern at all. I did try to ventilate them well though.

Regarding testing after shipping, there's a SMART test specifically for this, "conveyance". It's covered in this very useful thread:

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/checking-new-hdds-in-raid.12082/#post-85381

A good burn-in procedure is the SMART short, long and conveyance tests, the dd tests and the iozone tests covered in that thread. That last iozone command kicked the !@#$ out of my array for almost two weeks straight! The recommended burn-in time is 1000 hours (yes) and those iozone tests will take up a lot of that.;)

Temperature numbers in this context aren't all that useful without an ambient baseline. My HGSTs run 10C over ambient normally and get up maybe to 15C over during stress testing.

There's a step by step Howto for the burnin procedure here: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/how-to-hard-drive-burn-in-testing.21451/ That doesn't do the iozone parts so if you'll need to run them separately if you so desire. badblocks will thrash the drives for days just fine. Note that HGST drives don't do SMART conveyance tests.

 

[cyberjock]

I have 10x6TB WD Reds. I bought them the day they hit public. Never had a problem with any of them. They don't run hot (or at least don't run any hotter than I'd expect for their specs). They aren't 7200 RPM drives so I consider them to basically be acceptable for home server use.

 

[essg88]

I have 10x6TB WD Reds. I bought them the day they hit public. Never had a problem with any of them. They don't run hot (or at least don't run any hotter than I'd expect for their specs). They aren't 7200 RPM drives so I consider them to basically be acceptable for home server use.

10x6TB Reds sounds awesome. I wonder if a bad batch had gone out at some point? I see a lot of guys on here use them without any issues, yet looking on newegg people report issues with firmware, an idle issue, and doa drives, its so confusing.

Just further proves that every drive needs to be thoroughly test and burned in before use and if one or two should go, then that is part of what raid for right?

I'm hoping to pick up some drives soon, and just trying to weigh the costs. I just picked up more ram.

 

[cyberjock]

The problem I have is that people that claim given issues are idiots. Just look at how many have claimed firmware or other problems, but when you ask for a SMART output they ask what SMART is. Well gee hotshot, if you don't know what SMART is (the primary monitoring and reporting tool that hard drives use) then you probably aren't the expert you think you are. ;)

Just my 2 cents though. I read what people say, but then I go looking for *actual, irrefutable, scientifically solid evidence* that the problem actually exists. Too many people call themselves an expert because they know how to buy stuff from Newegg. Sorry, that does NOT make you an expert.

 

[anodos]

yet looking on newegg people report issues with firmware, an idle issue, and doa drives, its so confusing.

I've seen people with a "high tech knowledge" self-rating on newegg complain about SAS drives saying that they come with some weird proprietary connector that won't work with their desktop motherboard. You see, they're "meta-stupid". They don't know that they don't know anything. :)

Sometimes you get a bad drive. That's why you burn-in your system and that's why they come with warranties.

 

[essg88]

The problem I have is that people that claim given issues are idiots. Just look at how many have claimed firmware or other problems, but when you ask for a SMART output they ask what SMART is. Well gee hotshot, if you don't know what SMART is (the primary monitoring and reporting tool that hard drives use) then you probably aren't the expert you think you are. ;)

Just my 2 cents though. I read what people say, but then I go looking for *actual, irrefutable, scientifically solid evidence* that the problem actually exists. Too many people call themselves an expert because they know how to buy stuff from Newegg. Sorry, that does NOT make you an expert.

Thanks, and exactly what I tried to do by coming here. Looking for the actual information by those that do know what they're talking about. I take those reviews with a grain of salt which is why I figured I'd get a second (and better) opinion here.

I'm glad to see WD Reds actually working out for everyone, I'll be slowly but surely collecting up drives very soon. I just want to get this build finished!

 

[joeschmuck]

One thing you haven't specified is the capacity of the system you are building, you just say you will be picking up some drives. Any idea how much storage space you require?

 

[essg88]

One thing you haven't specified is the capacity of the system you are building, you just say you will be picking up some drives. Any idea how much storage space you require?

I am looking at roughly 20tb before raid. 5x4tb drives. I'd like to have at least this much minimum but if I can score a good deal I'd get a few more.

 

[anodos]

I am looking at roughly 20tb before raid. 5x4tb drives. I'd like to have at least this much minimum but if I can score a good deal I'd get a few more.

You can't increase the number of drives in a vdev. It's better to start with the correct number of drives.

 

[joeschmuck]

Five 4TB drives in a RAIDZ2 is 10.9TB of storage, in a RAIDZ it's 14.6TB. Use this RAID Calculator.