[Power Disable Feature] About to buy 8xHGST He10

[jfromeo]

I am about to buy a bunch of HGST He10 drives for my home NAS and I have several doubts, especially about the "Power Disable Feature (Pin 3)" compatibility.

My NAS enclosure is a SilverStone DS380 from 2014 and I cannot find in the manual any mention to supporting this feature. The HDD connections are made through a hot-swap PCB which can host up to 8 HDDs powered by 2 4-pin-Molex connectors on the back of the PCB, so I may assume that it is a similar solution to the one using an internal MOLEX to SATA adaptor as mentioned in the HGST Tech Brief about the Power Disable Feature (https://www.hgst.com/sites/default/files/resources/HGST-Power-Disable-Pin-TB.pdf).

I have asked SilverStone but they could not help me to the point of assuring the compatibility with HGST drives.

The other minor questions are about the 512e vs 4Kn advanced format, and the differences among SE, ISE and SED in a home NAS environment. From what I have read, the 4Kn format is pretty future-proof as it will be the standard in some years, and the SED encryption is overkill for a multimedia home NAS where the data stored is not criticalm, but I do not know the differences between "Secure Erase" and "Instant Secure Erase" features and which one would fit best in my escenario.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers.

 

[Ericloewe]

It would only be a problem if the drives received 3.3V on that pin. Since that backplane definitely does not have a regulator to step 5V/12V down to 3.3V, it's not a problem.

"Instant Secure Erase"

That has to mean that the drive is encrypted with a key it stores internally. Then, to secure erase it, the key is destroyed.

 

[joeschmuck]

You didn't ask this question but I noticed that you mentioned Hot Swap a few times. Please ensure that you power down the system when replacing a hard drive. If this were a High Availability system then maybe it would warrant a hot swap but it being a home unit, save yourself issues and power down.

Ensure you have great air flow over all of the drives to keep them cool.

 

[nojohnny101]

Please do keep in mind that you will had to modify the Silverstone DS380B case in order to have sufficient cooling for those drives. Even with 4 drives in mine before the cooling modification, my drives were cooking. It is a documented design flaw of the case.

 

[jfromeo]

It would only be a problem if the drives received 3.3V on that pin. Since that backplane definitely does not have a regulator to step 5V/12V down to 3.3V, it's not a problem.

That has to mean that the drive is encrypted with a key it stores internally. Then, to secure erase it, the key is destroyed.

Thanks a lot. I will go for the HDDs.

I see, so the wipe is almost instant (it just need to delete the encryption key, and all the data would become unusable). No need to write 0's on it (that would take pretty long for a 10TB HDD)

You didn't ask this question but I noticed that you mentioned Hot Swap a few times. Please ensure that you power down the system when replacing a hard drive. If this were a High Availability system then maybe it would warrant a hot swap but it being a home unit, save yourself issues and power down.

Ensure you have great air flow over all of the drives to keep them cool.

Yeah, I have never hot swapped them and I guess I will never do (there is no need to, as you said, to be honest)

Please do keep in mind that you will had to modify the Silverstone DS380B case in order to have sufficient cooling for those drives. Even with 4 drives in mine before the cooling modification, my drives were cooking. It is a documented design flaw of the case.

I swapped the 120mm default fans for a pair of Scythe Grand-Flex running 12v@2400rpm and did the cardboard trick to direct airflow to the HDDs. Now they are sitting way below the 55ºC they reached in the default escenario (the hottest one gets to 45ºC when it and the adjacent drives are in load)

 

[nojohnny101]

I swapped the 120mm default fans for a pair of Scythe Grand-Flex running 12v@2400rpm and did the cardboard trick to direct airflow to the HDDs. Now they are sitting way below the 55ºC they reached in the default escenario (the hottest one gets to 45ºC when it and the adjacent drives are in load)

Ok yes that is what I was referring to. 45ºC is a little too hot for my tastes (most on here don't recommend letting drives get over 40ºC) but it sounds like you have done all you can short of trying different fan combinations.