The WD Elements 8TB still have HGST HE8 in them

[Yorick]

That is all. Just shucked one, in case folk are wondering. WD80EMAZ, still HGST HE8.

 

[NAS___]

Hi,
Do you have model number of the hgst drives?
Are they CMR?

 

[Yorick]

Of course they’re CMR. These are white labeled HGST Ultrastar He8, the Helium drives.

 

[NAS___]

Cool.
Is it this model? I can't find the same exact number:

Amazon.fr

Is it easy to remove? Can the box still be used with another hard drive (no damage)?

 

[Yorick]

Yup, the 8TB Elements, that’s it. It’s pretty easy to shuck. You’ll want a spudger or old credit / gift card, and then either four guitar picks or another old credit / gift card cut into four pieces. That way you can open it without breaking any of the plastic tabs, and yes you could then put another drive in and use it as an external.

Here’s a video of someone shucking the Best Buy version of this enclosure - same hardware, different name: https://youtu.be/pMudTWoMvsY

 

[Jailer]

and yes you could then put another drive in and use it as an external.

Some drives. I think the need to be sata 3.3v compatible. I tried a 6TB RED that I have and it wouldn't spin up.

 

[elorimer]

$16 off today at Newegg, for $129 FS with email code

 

[Yorick]

Interesting, @Jailer. And yeah, @elorimer, I bought three over the last few days. Going to go from 5-wide raidz2 to 8-wide raidz2. That should hold me a few more years ...

 

[NAS___]

Thanks, seams easy to check even before opening them and sending them back to amazon if not good. Looks like I can even send them back after opening them as it's not destructive (no sticker to remove)?
8tb and 10tb just go on sale
Do you know what's inside 10tb models?

 

[Yorick]

as it's not destructive (no sticker to remove)

You will need to open the cardboard box, those are taped shut. It'll be obvious you opened the box. Check your return policies.

Do you know what's inside 10tb models

Currently WD101EFAX white-labeled, 10TB CMR Air. Used to be WD100EFAX white-labeled, 10TB CMR Helium.

 

[NAS___]

No problem with Amazon in France.
Seems like a good deal for 10tb.
So these drives are made for 24/7 usage and cmr Is there a way to confirm this for sure when having the disk? (Something better than smartctl or crystaldisk such as a cmr testing tool)
I would prefer avoid loosing my data....

 

[Yorick]

Is there a way to confirm this for sure when having the disk

If you don't trust that there currently are no DM-SMR or HA-SMR drives >= 8TB in the WD portfolio, you can run fio. If it's SMR you expect write performance to crater, speed and IOPS both.

Code:

fio --name TEST --eta-newline=5s --filename=fio-tempfile.dat --rw=randwrite --size=500g --io_size=1500g --blocksize=10m --ioengine=libaio --iodepth=1 --direct=1 --numjobs=1 --runtime=3600 --group_reporting

You'd run this on SSH CLI, while in a directory on the pool you are testing for performance.

Taken from
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/286432/how-to-determine-whether-hard-drive-uses-smr/489530

 

[NAS___]

Thanks for the link.
No problem, that's just I was thinking efax = smr and efrx = cmr.

 

[Yorick]

efax = smr and efrx = cmr

That's actually not how that works. WD Red EFAX 2-6TB happen to be SMR, but only those sizes.

EFAX: TB/3.5 inch (E), Desktop NAS/WD Red (F), 5400rpm w/ 256MB cache (A), SATA 6Gb/s with 22-pin SATA connector (X)
EFRX: Ditto just the third is "5400rpm w/ 64MB cache (R)"

Taken from https://i.redd.it/4sg8kvhe1nuy.png

It just so happens the 2-6TB SMR use a larger cache to allow the firmware to deal with the SMR characteristics. In the 8TB and up models, the larger cache just makes sense period, regardless of SMR or not.

Nothing in those model numbers encodes recording technology.

 

[NAS___]

Ok.
In addition I also found the technology smr vs cmr for each disk on wd page:

Clearance - WD Red Pro NAS Hard Drive | Western Digital Store

For up to 24 bay medium to large-scale NAS environments, the WD Red Pro drive is engineered to handle increased business workloads and carries a 5-year limited warranty.

www.westerndigital.com

I'll buy 2x 10tb for my new mirror. That's huge savings (was thinking of reducing to 2x8tb due to price). I'll test them with the link you shared.
Thanks a lot!!

 

[NAS___]

Hi @Yorick
Just received the disks.
Connected one to USB, model is WD100EMAZ.
Is it a good drive? It's still the HE model?
I have to ask Amazon to resend one of them as one box has drop signs...

 

[NAS___]

Oh, another question, if one of these disks fail, it may not be easy to get the exact same model to swap.
Is Freenas tolerant to disk size variation depending on brand and model? For example this disk is 10tb, but another brand disk is in reality slightly smaller, lt's say 9.9tb. Will it work OK or do I have to manually create the raid using only 95% of capacity?

 

[diedrichg]

Oh, another question, if one of these disks fail, it may not be easy to get the exact same model to swap.
Is Freenas tolerant to disk size variation depending on brand and model? For example this disk is 10tb, but another brand disk is in reality slightly smaller, lt's say 9.9tb. Will it work OK or do I have to manually create the raid using only 95% of capacity?

TrueNAS will do that on its own; it'll treat all disks as the size of the smallest disk, e.g. if you had a 4TB disk alongside your 10TBs all disks would be used as though they were 4TB.

 

[diedrichg]

@Yorick I purchased (6) of the 8TB Elements from Newegg during their sale a few days ago. Did you encounter the proprietary power connection issue? If so, what's the best remedy?

 

[elorimer]

TrueNAS will do that on its own; it'll treat all disks as the size of the smallest disk, e.g. if you had a 4TB disk alongside your 10TBs all disks would be used as though they were 4TB.

In his specific example of a 2x10T mirror, does it work that way? I know in the documentation he could replace a failed 10TB with a 12TB and it would keep the 10TB mirror; if he replaced the good 10TB with a 12TB after resilvering, he would get a 2x10T mirror. But if he replaced a failed 10TB with an 8TB would he end up with a 2x8TB mirror? What if it had 9TB of data on it?