Upgrading Storage, MG09ACA?

[FlyingPersian]

Hello,

I'm running TrueNAS CORE with 6x 6TB Western Digital Red HDDs in a RAIDz2 configuration. I'm looking to upgrade the drives. I've been using WD Reds for a long time, but they are somewhat expensive now. I looked at Western Digital WD Red Plus 14TB (~300€) and Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS HDD
+Rescue 16TB (~350€), which is quite a lot of you buy 6 of them. I recently found the Toshiba Cloud-Scale Capacity MG09ACA 18TB, 512e (~260€), which are way more affordable. I couldn't find too much information on them in regards to TrueNAS. Are there any recommendations? I'm mainly using them for storage and Plex.

Thanks in advance.

Greetings

 

[artlessknave]

I don't see anything obviously wrong with them. they aren't SMR, which is the main concern.
they appear to have 4kn models, but as long as your ahift isnt 9, you can mix them and it wont matter.

note that posting your hardware build is a forum rule, which you really should read, because I believe your signature, which most definitely doesn't have your build info, likely violates the forum rules by cursing.

 

[FlyingPersian]

Thanks for your reply. What do you mean by "as long as your ahift isnt 9"?

I will add my system to my signature soon!

 

[artlessknave]

What do you mean by "as long as your ahift isnt 9"?

I mean exactly that. I don't really feel like explaining it. a little google should find it.
ahift9+4k = brutally, painfully slow performance.
ashift12+4k = normal performance.

 

[rmccullough]

Read this: https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/zfs-and-512n-vs-512e-vs-4kn-drives.42082/

Talks about 512n/512e/4kN drives, what that means, and then goes into "ashift", how to check it and such.

 

[NugentS]

Hello,

I'm running TrueNAS CORE with 6x 6TB Western Digital Red HDDs in a RAIDz2 configuration. I'm looking to upgrade the drives. I've been using WD Reds for a long time, but they are somewhat expensive now. I looked at Western Digital WD Red Plus 14TB (~300€) and Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS HDD
+Rescue 16TB (~350€), which is quite a lot of you buy 6 of them. I recently found the Toshiba Cloud-Scale Capacity MG09ACA 18TB, 512e (~260€), which are way more affordable. I couldn't find too much information on them in regards to TrueNAS. Are there any recommendations? I'm mainly using them for storage and Plex.

Thanks in advance.

Greetings

I use a bunch of MG09 18TB drives. I have 5 in a Z1 array in a Core box at the moment for a month now. No issues so far although I plan on redoing this array to Z2 in the near future.

 

[artlessknave]

MG09 18TB drives. I have 5 in a Z1

yikes.

 

[NugentS]

Its a backup - so not too worried.
And as I said - its gonna be a Z2 when the new server arrives

 

[FlyingPersian]

Read this: https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/zfs-and-512n-vs-512e-vs-4kn-drives.42082/

Talks about 512n/512e/4kN drives, what that means, and then goes into "ashift", how to check it and such.

Thanks!
So I confirmed ashift=12.

My conclusion is that since ashift is 12, I should go with the 4kn drives!

 

[FlyingPersian]

Hello,

Sadly, the Toshiba drives weren't available anymore. I opted for Seagate Exos X18 Enterprise HDD - 18TB (ST18000NM000J) now. It's kinda hard to come by retail drives with warranty. The last ones I ordered didn't have any warranty by Seagate.

According to the data sheet, which can be found here, they ship as 512n, but can be formated to 4kn. Are there any known issues with these kind of of drives in TrueNAS? All I could find about the Exos X16 and X18 was more or less positive.

FastFormat models ship in 512e format state. When switching from 512e to 4Kn by executing the FastFormat routine, all data on the drive will be deleted. Note that data must be aligned to 4K sectors to see improved performance in 4Kn fomat.

Greetings

 

[NugentS]

A while back I went down the 4Kn rabbit hole with my somewhat ecllectic set of disks. Turns out that:
1. Performance isn't substantially effected (as long as ashift=12)
2. Some drives won't do 4Kn meaning I couldn't use them as spares.

I went back to 512

 

[Davvo]

4Kn is like syncwrites... If you don't know them, you don't need it.

 

[FlyingPersian]

I'm not sure I fully understand this topic of 512n/4kn. From what I understood, the sector size is either 512 bytes or 4 kilobytes. I shouldn't mix 512n and 4kn drives. My ashift is 12, which means I'm currently using 4kn drives (2^12).

My drives now are:

• WD80EFAX-68KNBN0
• WD80EFAX-68LHPN0
• WD80EFAX-68LHPN0
• WD80EFAX-68KNBN0
• WD80EFZX-68UW8N0

According to google, these are 512e drives (emulated 512n?), which should be the same as the Seagate Exos X X18 drives, correct?

I find this topic super confusing :D When I bought the last drives, I didn't have to worry about any of that. I thought I had to buy 4kn drives, but now I'm not sure about that.

 

[Davvo]

TL;DR: 512e are just fine. Those drives (Red Plus) are good drives.

 

[FlyingPersian]

Okay, so are the ST18000NM000J fine as well? I ordered them, that's why I'm asking.

 

[Davvo]

Okay, so are the ST18000NM000J fine as well? I ordered them, that's why I'm asking.

Yes. Today any 512e drive is actually a 4kn drive that can "speak" 512 with the OS at the firmware level.

 

[FlyingPersian]

Thank you very much!

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Today any 512e drive is actually a 4kn drive that can "speak" 512 with the OS at the firmware level.

Which means a performance degradation if you actually use that feature. The other way round it does not hurt to use 4k transactions with actual (older) 512 bytes/sector native drives. So that's why an ashift of 12 is the default today.

 

[FlyingPersian]

Which means a performance degradation if you actually use that feature. The other way round it does not hurt to use 4k transactions with actual (older) 512 bytes/sector native drives. So that's why an ashift of 12 is the default today.

Does TrueNAS re-format my drives to the proper sector size or do I need to do that myself? I just put in the first drive to replace one of my existing ones.

Edit: Here the smartctl -i output:

Device Model: ST18000NM000J-2TV103
Firmware Version: SN02
User Capacity: 18,000,207,937,536 bytes [18.0 TB]
Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate: 7200 rpm
Form Factor: 3.5 inches
Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is: ACS-4 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is: SATA 3.3, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Thu Dec 14 22:06:39 2023 CET
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

And here of my existing WD drive:

Model Family: Western Digital Red
Device Model: WDC WD80EFZX-68UW8N0
Firmware Version: 83.H0A83
User Capacity: 8,001,563,222,016 bytes [8.00 TB]
Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate: 5400 rpm
Form Factor: 3.5 inches
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: ACS-2, ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4
SATA Version is: SATA 3.1, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Thu Dec 14 22:07:46 2023 CET
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

 

[Davvo]

Does TrueNAS re-format my drives to the proper sector size or do I need to do that myself? I just put in the first drive to replace one of my existing ones.

Edit: Here the smartctl -i output:

It's not a re-format of the drives.
ZFS uses ashift 12, so you are good with any modern drive without doing anything.
It's a pool setting btw, you can check with zpool get ashift poolname.