Western Digital Red drives in 10 drive FreeNAS setup

[riccochet]

Hey everyone, wasn't able to find any info on this so hopefully i'm not asking redundant questions. I'm putting together a FreeNAS build for my home with as much storage as i can possible fit in it. I am looking at putting together a system with 10 hard drives, and i was wanting to go with the 8TB western digital red drives (in RAID Z2). However, they are only rated for up to 8 bay NAS setups, and if you wanted to go beyond that, the Pro versions are recommended which are rated for up to 16. I was wondering if anyone has run the non pro versions of the drives in systems with more than 8 drives. I read that a lot of the reason for the 8 drive limit was due to vibrations from the disks when under load. Would just using some vibrations dampening screws help mitigate some of this issue? i won't be going more than 10 drives on this build, so i would prefer to avoid stepping into the Pro drives just cause i am using a couple more than the recommended.
Anyone have any experience with this?

 

[danb35]

Yes, I have plenty of WD Reds among my 18 drives. No issues.

 

[ccssid]

Hey everyone, wasn't able to find any info on this so hopefully i'm not asking redundant questions. I'm putting together a FreeNAS build for my home with as much storage as i can possible fit in it. I am looking at putting together a system with 10 hard drives, and i was wanting to go with the 8TB western digital red drives (in RAID Z2). However, they are only rated for up to 8 bay NAS setups, and if you wanted to go beyond that, the Pro versions are recommended which are rated for up to 16. I was wondering if anyone has run the non pro versions of the drives in systems with more than 8 drives. I read that a lot of the reason for the 8 drive limit was due to vibrations from the disks when under load. Would just using some vibrations dampening screws help mitigate some of this issue? i won't be going more than 10 drives on this build, so i would prefer to avoid stepping into the Pro drives just cause i am using a couple more than the recommended.
Anyone have any experience with this?

I have a 10 disk RaidZ2..(non pro....see signature) ...never any issues

Sent from my SM-T800 using Tapatalk

 

[nojohnny101]

That's pure marketing crap. Carry on.

 

[riccochet]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll just get some extra vibration dampeners then and call it a day.

 

[Dice]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll just get some extra vibration dampeners then and call it a day.

Beware on how to locate those dampeners. Dampening each drive is a bad idea. Dampening the case, the hdd rack housing and fan housings is good.

 

[danb35]

I'll just get some extra vibration dampeners

Don't bother.

 

[Kevin Horton]

I'm currently running 16 4TB WD reds in my 24 bay Norco RPC-4224 server. It'll eventually have 24 WD Reds in it, whenever I need to expand the storage. No issues yet, but they've only been running a bit over 3000 hours.

 

[riccochet]

Beware on how to locate those dampeners. Dampening each drive is a bad idea. Dampening the case, the hdd rack housing and fan housings is good.

It won't be full hard drive encased type dampeners. Just some dampening screws to help with noise. The rubber grommet type. Case I'm looking at might even come with them so I don't anticipate any problems.

 

[riccochet]

I'm currently running 16 4TB WD reds in my 24 bay Norco RPC-4224 server. It'll eventually have 24 WD Reds in it, whenever I need to expand the storage. No issues yet, but they've only been running a bit over 3000 hours.

I currently have that Norco case. That thing is the reason I'm looking at switching to a new setup. Hope you have better luck with yours than I did.

 

[Kevin Horton]

I currently have that Norco case. That thing is the reason I'm looking at switching to a new setup. Hope you have better luck with yours than I did.

I'm very happy with mine so far. What sort of issues should I watch for?

 

[Dice]

Just some dampening screws to help with noise. The rubber grommet type.

Overdoing dampening individual drives - will shorten the lifespan of the drives.
What is shipped with random chassis can obviously not be used as metric for <best practice>. Have you seen how poorly fan grills can be designed?

 

[riccochet]

I'm very happy with mine so far. What sort of issues should I watch for?

Fan issues is number one. Not sure if you got the alternate fan backplate that had room for 3 smaller fans, but those stock fans are loud. And when they go (and they will) replacements aren't easy to come by. They use a special power connector that are much more expensive and sometimes challenging to find. I've also have issues with power to the backplane and read errors on my array that seemed to track back to that as well.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

[IceBoosteR]

Hi,

there might be no issue as the other ones just wrote.
I got in touch with a guy of WD on a fair. When I remember correctly, the the pro drives got another firmware and other heads and suspension. Not 100% sure about, because we talked about every type of drive they have but it might help you.
In my opinion, you should go with anti-vibration rubber for the screws and it is fine.

I personally think, there are arrays out there, where the drives are just mounted bare metal - and then it might matters. But when you eliminate most of the vibrations, go with the reds without pro.

IceBoosteR

 

[Stux]

Fan issues is number one. Not sure if you got the alternate fan backplate that had room for 3 smaller fans, but those stock fans are loud. And when they go (and they will) replacements aren't easy to come by. They use a special power connector that are much more expensive and sometimes challenging to find. I've also have issues with power to the backplane and read errors on my array that seemed to track back to that as well.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

How old is your Norco. In my initial research there were complaints about the back plane reliability in early generations but it seems that those issues may have been resolved.

Regarding fans... every single fan in my Norco RPC-4224 has been replaced with a Noctua. Now I'm very happy with what has become a near silent case.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...24-supermicro-x10-sri-f-xeon-e5-1650v4.46262/

 

[riccochet]

How old is your Norco. In my initial research there were complaints about the back plane reliability in early generations but it seems that those issues may have been resolved.

Regarding fans... every single fan in my Norco RPC-4224 has been replaced with a Noctua. Now I'm very happy with what has become a near silent case.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...24-supermicro-x10-sri-f-xeon-e5-1650v4.46262/

And you have no issues with air flow? Running 24 drives on noctua fans would be quiet, but i read about people having issues with maintaining temps with some noctua fans....

 

[Mlovelace]

I've been running 36 WD red drives for about 3 years now in three of the servers in my signature, no issues.

 

[riccochet]

I've been running 36 WD red drives for about 3 years now in three of the servers in my signature, no issues.

And nothing to help with vibrations?

 

[Mlovelace]

And nothing to help with vibrations?

These aren't 15K SAS drives, there is no appreciable vibration in the chassis nor in the server racks they are located in. If it helps you feel better at all, our high performance Nimble and NetApp SANs don't use individual disk buffering. It's all marketing in the NAS drive line as to how many can be in an array due to vibration.

 

[Stux]

And you have no issues with air flow? Running 24 drives on noctua fans would be quiet, but i read about people having issues with maintaining temps with some noctua fans....

I have quite an advanced fan controller script i developed. The temperature logs while thrashing are posted in the thread I linked. I had to improve the airflow. Check the thread ;)

I have another 8 drives on order. Will update with new thermals as I burn them in.