Which model of WD Ultrastar to buy?

[Itay1778]

Hi, I'm planning on buying new drives after I run out of space
And after research, it seems that the WD Ultrastar looks really good
Even too good for the price.
Right now what I have is this
3X WD Red 3TB
And they are great and do the job, but I ran out of space...
I am debating between the HUH721212ALE600 - 0F30144
and the HUH721212ALN600 -0F30141
Both look the same except one is a 4k sector and the other is 512e
According to what I understood, it doesn't matter that much because the 512e is just simply to support old systems, but both are actually 4k. I would appreciate an explanation of this and if it is really true?
So what I'm asking are these models good and reliable? It's WD so I hope so. And which one do you recommend or a completely different model what's the 12TB they have too many models from what I've seen... I'm already lost.

My motherboard is: Supermicro X9SRL-F
And I plan to use the 3 existing drives I already have and an SSD for the boot disk.
Then I will add 5 more drives of the WD Ultrastar in a separate pool in RAID-Z2. This motherboard has a total of 10 SATA connections. Will I experience a decrease or a problem in performance if I connect it through the SCU and also through the normal SATA controller? And in SATA2 and not SATA3?
Basically, SATA2 is limited to 300MB so there shouldn't be a problem right?

Would appreciate help.

 

[Davvo]

Personally I use Seagate's Ironwolf line (though only 2 disks of 3TB each and a SATA SSD).

About the Ultrastar, they look fine... albeit a bit energy-hungry, as all 7200RPM.
SATA2 is not an issue for HDDs.

The manual for your motherboard is here.

 

[kherr]

I stay faaaaaaar away from WD ..... you can't believe a word they say ........ Used to be 100% WD ... NEVER again ...

 

[Itay1778]

I stay faaaaaaar away from WD ..... you can't believe a word they say ........ Used to be 100% WD ... NEVER again ...

I have been using their drives for years and years at this point and they have never let me down

 

[Itay1778]

Personally I use Seagate's Ironwolf line (though only 2 disks of 3TB each and a SATA SSD).

About the Ultrastar, they look fine... albeit a bit energy-hungry, as all 7200RPM.
SATA2 is not an issue for HDDs.

The manual for your motherboard is here.

So… I can buy the HUH721212ALN600 -0F30141 and I’m good to go?

 

[firesyde424]

I stay faaaaaaar away from WD ..... you can't believe a word they say ........ Used to be 100% WD ... NEVER again ...

To a certain extent, I would agree when it comes to the consumer drives, especially recently. However, Ultrastar is their enterprise line and, in our experience at least, these have been rock solid. We currently have approximately 3PB of Ultrastar drives deployed in sizes ranging from 8 to 18TB. They have performed in line with our deployed Seagate Constellation and Exos drives(Considerably better than our Exos X12 drives, but that's a story for another time).

Now, we are using SAS models vs the SATA model the OP is talking about but I have no hesitation in recommending Ultrastar drives.

 

[Davvo]

So… I can buy the HUH721212ALN600 -0F30141 and I’m good to go?

I can't speak from experience but I don't see any obvious death flag in those drives.

 

[Etorix]

I stay faaaaaaar away from WD ..... you can't believe a word they say ........ Used to be 100% WD ... NEVER again ...

Fair enough, but with only three manufacturers to chose from (WD, Seagate, Toshiba) definitive bans may prove difficult.
If that's any comfort, the Ultrastar line was inherited from HGST, and appears to be still engineered by the HGST team (the team which knew that SMR was not good for ZFS…), independently of the proper WD lines. A practical consequence is that Ultrastar drives (and WD Gold, which are rebranded Ultrastar) generally implement "3.3 V power disable" and may not spin when powered from a regular power supply (use adapters from 4-pin Molex plugs, a backplane, or put insulating tape/varnish on the offending pin).

 

[Davvo]

A practical consequence is that Ultrastar drives (and WD Gold, which are rebranded Ultrastar) generally implement "3.3 V power disable" and may not spin when powered from a regular power supply (use adapters from 4-pin Molex plugs, a backplane, or put insulating tape/varnish on the offending pin).

I believed to be so only for external drives.

 

[Ericloewe]

The datasheets explicitly list PWDIS models. Check twice before buying, not all model lines are available in all combinations.

 

[Etorix]

I believed to be so only for external drives.

I've found this behaviour in all WD Gold/Ultrastar I own. Internal drives.

 

[Davvo]

I've found this behaviour in all WD Gold/Ultrastar I own. Internal drives.

Guess it's another reason not to buy them.

 

[Itay1778]

Fair enough, but with only three manufacturers to chose from (WD, Seagate, Toshiba) definitive bans may prove difficult.
If that's any comfort, the Ultrastar line was inherited from HGST, and appears to be still engineered by the HGST team (the team which knew that SMR was not good for ZFS…), independently of the proper WD lines. A practical consequence is that Ultrastar drives (and WD Gold, which are rebranded Ultrastar) generally implement "3.3 V power disable" and may not spin when powered from a regular power supply (use adapters from 4-pin Molex plugs, a backplane, or put insulating tape/varnish on the offending pin).

I am aware of this, and I have checked according to the different models and the models I have chosen are not affected by this

https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/collateral/tech-brief/tech-brief-western-digital-power-disable-pin.pdf