Necessity of NAS drives

[Fayd]

I'm refitting a CCTV server. It accepts video streams from 2 cameras, though I intend to add more later.

currently the hardware is as follows:

Asus 780g mATX motherboard (of some sort. don't remember)
4 gb DDR2 RAM
athlon II x4 635 (a bit overkill, i know)
2x 2tb WD Greens in raid1 (the onboard fakeraid)
Corsair CX430 PSU
Antec Sonata II case

I'm going to replace the case, as that case doesn't filter incoming air well and the CPU fan when i checked it after 2 years running was completely clogged with dust.

I'm also intending on replacing the harddrives. What prompted this is that the fakeraid kept coming out of sync, and kicking a drive out of the array. The last time this happened, the machine then crashed and we didn't take any notice of it for 3 months.

Aside from needing to be more diligent about checking the status of the machine, I'm intending on switching the OS of the machine over to linux (probably a headless install of ubuntu LTS server) for remote troubleshooting and configuration via SSH.

What I'm trying to figure out is whether the drives are salvageable for the linux RAID (mdadm raid1), or if i'm better off getting the reds or some other NAS drive. Also, should i invest in a separate SSD or small harddrive for the OS portion? This computer may eventually host general files as well. It's hard to predict usage patterns.

 

[Ayah]

assuming the motherboard, cabling and cabling interfaces check out: problem sounds more like apm issues (shouldn't be since cctv = constant writing) or a drive error/failure/problem.

depending on how critical the rig is and if you can justify the cost, I'd just go with Hitachi or Toshiba's rebranded Hitachi drives. but you really should determine the source of the dropping out before you buy anything. this is colored a bit by my strong dislike of "green" drives from any manufacturer.

personally, I'm not a fan of storage and OS together, I've always kept them separate. a small ssd would be a nice choice here, especially with them so cheap lately.

 

[Charlie98]

I have a standalone AV recorder that runs a 500GB WD Green drive (this is a AV-GP drive, prior to the new Purple drives) in 24/7 operation and it soldiers on; I would think, barring some sort of actual drive problem, running your 2x2TB Greens would be fine. If there is a critical element to the data, I would update the drives with one of the NAS drives and use the Greens for spares or a doorstop.

Money being no object... this:

personally, I'm not a fan of storage and OS together, I've always kept them separate. a small ssd would be a nice choice here, especially with them so cheap lately.

As far as a case, I like the Fractal Define Minis... fully filtered and easy to maintain.

 

[alzan]

Since you'll be adding more cameras as well as wanting more stability the WD Reds would be a good choice for drives; for 15%-20% more cost the WD Blacks may be more advantageous as they are high IO drives and could be beneficial to a multi-cam CCTV system.

 

[Fayd]

Since you'll be adding more cameras as well as wanting more stability the WD Reds would be a good choice for drives; for 15%-20% more cost the WD Blacks may be more advantageous as they are high IO drives and could be beneficial to a multi-cam CCTV system.

Wouldn't the blacks have tler problems?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Wouldn't the blacks have tler problems?

Depends on the RAID controller or software you are using.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-features/31202-should-you-use-tler-drives-in-your-raid-nas

The responses I received from Synology, QNAP, NETGEAR and Buffalo all indicated that their NAS RAID controllers don't depend on or even listen to TLER, CCTL, ERC or any other similar error recovery signal from their drives. Instead, their software RAID controllers have their own criteria for drive timeouts, retries and when a drive is finally marked bad.

 

[Fayd]

Depends on the RAID controller or software you are using.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-features/31202-should-you-use-tler-drives-in-your-raid-nas

how about under mdadm?

 

[npaladin-2000]

Greens generally have issues with going on standby and then being kicked out of RAID. I forget the specific details, but that's why they came up with the Reds. They're not actually high I/O, they're very similar to Greens, even to rotation speed, but they don't go into standby nearly as aggressively (possibly not at all) in order to stay in RAID arrays.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Greens generally have issues with going on standby and then being kicked out of RAID. I forget the specific details, but that's why they came up with the Reds. They're not actually high I/O, they're very similar to Greens, even to rotation speed, but they don't go into standby nearly as aggressively (possibly not at all) in order to stay in RAID arrays.

I have used a variety of drives, although not WD Greens, in NAS boxes over the last few years.

I always end up turning off spin-down completely, because it would take as long as thirty seconds to spin the blasted things up and start getting at my data otherwise.

Does the power management in the WD greens override the settings from the server?

(Yes, I understand the downsides of running them like this.)

 

[Cerb]

^ What he said.

how about under mdadm?

Linux' md RAID is almost always what those NASes are using, for non-parity RAID arrays, and it works with non-RAID-branded drives just fine.

The WD Greens' head parking aggressiveness is possibly an issue, but nothing to do with TLER or any of that.

Does the power management in the WD greens override the settings from the server?

Yes. It's been an ongoing Linux issue since the series was new, and WD's response has always been to use Windows, or buy different drives (such as Reds, today). The Reds, Greens, and new Pipeline drives all seem to primarily differ by hard-coding some settings/features into the firmware, and maybe a little platter binning.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

assuming the motherboard, cabling and cabling interfaces check out: problem sounds more like apm issues (shouldn't be since cctv = constant writing) or a drive error/failure/problem.

depending on how critical the rig is and if you can justify the cost, I'd just go with Hitachi or Toshiba's rebranded Hitachi drives. but you really should determine the source of the dropping out before you buy anything. this is colored a bit by my strong dislike of "green" drives from any manufacturer.

personally, I'm not a fan of storage and OS together, I've always kept them separate. a small ssd would be a nice choice here, especially with them so cheap lately.

I saw an HGST or some such-named HDD the other day -- probably 2 to 4TB. It may have been the product page from a Newegg e-mail ad -- I get them daily. And the model was named "DeskStar," which was originally an IBM HDD product-line and I think they sold it to Hitachi.

Am I right about this? I think the customer response to the HGST drive was pretty good.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I saw an HGST or some such-named HDD the other day -- probably 2 to 4TB. It may have been the product page from a Newegg e-mail ad -- I get them daily. And the model was named "DeskStar," which was originally an IBM HDD product-line and I think they sold it to Hitachi.

Am I right about this? I think the customer response to the HGST drive was pretty good.

The 2TB Toshiba drives in my NAS are all Hitachi-related ("Hitachi" is on them in little printing.)

The 3TB one was actually manufactured by Hitachi and doesn't say "Toshiba" on it at all, that I can recall.

 

[npaladin-2000]

I saw an HGST or some such-named HDD the other day -- probably 2 to 4TB. It may have been the product page from a Newegg e-mail ad -- I get them daily. And the model was named "DeathStar," which was originally an IBM HDD product-line and I think they sold it to Hitachi.

Am I right about this? I think the customer response to the HGST drive was pretty good.

Fixed that for you. Frankly the IBM/Hitachi drives were not all that well-received and don't have a reputation for reliability. I'd never touch the things even with a Toshiba sticker on them. I live by WD for platter-type storage.

 

[smitbret]

Fixed that for you. Frankly the IBM/Hitachi drives were not all that well-received and don't have a reputation for reliability. I'd never touch the things even with a Toshiba sticker on them. I live by WD for platter-type storage.

You are doing yourself a disservice, then. The "Deathstar" label applied specifically to some old 40GB drives that IBM released a decade or so ago. Since being acquired by Hitachi and now Toshiba, their reputation as a manufacturer is probably better than Seagate or WD.

And just for the record, my parents had one of those that ran fine as a daily driver for almost 8 years before being replaced.

 

[Ayah]

Fixed that for you. Frankly the IBM/Hitachi drives were not all that well-received and don't have a reputation for reliability. I'd never touch the things even with a Toshiba sticker on them. I live by WD for platter-type storage.

trusting a brand in general is a terrible idea for the computer world, considering the number of failures in every company, you really need to evaluate each model individually.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

trusting a brand in general is a terrible idea for the computer world, considering the number of failures in every company, you really need to evaluate each model individually.

And you only evaluate on a model-by-model basis because it's pretty hard to evaluate on a production-batch-by-production-batch basis.

 

[Ayah]

And you only evaluate on a model-by-model basis because it's pretty hard to evaluate on a production-batch-by-production-batch basis.

basically, yes. but you can sort of mitigate that by buying from multiple sources or from a single source at multiple times.

but I usually end up mixing manufacturers as well.

 

[Charlie98]

trusting a brand in general is a terrible idea for the computer world, considering the number of failures in every company, you really need to evaluate each model individually.

Further... I evaluate each model by which one is on sale. At the consumer level you can drive yourself insane trying to distill down failure rates and the models... I just buy the drive I need in the size and configuration I need, and the brand is what it is. WD, Seagate, Hitachi/Toshiba... yep, sounds good to me.