WD Black 4x4TB RAID 5; Is this OK?

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Hello all,

I recently set up a 4 x 4TB RAID 5 system on a workstation that is remotely used by 3 or 4 users and has a six core processor and 128GB of DDR4 memory. The workstation is used for loading data files (up to 4 or 5 GB), processing them in Matlab or Python, and saving them.

Today, one of the hard drives failed. At first I thought it was due to a bad drive, but now I'm wondering if these drives aren't designed for a RAID 5 system with a large volume.

The drives in question are the "Western Digital Black WD4003FZEX 4TB 7200RPM SATA3/SATA 6.0 GB/s 64MB Hard Drive (3.5 inch)."

Any advice? Any help is much appreciated. Thank you.

 

[XavierMace]

If you want enterprise reliability, buy enterprise drives. That said, if these were "recent" drives like you say this was likely a fluke. However, that's also why RAID5 really isn't recommended any more. They don't make drives like they used to and rebuilds take forever with drives of that size.

 

[Malogeek]

Blacks are desktop drives, meant to be used for standard desktop PCs. Reds are slower on purpose, higher MTBF, rated to be enclosed with other hard drives for 24/7 operation, support TLER for RAID etc etc.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

If you're only working with 4-5GB files at a time, just put in a 1TB SSD and back the workstation up to a Crashplan account or something. Simpler, less complexity, more happy.

 

[rchunter]

Those older wd black FZEX drives didn't have TLER enabled, probably something to consider having if you are trying to run hardware raid 5. A better drive for it would probably be either wd gold or hgst He drives or even a nas drive like wd red.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Blacks are desktop drives, meant to be used for standard desktop PCs. Reds are slower on purpose, higher MTBF, rated to be enclosed with other hard drives for 24/7 operation, support TLER for RAID etc etc.

Why do you say Reds are slower on purpose? WDC makes a distinction between their Pro and non-Pro versions with the Red Pro being 7200 RPM. BTW, the non-Pro version of the Red are advertised as 5400 RPM drives but CrystalDiskInfo keeps showing them as operating at 5700 RPM. I just installed a pair of non-Pro Red drives yesterday. Quiet, cool and seemingly getting the NAS job done.

 

[Malogeek]

Why do you say Reds are slower on purpose? WDC makes a distinction between their Pro and non-Pro versions with the Red Pro being 7200 RPM. BTW, the non-Pro version of the Red are advertised as 5400 RPM drives but CrystalDiskInfo keeps showing them as operating at 5700 RPM. I just installed a pair of non-Pro Red drives yesterday. Quiet, cool and seemingly getting the NAS job done.

Slower drives tend to last longer.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Slower drives tend to last longer.

The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy. Look at you: you're the Prodigal Son; you're quite a prize!

 

[Yakk]

General rule is don't cheap out on Workstation parts 3 or 4 people depend on to work. Buy mirrored enterprise hard drives or MLC SSDs.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Slower drives tend to last longer.

I wasn't advocating. Just adding to what you said. Notice I bought a pair of Red drives and not the Red Pro.

 

[JoeBleed]

I'd ask first what raid card are you using or is this software raid? if software, what kind? (Linux/windows/crappy motherboard)

In general, the Blacks should be fine in raid. I don't think WD crippled them in their BS drive color scheme. Before SSDs that's what i used with no problems. But was a while ago now. I haven't seen a new one. Letting the drives run 24/7 is better than starting and stopping. Sure the specs may not list that much time, but that's more warranty related i think. And the power saving features built into drives now are probably more likely to be a problem for 24/7 systems. If you can disable it, it's better to do so. I miss the days when you controlled that in the OS more so than it being in the drives firmware. If it has aggressive head parking, it's recommended to adjust it to 300s or disable it.