Question WD Blue 8TB - first impressions

[igor_kavinski]

Pretty much silent, even when copying over 1100 files at an average rate of 110.9 MB/s. Completed 78GB transfer from SSD in about 12 minutes. File sizes ranged from 16 MB to 20+ GB. I did feel intermittent vibrations a few times.

 

[aigomorla]

If your capping at 200mb/s thats pretty good for a 5400rpm spinner.

However i would probably never store anything on a single drive however...
Its R-1 or preferably R-10 at the very least or bust.
Ive lost too much to even stomache because it was stored on a single drive, and that drive dies.... (which is why i never buy seagate)

 

[Shmee]

Not bad, is that CMR or SMR?

 

[igor_kavinski]

CMR, according to this: https://documents.westerndigital.co...duct-brief-western-digital-wd-blue-pc-hdd.pdf

 

[Super Spartan]

which is why i never buy seagate)

Every Seagate drive I bought in the past failed on me. Never again. I lost faith in the brand completely.

 

[Tech Junky]

Every Seagate drive I bought in the past failed on me. Never again. I lost faith in the brand completely.

Same here. I used some spinners and their SSHD options and they all died very quickly when OEM drives lasted years. Some give them praises but when you have multiple failures across different types it's just bad to keep using them.

On the flip side I've bene running WD Red's ~5 years w/o any issues 24/7. If there's an issue it's self induced at this point.

 

[Super Spartan]

Same here. I used some spinners and their SSHD options and they all died very quickly when OEM drives lasted years. Some give them praises but when you have multiple failures across different types it's just bad to keep using them.

On the flip side I've bene running WD Red's ~5 years w/o any issues 24/7. If there's an issue it's self induced at this point.

I remember very well buying a 4TB HDD back when 4TB HDDs were non-existent. Basically, it was a Seagate dual 2TB HDD in RAID 0. After spending hours copying all my data, the drive dies literally the next day! That's just one bad story

 

[Tech Junky]

They're junk unless you go enterprise some say. Others have them last a decade. Trust that it's not going to die and make you waste time is the bigger issue.

 

[aigomorla]

They're junk unless you go enterprise some say. Others have them last a decade. Trust that it's not going to die and make you waste time is the bigger issue.

I hear the EXOS SAS versions are OK too.
Have friends who clocked more then 5 yrs on them.
He swears reliability is on par with HGST He's
But only the SAS editions.

I wouldn't mind giving them a try, but i would still definitely R-1 them and expect both to fail, but not at the same time.

As for the constellation he's said there only good for using as target practicing, with solid slug shotgun shells.
like this: (funny how its also a seagate drive)

He said a better word should be constipation series, as you will probably end up getting one from all the sitting/worrying required while its rebuilding the lost drive raid array.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I hear the EXOS SAS versions are OK too.

The SAS models must have a special sauce altogether (pardon the pun )

 

[Tech Junky]

but not at the same time.

I bet the 2nd one would fail before you replaced the 1st failure though.

When buying mine I split the transaction across vendors to make sure they came from different batches for diversification. I still ended up with a DOA out of 4 I bought. Quick replacement though and they've all been running for ~5 years now w/o any issues. Since they're 8TB drives I didn't have to deal with the SMR-gate issues that cropped up either.

I've got an eye on potentially 20TB WD Red's for $400/ea though. Still hitting that $20/TB mark.

SAS vs SATA though shouldn't make a difference if the guts are the same. It's just their loss on the consumer side.

 

[igor_kavinski]

SAS vs SATA though shouldn't make a difference

That's the thing though. Witnessed several SATA failures at my workplace. No SAS failure that I know of in my 12+ years on the job (I'm not the techie though, but I do come to know of failures one way or the other).

 

[igor_kavinski]

I've got an eye on potentially 20TB WD Red's for $400/ea though. Still hitting that $20/TB mark.

18.18 formatted capacity if the online calculator is right. Sure you still want them?

 

[Tech Junky]

18.18 formatted capacity if the online calculator is right. Sure you still want them?

I know there's overhead and I calculate prices based on sticker not formatted results. Keeps things consistent.

Considering I have a R10 setup w/ 4x8TB drives and the usable is 14.4TB vs raw 16TB the 20TB would be sufficient to cover the need. Less loss too in capacity of you want to do ratios / comparisons. 1.6TB vs 1.82TB it's marginal. For scaling up it's not bad at 0.22TB.

 

[aigomorla]

SAS vs SATA though shouldn't make a difference if the guts are the same. It's just their loss on the consumer side.

I would think the same, but its not just one source that tells me... if i get a exos, make sure its on a controller, and definitely make sure its SAS.
They all tell me, in there drive clusters, the ones to fail the most are seagate SATA's doesn't matter which line, all sata seagates are dookie, but the EXOS SAS is a golden egg that looks like dookie.

These are the five drives my friends swear by..

1. HGST He series.
2. WD Gold.
3. WD DC HC series (its basically a HGST He Drive)
4. WD Red Pro
5. Seagate EXOS (SAS ONLY)

 

[bigboxes]

Every Seagate drive I bought in the past failed on me. Never again. I lost faith in the brand completely.

I can't tell you how many Seagate drives I RMA'd. I was such a fanboy. People couldn't convince me that it wasn't normal. I've had failures of all brands. But it was happening so fast. I stopped caring how I shipped the drives back to them. I think I sent a pair back in a manila envelope only wrapped in newspaper. I was determined to spend as little as possible sending them back. I saved all sorts of HDD packaging for shipment it was so often. I still have at least 8-10 HDD shipping boxes. Guess what? I never us them any longer. Why is that? About ten years ago I made the switch to HGST. I built a new machine last year and got three new HGST 2TB spinners for my thrash (download) drives. The previous ones lasted 10 years. One failed so I just got three new ones. I figure if they can last 10 years running 24/7 then it's stupid to get anything else. They were old stock, as they don't make HGST 2TB drives any longer. Who cares. I like reliability. I've also got 4 HGST 8-10TB He enterprise drives. I still don't trust WDC to keep the same quality standards as HGST. I do have a lone 74TB 2nd gen WD Raptor drive from 2006 that is still going strong. I really don't use it any longer due to the small size. But the quality is definitely there on that model.

Note: RAID is NOT backup. It's for uptime.

 

[Tech Junky]

Note: RAID is NOT backup. It's for uptime.

Well, both are true if you use Raid 10. You can have 3 drives fail and still have copy of your data if the R0's fail you still have a mirror copy on the R1 set. Obviously replacing them sooner than later would be a priority or having a hot standby in the array to take over immediately. Hedging your bets is better than a single disk any day. While not proper "backup" it's still a copy that can be accessed if removed from the PC.

 

[bigboxes]

Well, both are true if you use Raid 10. You can have 3 drives fail and still have copy of your data if the R0's fail you still have a mirror copy on the R1 set. Obviously replacing them sooner than later would be a priority or having a hot standby in the array to take over immediately. Hedging your bets is better than a single disk any day. While not proper "backup" it's still a copy that can be accessed if removed from the PC.

It's my understanding that if data gets corrupted, then that corruption gets copied to the mirrored drive.

 

[Golgatha]

It's my understanding that if data gets corrupted, then that corruption gets copied to the mirrored drive.

This is why RAID is for uptime and/or performance, and never for backups. Besides file corruption, if a user deletes a file, that deletion is copied across the array. Multiple copies on separate drives are a backup. One of those should be a cold backup and another should be offsite. Anything outside your physical control should be encrypted before sending it off outside your physical possession.

 

[Tech Junky]

Besides file corruption, if a user deletes a file, that deletion is copied across the array.

Another option is just upload vital items using Google Drive and that satisfies 2 of your methods offsite / cold.

When it comes down to the things we all really need to save vs hoard it's not that big of a capacity requirement. If you strip out all of the media usually you're not left with a whole lot that needs a backup.

 

[Golgatha]

Another option is just upload vital items using Google Drive and that satisfies 2 of your methods offsite / cold.

When it comes down to the things we all really need to save vs hoard it's not that big of a capacity requirement. If you strip out all of the media usually you're not left with a whole lot that needs a backup.

I have a 5GB encrypted file container for absolutely critical things (e.g. birth certificate scans, taxes, etc.)

Most of my backup space is for uptime. I have Macrium full disk backups of all my family's computers. Those get backed up monthly.

Pictures, home videos, media files, expensive programs, game install files, etc. are sitting at 1.41 TB currently though, and I consider those pretty critical files for quality of life.

 

[aigomorla]

Note: RAID is NOT backup. It's for uptime.

on that note, nothing would be called "backup" its just a contingency for SNAFU until things get sorted out.

It's my understanding that if data gets corrupted, then that corruption gets copied to the mirrored drive.

correct...

This is why the guys over at TrueNas forum are very vocal about NEEDING ECC ram, or the world will end on you scenario.

But honestly if data is copied from a personal PC without ECC onto the NAS, its pointless to have ECC in the server almost, as the DATA could of started corrupted to begin with, and the ECC on the server wont save you from that.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Pictures, home videos, media files, expensive programs, game install files, etc. are sitting at 1.41 TB currently though, and I consider those pretty critical files for quality of life.

You are lucky than most to have critical stuff at that quite manageable capacity.

 

[igor_kavinski]

But honestly if data is copied from a personal PC without ECC onto the NAS, its pointless to have ECC in the server almost, as the DATA could of started corrupted to begin with, and the ECC on the server wont save you from that.

WINRARing stuff with "store" zero compression is my preferred way of knowing if data got corrupted somehow when transferring files. Of course, if it got corrupted WHILE making that archive, I'm screwed. Guess ECC would be useful to have to prevent that. By the way, I create SHA files on a daily basis to transfer financial messages. In over 10 years, I encountered my first SHA error only a few days ago where the remote server complained that the file I transferred with the accompanying SHA file didn't match the hash. The PC was a Dell 3rd gen i5 with a Samsung 860 EVO drive. I'm guessing it was the SSD that dropped the ball.

 

[Golgatha]

WINRARing stuff with "store" zero compression is my preferred way of knowing if data got corrupted somehow when transferring files. Of course, if it got corrupted WHILE making that archive, I'm screwed. Guess ECC would be useful to have to prevent that. By the way, I create SHA files on a daily basis to transfer financial messages. In over 10 years, I encountered my first SHA error only a few days ago where the remote server complained that the file I transferred with the accompanying SHA file didn't match the hash. The PC was a Dell 3rd gen i5 with a Samsung 860 EVO drive. I'm guessing it was the SSD that dropped the ball.

I've currently got a 3700X system with ECC memory, but B550 systems don't officially support ECC. However, I've done a lot of checking to make sure it's active and functional. My previous box was a Xeon x3470 with 24GB of ECC DDR3. Just upgraded my storage recently from 12TB to 18TB drives because I was on my last terabyte of free space, and WD had a nice price ($300) on 18TB Red Pros recently.