Which Hard Drives to Use

[spc hink]

I currently have a file server with an 8 port RAID card.

I planned on upgrading my 500GB hard drives to 1.5TB Seagate hard drives:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822148337

2 of the 5 drives failed within a day of operation and now I am debating my hard drive choice.

I did not do as much research as I should have and I did not head the warnings to not to run the 1.5s in RAID.

Now I am at the point where I can either try to return all the drives and pick different drives to go with or I can just replace the 2 bad drives and hope I do not loose data down the road.

My choices are:
- replace the 2 bad drives and stick with the Seagate 1.5's
- go with the WD 1.5's
- get the 2 TB Seagates

If anyone can offer some insight on 1.5TB + drives for a raid server, I would appreciate it.

 

[ochadd]

When it comes to storage I'll take rumors as gospel. The 1.5TB drives had and may still be having trouble. I'd jump ship and go for RAID edition drives that your controller officially supports. Tried doing file server setups using desktop drives in the past and each and every time it has come back to haunt me. It's either performance or reliability issues and dealing with storage headaches keeps me up at night.

As for manufacturers. I've had good and bad from every company out there. Big fan of Western Digitals RMA setup.

 

[jdjbuffalo]

They've been trying to practically give those drives away. I would stay as far away from them as possible. The Western Digital drives seem to be much better right now. Once they get things fixed at Seagate then you can look at purchasing them again. Since you plan on using these in a RAID you will need to make sure NOT to get the standard Western Digital Green drives. They spin down fairly quickly and wouldn't work well in a RAID setup (I've seen my a post about this). You want the "Black" drives. Here is the 1TB drive on NewEgg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822136284 . NewEgg doesn't have the 1.5TB or 2TB drive listed right now. You might have to look elsewhere or wait for them to come in stock.

 

[jamesbond007]

Funny, I'm also seeking out 4 disks for a RAID5 setup of mine.

As others have said, the 1.5TB have been nothing but nightmares for most people. I haven't had a chance to read up on the 2TB disks, so I cannot comment on those. Really, they're a bit too new for my taste and I'm not willing to risk my data or pay the hefty premium associated with them.

As jdjbuffalo said, the WD Green drives are not good for RAID, despite their cool and quiet performance and attractive price. The Black drives are nice, but I've read over and over that they get hot. (can anyone confirm this?) With everything in such a big debate, I'm almost just ready to buy some WD RE3 drives that are meant for RAID and call it a day. The 1TB are currently $160 shipped from NewEgg, but I haven't looked around to compare prices. I have some 320GB WD RE drives that are probably 4 years old now and have been on, spinning, and been accessed nearly the entire length of their life. The RE series has earned my respect and possibly my money.

 

[Blain]

For a RAID 5 array, use 3 or 4 WD 1TB RE3 (RAID Edition) drives.

 

[jamesbond007]

Originally posted by: Blain
For a RAID 5 array, use 3 or 4 WD 1TB RE3 (RAID Edition) drives.

That's the obvious choice, but not always the most affordable. Black Edition 1TB drives can be had for about $60 less per unit. 4 units nets a savings of about $240! Of course, how much is your data worth?!?! :Q

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: jamesbond007

Originally posted by: Blain
For a RAID 5 array, use 3 or 4 WD 1TB RE3 (RAID Edition) drives.

That's the obvious choice, but not always the most affordable.

But the OP is using an 8 port RAID card in a file server.
Sounds like he's plenty serious about his data. :thumbsup:

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: jamesbond007
As jdjbuffalo said, the WD Green drives are not good for RAID, despite their cool and quiet performance and attractive price.

I've had four of the original WD Green drives (WD10EACS) running on an Areca 1100 card in two RAID 1 arrays for a year now without any issues or warnings.

Those WD Green drives were certified by 3Ware, the maker of the first RAID card (9550SXU-8LP) I tried. But that card wouldn't work in the Dell server (BIOS conflicts). So I had to switch RAID controllers to the Areca and the WD drives weren't on the "approved list" for the second controller.

 

[jamesbond007]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
I've had four of the original WD Green drives (WD10EACS) running on an Areca 1100 card in two RAID 1 arrays for a year now without any issues or warnings.

Those WD Green drives were certified by 3Ware, the maker of the first RAID card (9550SXU-8LP) I tried. But that card wouldn't work in the Dell server (BIOS conflicts). So I had to switch RAID controllers to the Areca and the WD drives weren't on the "approved list" for the second controller.

Consider yourself fortunate! From my friends' experiences and of others I've read online (NAS forums and such) they have been troublesome for many due to the heads/arms powering down too frequently. What are your power management settings like?

 

[spc hink]

I decided to just stick with the Seagate 1.5's. None of the data is critical and I am more concerned with space. I have a slight feeling that this will end terribly but I am not sure that the premium paid for raid edition drives are worth it. Thanks for the input!

 

[fleshconsumed]

Ehmmmm, you're doing RAID5, meaning your RAID can only handle a single drive failure. You already had two drives fail within a single day, so yes, you're absolutely right, this will end terribly. Get more reliable hard drives, or make RAID6 instead of RAID5.

BTW, I'm using WD10EACS green drives, had to set TLER to 7 seconds to make sure drives aren't being dropped from RAID, and they've been working fine for 8 (I'm guessing) months now. If I were to make new RAID, I'd go with WD again, 1.5TB or 2TB drives.

 

[kextyn]

I agree with those suggesting WD RE drives. I have been running RAID5 with RE2 drives for 2 years now. I started with 5 drives and ended up getting a couple Hitachi drives from someone and added those to my array sometime last year(I use Linux software RAID.) Just last month I had one of the RE2 drives go down but after running some diagnostics on it the drive itself appears to be fine so I added it back to the array. But I also ordered 2 RE3 drives to replace the Hitachis (or the RE2 if it was toast) when this happened. I'm now running 5 RE2s and 2 RE3s in RAID5 with a Hitachi as a spare and have no issues. Never in the past 2 years have I lost any data from the array.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: spc hink
I decided to just stick with the Seagate 1.5's. None of the data is critical and I am more concerned with space.

I have a slight feeling that this will end terribly but I am not sure that the premium paid for raid edition drives are worth it.

I'm sure we'll find out in one of your future threads. :roll:

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: Blain

Originally posted by: spc hink
I decided to just stick with the Seagate 1.5's. None of the data is critical and I am more concerned with space.

I have a slight feeling that this will end terribly but I am not sure that the premium paid for raid edition drives are worth it.

I'm sure we'll find out in one of your future threads. :roll:

LOL. Wow. How can you have a slight feeling that it will end terribly, yet completely ignore it? Even if the data is non-critical, if it's running in RAID 5, it's worth getting drives that are a) meant for running in RAID, and b) not known to have issues in the first place--just for the sake of not having to deal with the headache of redoing the array later.

Somehow reminds me of the "I just spent $2500 on hardware--what's the cheapest PSU I can get to power it all?" threads.

 

[Emulex]

even the cheetah.es/ns and re3/re4 have their failure rates.

there are reasons why sas drives do not attempt to reach those levels of density per platter. it's not going to give you that reliability.

use raid-10 at least you wont spend a day trying to rebuild (exposing yourself to huge time for another failure).