Hello, I’m relatively new to self-hosting and recently started using Unraid, which I find fantastic! I’m now considering upgrading my storage capacity by purchasing either an 8TB or 10TB hard drive. I’m exploring both new and used options to find the best deal. However, I’ve noticed that prices vary based on the specific category of hard drive (e.g., Seagate’s IronWolf for NAS or Firecuda for gaming). I’m unsure about the significance of these different categories. Would using a gaming or surveillance hard drive impact the performance of my NAS setup?
As you are looking for bulk data storage, the drive’s speed isn’t of too much concern. A 5400RPM drive is plenty.
If you are looking to put this drive into an array with other drives, make sure you get a CMR drive as SMR drives can drop out of arrays due to controllers finding them unresponsive. If a drive does not list it is CMR, it’s best to assume it isn’t. Seagate has a handy CMR chart, for example.
Additionally, if there are multiple spinning drives in the same enclosure, getting drives with vibration resistance is a good bonus. Most drives listed for NAS use will have this extra vibration resistance.
Is this for hardware RAID controllers, or have you experience software RAID like LVM or ZFS exhibiting the same drop out behavior? I personally haven’t but it be nice to look out for future drives.
I have not personally experienced a dropout with a SMR drive. That is from the reporting I saw when WD was shipping out SMR drives in their Red (NAS) lineup and people were having all kinds of issues with them. According to the article (below), it sounds like ZFS has the worst time with them. WD also lost a class action suit over marketing these as NAS drives, while failing to disclose they were SMR drives (which don’t work well in a NAS).
We want to be very clear: we agree with Seagate’s Greg Belloni, who stated on the company’s behalf that they “do not recommend SMR for NAS applications.” At absolute best, SMR disks underperform significantly in comparison to CMR disks; at their worst, they can fall flat on their face so badly that they may be mistakenly detected as failed hardware. Source
I remember this - I had just bought my second drive for my nas (raid1, original drive cmr), and it was performing like shit. The next day, news broke about this bullshit and a couple days later, the suit was started. I was fucking pissed, the drives were still having trouble, with terabytes of irreplaceable data at risk while the two drives struggled to mirror. I got in contact with wd and after some back and forth bullshit, I straight-up threatened to join the class and blacklist wd for all my personal, family/friends, and client’s builds, if they didn’t rma the drive immediately and send me a cmr replacement. I’ve been 100% wd for over 20 years, and I have decent reach as to what I recommend and buy for people.
They sent me a cmr drive via express shipping. I continue to buy wd drives (two more disks in that machine, an external backup, an internal desktop pcie raid0 nvme+card, an internal backup drive for my desktop, a backup ssd for one of my laptops…), but with much more scrutiny. I did not join the class, but it’s still a black mark in my book. I’ve been thinking about giving Toshiba a whirl, their drive reviews look good. Maybe next upgrade…
I got what I wanted (a proper cmr drive of the same capacity and speed) and I wasn’t terribly interested in like $8 that would show up a year later. I just wanted to have my data safe on the correct hardware, and for cs to recognize and remedy the issue.
Now if the array had failed and I’d lost data (which from what I’ve read, I was very lucky to not have that happen), absolutely. But I was just angry from being bait-and-switched, and I’m ‘old school’ where loyalty still means something. That’s the only time I’ve had issues with wd; I’ve had drives fail, and there has been no argument, no question, and it’s pretty rare/special circumstances (1kW psu went kaboom, for example). I value cs that just helps the customer, not grilling them for every detail to weasel out of a claim. So yeah they burned some goodwill, but I still have dropped ~2k on drives since then.
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As you are looking for bulk data storage, the drive’s speed isn’t of too much concern. A 5400RPM drive is plenty.
If you are looking to put this drive into an array with other drives, make sure you get a CMR drive as SMR drives can drop out of arrays due to controllers finding them unresponsive. If a drive does not list it is CMR, it’s best to assume it isn’t. Seagate has a handy CMR chart, for example.
Additionally, if there are multiple spinning drives in the same enclosure, getting drives with vibration resistance is a good bonus. Most drives listed for NAS use will have this extra vibration resistance.
Is this for hardware RAID controllers, or have you experience software RAID like LVM or ZFS exhibiting the same drop out behavior? I personally haven’t but it be nice to look out for future drives.
I have not personally experienced a dropout with a SMR drive. That is from the reporting I saw when WD was shipping out SMR drives in their Red (NAS) lineup and people were having all kinds of issues with them. According to the article (below), it sounds like ZFS has the worst time with them. WD also lost a class action suit over marketing these as NAS drives, while failing to disclose they were SMR drives (which don’t work well in a NAS).
I remember this - I had just bought my second drive for my nas (raid1, original drive cmr), and it was performing like shit. The next day, news broke about this bullshit and a couple days later, the suit was started. I was fucking pissed, the drives were still having trouble, with terabytes of irreplaceable data at risk while the two drives struggled to mirror. I got in contact with wd and after some back and forth bullshit, I straight-up threatened to join the class and blacklist wd for all my personal, family/friends, and client’s builds, if they didn’t rma the drive immediately and send me a cmr replacement. I’ve been 100% wd for over 20 years, and I have decent reach as to what I recommend and buy for people.
They sent me a cmr drive via express shipping. I continue to buy wd drives (two more disks in that machine, an external backup, an internal desktop pcie raid0 nvme+card, an internal backup drive for my desktop, a backup ssd for one of my laptops…), but with much more scrutiny. I did not join the class, but it’s still a black mark in my book. I’ve been thinking about giving Toshiba a whirl, their drive reviews look good. Maybe next upgrade…
Purely for my edification, why didn’t you join the class action? It’s not like you weren’t affected or even that they had any redeeming behavior.
I got what I wanted (a proper cmr drive of the same capacity and speed) and I wasn’t terribly interested in like $8 that would show up a year later. I just wanted to have my data safe on the correct hardware, and for cs to recognize and remedy the issue.
Now if the array had failed and I’d lost data (which from what I’ve read, I was very lucky to not have that happen), absolutely. But I was just angry from being bait-and-switched, and I’m ‘old school’ where loyalty still means something. That’s the only time I’ve had issues with wd; I’ve had drives fail, and there has been no argument, no question, and it’s pretty rare/special circumstances (1kW psu went kaboom, for example). I value cs that just helps the customer, not grilling them for every detail to weasel out of a claim. So yeah they burned some goodwill, but I still have dropped ~2k on drives since then.
Right, I did hear about that lawsuit way back when, I just didn’t know of these types of consequences. Very appreciated, especially the sources.
Thanks for this, will read up and check out the links!