HDD suggestions for NAS

fabre · Post by **fabre** » Sat Sep 04, 2010 2:29 pm

What's a good drive for a NAS?

I need a HDD that preferably runs pretty cool and doesn't use too much power.
500GB+ 5400 or 7200 doesn't matter.

I currently have a single Hitach P7K500 in my DNS-323 but I would like to run 2 drives in Raid 1, and since the P7K500 can't be bought anymore.

Abula · Post by **Abula** » Sat Sep 04, 2010 3:30 pm

SAMSUNG HD502HI 500GB is a good drive for low power/rpm/noise, but its hard to find, i manage to snag 2 couple of months back for $38, one is on my DVR recorder no noise that i can hear.

I hear good things about the SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ, but never really tried one to know. Also Samsung released their F4, SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD322GJ/U 500GB and SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD204UI 2TB.

Das_Saunamies · Post by **Das_Saunamies** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 1:29 am

Happy owner of a WD Green 1 TB EARS here, would gladly put one in my NAS as well if the 1.5 TB in there ever needed replacement.

fabre · Post by **fabre** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 5:33 pm

Das_Saunamies wrote:Happy owner of a WD Green 1 TB EARS here, would gladly put one in my NAS as well if the 1.5 TB in there ever needed replacement.

Sadly they apparently are not supported for NAS RAID usage.

ShareCenter Users,

We regret to inform you that we can not support Western Digitalâ€™s new Desktop disk drives with Advanced Formatting Technology for use in our ShareCenter NAS devices.

WD does not recommend (and will not support) the use ANY of their Desktop disk drives in NAS devices, including their new drives with the Advanced Formatting Technology. WD has no intention of rectifying this issue for NAS support.

According to WD, even if we were to solve the issues caused by their Advanced Formatting Technology in the standard mode, these drives may still cause problems when used in RAID configurations (especially with RAID 5).

This issue is not unique to D-Link nor the ShareCenter product line but rather relates to WDâ€™s strategy moving forward.

WD will only guarantee the compatibility of their Enterprise disk drives with NAS devices, as they are not integrated with their Advanced Formatting Technology.

As a result, we will NOT support the use of any WD disk drive with Advanced Formatting Technology.

Thank you for your understanding. Please do not hesitate to contact our team directly with any questions or concerns.

Source

Das_Saunamies · Post by **Das_Saunamies** » Mon Sep 06, 2010 7:46 am

D'aww, WD are being a tad cunts about it aren't they. HAIL THE ALMIGHTY BUCK.

Thanks for the info though, this is good to know for future reference.

fabre · Post by **fabre** » Thu Sep 09, 2010 3:53 am

One my local shops had the Samsung Spinpoint F2 Ecogreen 1.5TB HD154UI on sale for CAD 75, bought 2 of them.

faugusztin · Post by **faugusztin** » Thu Sep 09, 2010 4:23 am

Das_Saunamies wrote:D'aww, WD are being a tad cunts about it aren't they. HAIL THE ALMIGHTY BUCK.

Thanks for the info though, this is good to know for future reference.

No, they aren't. You must understand few things :
1) RAID drives demand that if a problem occurs, drive shouldn't try to repair, and return the error to the controller in seconds. This is called TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery).
2) desktop drives on other side need the best recovery possible, that means sometimes drive will try to read a block of data for tens of seconds, or minutes if needed.

This is the major difference between RAID and desktop drives, this is why WD has Raid Edition drives, and this is why desktop drives are not recommended for RAID by WDC. That doesn't mean they can't be used, it's just the fact that error recovery mode is not good for RAID. This is true for all desktop drives, unless their TLER setting can be changed.

The 4k block issue is a different thing, but i'm unsure how it can affect anything if you use the XP fix jumper and a block size above 4k.

Das_Saunamies · Post by **Das_Saunamies** » Thu Sep 09, 2010 6:44 am

faugusztin wrote:
Das_Saunamies wrote:D'aww, WD are being a tad cunts about it aren't they. HAIL THE ALMIGHTY BUCK.

Thanks for the info though, this is good to know for future reference.
No, they aren't. You must understand few things :
1) RAID drives demand that if a problem occurs, drive shouldn't try to repair, and return the error to the controller in seconds. This is called TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery).
2) desktop drives on other side need the best recovery possible, that means sometimes drive will try to read a block of data for tens of seconds, or minutes if needed.

This is the major difference between RAID and desktop drives, this is why WD has Raid Edition drives, and this is why desktop drives are not recommended for RAID by WDC. That doesn't mean they can't be used, it's just the fact that error recovery mode is not good for RAID. This is true for all desktop drives, unless their TLER setting can be changed.

The 4k block issue is a different thing, but i'm unsure how it can affect anything if you use the XP fix jumper and a block size above 4k.

Thank you for the precise and concise explanation as to WHY this is.

faugusztin · Post by **faugusztin** » Thu Sep 09, 2010 8:39 am

The point is - until hardware error (bad block) occurs, there is no difference between desktop drive, RAID drive and streaming drive. The difference shows at the moment of drive error - desktop drives try to recover for as long as needed, RAID edition drives give up after few seconds, streaming drives doesn't try to repair anything.

In case of Western Digital, it's easy to spot in which category drive is (in case of 3,5" drives) :
1) if the code at the end contains YS, it's a Raid Edition drive (YS, ABYS, AAYS etc)
2) if the code at the end contains V, it's a streaming (AV) drive (EVDS, AVJS)
3) if it's anything else, it's a desktop drive (Black, Blue or Green)

The reason why do you need TLER for RAID is the RAID controller - if you have a desktop drive in RAID and it takes long time to recover from problematic read, then it drops the drive out of the RAID array and you end up with the degraded array.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-Limit ... r_Recovery