Fileserver HDD choices.

FartingBob · Post by **FartingBob** » Thu Aug 13, 2009 6:11 am

Ive been a fan of WD green drives ever since they first appeared. Indeed i still have 3 of the original 4 platter 1TB drives in use. But once again i am running out of space. Backing up my blu rays and all my TV series from DVD took my capacity from "upgrade around xmas" to "upgrade now!" status.
Order of importance: capacity (3TB+) > Price > number of drives > noise/power consumption per drive > most liberal use of green paint on box.

Im going to avoid seagate. Not budging on that issue.

My options are:
3x 1TB WD10EADS at around Â£60 each. My fileserver case only has 2 free bays so this option will require a 5.25-to-3.5" adapter. I may do this anyway to space the drives out for better airflow and temps.
2x 1.5TB WD15EADS at around Â£90 each.
2x 1.5TB F2 ecogreen's at around Â£78 each.
2x 2TB WD20EADS at around Â£155 each.

The 1TB WD's are proven quality and fairly cheap (are they all still 333GB platters or are they silently transitioning them to 2 platters yet?) but the 1.5TB are the same Â£/GB and all the benefits i'll get from having 1 less drive in the system. Ive heard some good things about the 1.5TB ecogreens but good reviews with reliable noise and power tests are fairly hard to find. The 2TB is still rather pricy, but 4TB in 2 bays would be very nice.

Really i suppose the best option is the 1.5TB's, but which ones?

Wibla · Post by **Wibla** » Thu Aug 13, 2009 10:33 am

I'd say the samsung F2's.. but thats just because i dont like WD much

You can get pretty decent 4in3 cages without hotswap from coolermaster, they're not overly expensive either, and with a 120mm fan they will keep the drives cool - especially if you choose 5400rpm drives like the F2 or GP...

FartingBob · Post by **FartingBob** » Thu Aug 13, 2009 1:36 pm

Wibla wrote:I'd say the samsung F2's.. but thats just because i dont like WD much

You can get pretty decent 4in3 cages without hotswap from coolermaster, they're not overly expensive either, and with a 120mm fan they will keep the drives cool - especially if you choose 5400rpm drives like the F2 or GP...

Ive been looking for a 4-in-3 to put the drives in the empty 5.25 bays but all the ones i found are pretty expensive for what they are, wouldnt cost much more to get a bigger case with more drive bays.

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Thu Aug 13, 2009 1:40 pm

I like WD drives, but that's a big enough price difference to go with the Samsung. You did rank price > noise, so it's kind of a no-brainer.

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 11:57 am

I love my WD15EADS. It's the coolest and quietest running HDD in my Windows Home Server, which includes two 500GB AACS drives. The 1.5TB is the new sweet spot for large capacity drives. 2TBs are too expensive for what you get, unless you are short on space for more drives.

FartingBob · Post by **FartingBob** » Sat Aug 15, 2009 1:42 pm

I found the WD15EADS for Â£78 so decided to go for that. A difference of Â£13 would have made me go for the samsungs but i now have a total of 7 WD drives, ~7.1TB of ones and zeroes.

Firetech · Post by **Firetech** » Sat Aug 15, 2009 1:59 pm

Likewise, I found the WD15EADS locally to be better $/Gb value than the WD10EADS and the WD20EADS to be just silly expensive.
I now have a WD10EACS, WD10EADS & WD15EADS in my WHS box.
The Samsung 1Tb I removed is going into the HTPC....

Wibla · Post by **Wibla** » Sat Aug 15, 2009 3:04 pm

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... r%204-in-3

Decent 4-in-3.. replace the fan for a nexus and you're set

FartingBob · Post by **FartingBob** » Sat Aug 15, 2009 3:52 pm

Wibla wrote:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... r%204-in-3

Decent 4-in-3.. replace the fan for a nexus and you're set

Damnit i just spent a tenner on a scythe 4-in-3 that doesnt have a fan attached!

Might get this one anyway, although it'll only have 2 drives in right now if i ever manage to fill it up things will get toasty in there and the scythe one has no easy way to improvise a fan on the front..
Thanks wilba.

Wibla · Post by **Wibla** » Sat Aug 15, 2009 6:59 pm

No worries

I have atleast 7 or 8 of the old skool 4-in-3 modules from coolermaster, without the fancy front stuff, just a fan mount and a wire guard, not giving any of those away, as theyre out of production now...

What kinda scythe 4in3 did you get? link please

FartingBob · Post by **FartingBob** » Sun Aug 16, 2009 1:37 am

I got this thing, but now ive ordered that coolermaster as well. Might see if i can return the Scythe.

Wibla · Post by **Wibla** » Sun Aug 16, 2009 2:53 am

Looks fancy, but I bet getting a fan on there would be a PITA...

check out my 3.7TB thread to see how my 4in3's looked after 2 years of runtime..

FartingBob · Post by **FartingBob** » Tue Aug 18, 2009 11:08 am

With the 2 new drives that takes the total up to 5. Combined with my 4 SATA ports we have a problem.

So Looks like this upgrade got a little more expensive. Need a cheap PCI-e card with 4 ports. Would only need RAID1 support, performance isnt really an issue. Any suggestions? cheaper the better really.

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Tue Aug 18, 2009 2:37 pm

I have a Syba SD-SATA-4P PCI-to-SATA adapter (4-port) based off the Sil3114 chipset. It comes configured as a RAID controller (0, 1, 0+1), but the BIOS can be updated to perform as a simple SATA controller if using with WHS (RAID is not supported with this OS). It's only $30 at Newegg.

Fileserver HDD choices.

Fileserver HDD choices.

WD15EADS = $/GB value