Average NAS disk age?

[eightiescalling]

This article got me wondering about people's experience with drive ages in their NAS systems.

Personally I've been lucky with many years and no failures but know others with the opposite experience. While power on hours is a useful indicator 3 years is a tad low and missing the hit of other contributors (writes, spin up/spin down etc).

Must admit, I also hadn't realise the previous CMR/SMR debacle had resulted in a class action suit against WD.

How long to NAS owners here consider old for a disk?

 

[Tech9]

I replace NAS drives when I need larger capacity. Home use is different than datacenter where head actuators jump like crazy during entire service life. My drives are spinning, but with 90% of the time heads parked, 2x WD White (in fact Hitachi Ultrastar) about 1.5 years old. NVR drives are also not very stressed with sequential writes, 2x WD Purple (in fact Green with different firmware) >4 years old already. I remember only one failed HDD at home. There is some luck involved. My wife's PC has one WD Green >6 years old, but again used for storage. I actually have more failed SSDs than HDDs.

 

[bbunge]

This article got me wondering about people's experience with drive ages in their NAS systems.

Personally I've been lucky with many years and no failures but know others with the opposite experience. While power on hours is a useful indicator 3 years is a tad low and missing the hit of other contributors (writes, spin up/spin down etc).

Must admit, I also hadn't realise the previous CMR/SMR debacle had resulted in a class action suit against WD.

How long to NAS owners here consider old for a disk?

How old? When you get a real indication that the drive has or is failing. Since owning my two NAS I have had one drive report an unrecoverable error after three years of operation (not spin up time). Interesting that I have formatted the "failed" drive with EXT4 and use it in a test PC.
As for WD Green drives, I have on that is eleven years old in a USB3 case and still working!

I had read that article and while I really do not like, or trust, Seagate products I may have to give their NAS rated drives a try someday when another WD Red Pro fails. Of course at my age the WD's may outlive me!

 

[Tech9]

Of course at my age the WD's may outlive me!

Come on...

 

[sfx2000]

This article got me wondering about people's experience with drive ages in their NAS systems.

Personally I've been lucky with many years and no failures but know others with the opposite experience. While power on hours is a useful indicator 3 years is a tad low and missing the hit of other contributors (writes, spin up/spin down etc).

Must admit, I also hadn't realise the previous CMR/SMR debacle had resulted in a class action suit against WD.

How long to NAS owners here consider old for a disk?

Spinning up/down is the riskiest thing for an HDD and a head crash - if you keep them spinning, they'll run pretty much forever...

Power on hours are useless stats to determine drive health...

The WD thing - it's particularly nasty, as once the drive is marked with "WARNING" - you are stuck if a drive in the array dies, as you will not be able to rebuild the NAS array at the point without replacing all the drives that are in that state.

WD is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory here - the SMR mess is one thing for the NAS community, and they kind of started recovering there...

Not to pile on - there's still the SanDisk external NMVE-USB3 SSD issue with certain devices...

SanDisk Extreme SSDs keep abruptly failing—firmware fix for only some promised

Ars saw two 2TB units become unreadable, but SanDisk only confirms 4TB troubles.

arstechnica.com

I'm sure there's a couple of product owners inside WD that are now having another bad day...

 

[eightiescalling]

Interesting to see the comments on WD Green lifespan - I had some of them a while back for a few years. Rebuilt the array to increase size, scrubbed them and sold them and last I heard they're still going strong.

I wonder how many people may be pushed away from WD drives by this - forcing a replacement of what's felt to be a good drive isn't going to encourage new WD purchases. (Or perhaps we're back to the tolerance you mentioned elsewhere @Tech9)

@bbunge I know the history of Seagates but their Ironwolf line seems to work well so far. No issues over years including the time of the SMR debacle and multiple WD failures in other systems I help with. YMMV

 

[bbunge]

Interesting to see the comments on WD Green lifespan - I had some of them a while back for a few years. Rebuilt the array to increase size, scrubbed them and sold them and last I heard they're still going strong.

I wonder how many people may be pushed away from WD drives by this - forcing a replacement of what's felt to be a good drive isn't going to encourage new WD purchases. (Or perhaps we're back to the tolerance you mentioned elsewhere @Tech9)

@bbunge I know the history of Seagates but their Ironwolf line seems to work well so far. No issues over years including the time of the SMR debacle and multiple WD failures in other systems I help with. YMMV

I am beginning to suspect the quality of WD Red Pro drives. I buy them in pairs for my NASes and always one drive runs hotter than the other. Switch slots in the NAS and the drive temps do not change. I questioned WD support and I got stupid answers. Will have to see if the warmer drive fails first!

 

[Tech9]

WD was playing some tricks with drives marketing not long ago. Almost all drives they manufacture have the same mechanics, but different firmware. Sometimes software changes in firmware make 2x price difference. Sometimes much more expensive drives on the market are sold as cheap ones to fill the manufacturing gaps. Drives like this even report wrong specs - firmware play again. My current WD80EDAZ drives were marketed as 5400-class drives, but they are rebadged HGST Ultrastar DC HC300-series - 7200rpm Data Center drives. The same drive could be purchased for price X in specific BestBuy products and for price 2X from a computer store. In my case I've got 2 for the price of 1. The question - what's the real price of the drive? The answer - it's much lower than X, but the final price depends on how the drive is marketed, where it is sold and what warranty is offered. If they can get more for the same product - profit. How long it is going to last? Perhaps the same as other similar drives used in similar conditions.

 

[sfx2000]

My current WD80EDAZ drives were marketed as 5400-class drives, but they are rebadged HGST Ultrastar DC HC300-series - 7200rpm Data Center drives.

Quick question there - were those USB externals that got shucked?

I've seen this before with external drives - it's a bit of a lottery there, as with the externals, there is a minimum, but yes, I've seen "upgrades" with similar results on Seagate - you open it up expecting a 5400RPM SMR drive like an Archive, and surprise - it's an Exos...

As explained to me from someone in the industry, externals are a way to move imbalanced inventory forecasts and still get drives out the door rather than having to hold on to stock - the drives are fine, e.g. not seconds that failed QA...

 

[L&LD]

WD Red Pro drives are just pricier versions of WD Red Plus drives. Not worth buying. Most study cases show the Red Plus drives last longer and cost much less too.

 

[avtella]

Spinning up/down is the riskiest thing for an HDD and a head crash - if you keep them spinning, they'll run pretty much forever...

Power on hours are useless stats to determine drive health...

The WD thing - it's particularly nasty, as once the drive is marked with "WARNING" - you are stuck if a drive in the array dies, as you will not be able to rebuild the NAS array at the point without replacing all the drives that are in that state.

WD is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory here - the SMR mess is one thing for the NAS community, and they kind of started recovering there...

Not to pile on - there's still the SanDisk external NMVE-USB3 SSD issue with certain devices...

SanDisk Extreme SSDs keep abruptly failing—firmware fix for only some promised

Ars saw two 2TB units become unreadable, but SanDisk only confirms 4TB troubles.

arstechnica.com

I'm sure there's a couple of product owners inside WD that are now having another bad day...

Not only the SMR/CMR stuff but the 7200/5400 RPM mess. They sold drives as "5400 RPM Class" that were 7200 RPM. You got the "best" of both worlds the heat/power draw of the 7200 RPM drive and the lower performance of a 5400 RPM model lol.

Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”

Well those measurements of rotational speed are just, like, your opinion, man…

arstechnica.com

If I recall HGST had some of the lowest failure rates, owned by WD now. Toshiba wasn't to bad either. Seagate on the other hand significantly cut back end testing from what my father told me when he consulted there many years back, he said it was a terrible idea, apparently they figured lowered costs would makeup for higher in field failures, but I guess they didn't take into account long term reputation.

I would carefully look/compare data sheets OP when buying drives.

 

[Tech9]

Quick question there - were those USB externals that got shucked?

Yes, WD EasyStore external drives. They are common source of cheap NAS drives. When they get on sale many DIY people watch the feedback or just buy and return. No need to turn the drive on - flash light, large enough vents, the drive inside is visible. The ones with data center drives inside disappear fast. Everyone knows what's going on and usually orders are limited to 2 per customer.

You got the "best" of both worlds the heat/power draw of the 7200 RPM drive and the lower performance of a 5400 RPM model lol.

You get the full performance. I've seen WD drives with a sticker on top of original HGST. The heat is there. Data center drives run hot with no cooling. When you see complaints about EasyStore or MyBook running hot - HGST 7.2k drive inside. They heat up to 70C inside the plastic case. 220MB/sec and up transfer speeds though depending on the model. When I got 8TB for $135 (one year warranty) the local computer store was selling the same for $260 (five years warranty). I believe they were marketed as WD Gold or something, BS marketing.

 

[avtella]

Seeing as the performance of the WD Red 8TB 7200 RPM drive is close to that of Seagate’s 5400 RPM drive, but with much higher power draw going by the data sheet clips in the article, I assume they must have been rebadging older less efficient models or some sort of firmware gimps.

 

[Tech9]

Similar performance between 5400/7200rpm drives means 5400rpm drive is perhaps newer model with higher density platters. I had one WD Green 5400rpm faster than WD Black 7200rpm for the same reason.