Bought the Qnap TS-451 - Which Drives?

[Jaybo]

So, I got this to replace my old Windows Home Server V1 box. Looking to get 2 or 3 tb drives. Box will be used for backup for 5 computer, serve files for our small business both locally and a remote employee as well. I got the old WHS box because it was simple, cheap and would serve as a backup machine (which is really all we used it for) but now we want a little more.

I keep reading about the WD Reds failing, Seagate NAS failing, etc so I don't know what to get. Hoping to keep it close to around $100 drive but could spend more. I saw 2TB WD Enterprise drives for $125 when I was looking around but saw issues in hte reviews with them too.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Insults? heh.. All are welcome...

Jay

 

[Trexx]

I have been very pleased with Hitachi's Deskstar NAS drives. Backblaze has rated Hitachi one the best vendors in their real-world failure rates. https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/

I went with the 3TB version for my TS-453. For NAS certified drives, you are going to pay a little more per drive. Newegg has the 3TB drives at $134 right now http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...2145911&cm_re=hgst_3tb-_-22-145-911-_-Product

 

[L&LD]

I second the Hitachi drives and also vote for the WD Red; both, 3TB versions. But the Hitachi's, I would pay more for.

Don't worry about the negative reviews - not many go back to post something positive.

 

[stevech]

I bought 2x WD red 3TB at a good price recently. Replaced 2x 2TB.

 

[htismaqe]

The Deskstar drives have served me quite well.

 

[sfx2000]

Limited experience - the Seagate NAS drives seem to be decent enough... we'll see how they perform over the long term....

 

[Hallux]

Keep away from Seagate drives, check QNAP forums, lots of issues with those drives. I am currently using WD Red in my TS-453, no problems so far, also read a lot of positive reviews about Hitachis.

 

[L&LD]

Seagate drives effectively do not exist for me. At least not as possible purchase options.

Low reliability and performance especially compared to Hitachi models.

 

[stevech]

I think WD, Seagate, et al have good ones, and lemons - in terms of design, not fab. Can't just go by brand name.
Didn't WD acquire Hitachi storage solution recently?

 

[L&LD]

I think WD, Seagate, et al have good ones, and lemons - in terms of design, not fab. Can't just go by brand name.
Didn't WD acquire Hitachi storage solution recently?

In Seagate's case, the brand name is enough to want to shun it.

WD has acquired HGST, but 'recent' is relative (it was back in March 2011).

http://www.zdnet.com/article/wester...storage-unit-for-4-3-billion-eyes-enterprise/

 

[sfx2000]

HGST is being run as a separate company from WD - as part of the purchase, the Chinese gov't put a restriction on things there...

FWIW - QNAP is shipping Seagates in certain SKU's that have drives bundled with the NAS...

 

[sfx2000]

I think WD, Seagate, et al have good ones, and lemons - in terms of design, not fab. Can't just go by brand name.
Didn't WD acquire Hitachi storage solution recently?

The Seagate 3TB issue was a firmware bug having to do with the spinup (and head unpark) counter - it would roll over, and put the drive at a very high risk of unparking the heads before the platters were fully spun up - resulting in a head crash, which is catastrophic to say the least..

 

[htismaqe]

I've had horrible luck with Seagate 1TB drives. The 160GB and 320GB drives are great but I've had a few 1TB failures, including 2 identical drives, manufactured at nearly the same time that failed at the same time in nearly the exact same way.

 

[stevech]

I too used to shun Seagate. Long ago. In favor of WD.
In today's market, it's hard to know who made what, under the brand name sticker.
Disks are commodity. Just like "who made your refrigerator?"

 

[htismaqe]

For me, the biggest thing is making sure I'm buying a NEW drive. With the rise of eBay, Amazon and Newegg, you have to be extremely careful that if you're buying open box or OEM that it's not actually used.

 

[Jaybo]

OK, I appreciate all of the feedback that you all have given me. HGST 3TB is on my list now in addition to the WD 3TB drive. A little concerned about the latter from quite a few reports of bad drives. I know PO'd people are a lot more apt to comment about a bad experience than a happy person with no issues though...

So much information out there now...

Thanks!

 

[sfx2000]

I've had horrible luck with Seagate 1TB drives. The 160GB and 320GB drives are great but I've had a few 1TB failures, including 2 identical drives, manufactured at nearly the same time that failed at the same time in nearly the exact same way.

Yep, I remember - and I had a bad run of 1TB spinners from Seagate as well... my run of bad seagates was due to a thermal incident where they did get extremely hot - lose a chiller in a data center, and temps go up really quick inside enclosures...

Disks fail - doesn't mean it's endemic to the vendor - I just replaced 2 500GB 7200 RPM 2.5" HGST drives after 4 years - matched set, and one was reporting SMART failure, and the other was reporting a predictive SMART failure - does that mean I shouldn't ever use HGST again - the drives I replaced them with was another drive (newer model obviously) along with a 128GB SSD for System/Apps...

 

[sfx2000]

I keep reading about the WD Reds failing, Seagate NAS failing, etc so I don't know what to get. Hoping to keep it close to around $100 drive but could spend more. I saw 2TB WD Enterprise drives for $125 when I was looking around but saw issues in hte reviews with them too.

One other consideration - the hardest thing on a Spinning Disk is the Spinup/Spindown - depending on how you intend to use the NAS, you might consider just letting the drives spin constantly...

I don't spin my drives down in my 453Pro - I've got a VM running (Debian 8) that handles a mysql DB server, along with a git repository and a LAMP stack running DokuWiki and Wordpress - I run those on the VM rather than try to do it on QTS...

 

[RMerlin]

Disks fail - doesn't mean it's endemic to the vendor

My own personal experience, as well as those types of stats seem to indicate the contrary.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-update-september-2014/

Quality varies a lot between vendors.

 

[RMerlin]

One other consideration - the hardest thing on a Spinning Disk is the Spinup/Spindown - depending on how you intend to use the NAS, you might consider just letting the drives spin constantly...

Now that you mention it, that might be another argument in favor of using a 5200 or 5400 RPM HDD in a NAS rather than 7200 (beside the obvious heat/power aspect).

Would be interesting comparing the typical life expectancy of a WD Red vs WD Red Pro (5x00 vs 7200 rpm).

Spinup/spindown should ideally be limited to once per day, IMHO. If you can spindown for 8-10 hours at night, and spin up once for the entire day, then it's worth it. If you end up spinning down 6-10 times a day, you are going to have to pay for a new HDD much sooner, which totally offsets whatever power saving you might have managed