G+_Adrian Jezierski Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Loved the episode on FreeNAS, I've been using that distro for years. I actually prefer it to OpenFiler for use as an iSCSI SAN used for my VMware lab. The only thing that I might add, is that those WD-Red drives that were recommended on your show, aren't very reliable. Check out all the negative reviews on them over at newegg.com. As much as I like the intent of the those drives, I wouldn't use them in my personal server. Here is where I found some additional information that I think many of you will find interesting. Just sharing what I know.... http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/01/21/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ Posted February 2, 2014 Share Posted February 2, 2014 Yeah... that's what Patrick and I both said AFTER the episode... They're GREAT in an array because of the lower heat dissipation and power requirements, but I wouldn't use them in my desktop system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_John Mink Posted February 2, 2014 Share Posted February 2, 2014 Adrian Jezierski not really sure i'd agree with that sentiment. (Sorry in advance that this is so long!) Looking at the reviews on newegg, it seems like WD has a worse rating than Seagate! So these two numbers seem to conflict. Digging a little deeper it seems to make sense. The reviews are biased towards: 1) newer products failing, which WD seems to be the worst at. After all, you're not going to RANT about how your HDD failed 4 years later, maybe not even one t hat failed 6 months later. But you're sure going to get on newegg & complain about how the drive you JUST GOT failed. 1.5) This is compounded by the problem that WD seems to have sub-par phone support, which also motivates people to go complain. I have (in my experience, who knows if i'm just lucky) found their email/web support to be quite good. So, it seems to me that newegg ratings are biased towards people who are highly motivated (either to complain or because they're really happy) and may not be the best sample, as it's hard to determine how many people have these products and didn't bother reviewing that hing which works fine. 2) This is actually supported by that article, as WD seems to be slightly better than Hitachi over 3 years if they get past that first drop-off. Meaning, if your WD is going to last 3 months (maybe 1?) not really clear) than it's got a better chance of lasting 3 years. 3) as the article concludes, Seagates are actually better than WD due to initial falloff vs steady decrease. Seems to be the 6 month mark where things change. So if you swap drives out every 6 months, looks like seagate is the way to go! Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ when you say you'd avoid red drives in a desktop, is that just because the reds are a bit expensive compared to green? The red drives are actually cheaper than the black drives, but not as fast. So is it just the middle ground where you prefer one side or the other? I'm assuming there's nothing installed on these drives (that they're just storage), as any SSD would blow these out of the water speed-wise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Ben Tyger Posted February 2, 2014 Share Posted February 2, 2014 I think your choice of drives is very dependent on what you plan on doing with your SAN / NAS and what your external interface is. If your array only has USB2/3 or a single Gigabit Ethernet controller to interface with the rest of your network, WD Red / Greens just may be enough. If you are running VMs that need to run at a decent speed 7.2k RPM HDDs are considered the bare minimum. If you need higher performance storage with lots of space and are on a budget I would be looking at using hybrid HDD or Velociraptor drives. If you are looking for high performance and budget isn't an issue I'd look at 15k SAS HDDs or SSDs depending on what your storage amount requirements are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_John Mink Posted February 2, 2014 Share Posted February 2, 2014 Ben Tyger sounds about right except i'd never put a Green into a RAID! If you can't afford a Red, go with Black or Blue. Yes the Blacks run hot, but they don't fall asleep mid I/O like the Greens can! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Ben Tyger Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 John Mink Blacks running hot is not an issue if your enclosure / backplane has adequate cooling. Somehow I see a 15k SAS drive generating more heat than a 7.2k WD Black drive and SAS drives are used in enclosures all the time. ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_John Mink Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 Ben Tyger very true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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