Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Your question
Solved

Seagate BlackArmor 400 with WD NAS edition HDD?

Tags:
  • Hard Drives
  • Storage
  • Seagate
  • NAS / RAID
  • Western Digital
  • Compatibility
Last response: in Storage
Share
April 16, 2014 4:42:55 AM

Does anyone try to use western digital Red or SE or better RE series drives of 1TB or 2TB?

I am wondering if they are compatible. Until now I have install tow BARRACUDA LP 5900.1 2TB each but one die after 2 years only!!!… So I am thinking to replace them both with wd NAS edition drives. But before I spend 200€ for one drive, I would like to be sure that it would be compatible. Because with every dealer I had contact they would change it (in case of incompatibility) only if it will be shield…

Thank you in advanced for your replies.

More about : seagate blackarmor 400 nas edition hdd

a c 317 G Storage
April 16, 2014 12:26:05 PM

Well, it would be compatible. But that's a huge amount to spend to avoid a problem that should not be happening. Drives should last more than two years unless something is happening to them or you are the victim of two coincidences.

On the average, the NAS edition will last longer than the regular desktop. But on the average your drives will last longer than two years. Much longer.

My personal opinion is to get regular hard drives and back them up frequently to external drives. If something fails, go to the backup. Your failure rate is really unusual.
m
0
l
April 16, 2014 3:37:35 PM

Thank you very much WyomingKnott for your answer!

I know that HDDs should last way more than 2 years. But it isn’t the first time that a Seagate product “collapse” without a good reason for me. Actually it is the 3rd… Unlike WD. I have a 16GB HDD since 1998 and still working!!! But, because the down time for me is very painful (economically and as reliability factor), it is better for me to spend some more money and have a stable system for big periods of time. So I won’t settle with something under enterprise specifications. Have you tried it your self or any people that you know?

The main reason I am asking people that have tested this products with the blackarmor is that when I bought it I had a sealed Western Digital Caviar Blue and it literally destroyed in one month usage. Seagate's answer was that only theirs desktop class “eco” HDDs are compatible and Western Digital’s answer was that with this particular NAS compatibility is an issue because of the HDDs powering policies. But in bottom line for me both answers was "I don’t know buy our product"…


So please if someone has already try an WD RE or SE or RED edition to tell me if she/he had any issues and what capacity HDDs use.

Thank you very much!
m
0
l
Related resources
a c 317 G Storage
April 17, 2014 5:04:10 AM

Ahh, the key point here was "down time for me is very painful."

Congratulations, in all my years here you are the first person to whom I have suggested RAID or OS-level mirroring.

In addition to backups, not instead of them, you can have two identical copies of a disk in your system, both updated at the same time. If one fails, the other has the data and you keep chugging away, happy as a clam.

This can be done at the motherboard level, with a proprietary controller card, or having Windows mirror the drive. The first two choices are a little faster, IMO, because in the third one the OS is actually issuing two write commands and more data goes over the bus. That's my understanding, which may be totally wrong.

However, a pair of drives in OS mirroring is a LOT easier to keep using if the machine or controller card itself fails. Hardware-level RAID seems to have nonstandardized bits so that a RAID 1 pair from one controller may not be usable on another brand, or even another motherboard model.

Are you willing to look into RAID? The purpose of RAID1 is to improve uptime.
m
0
l
a b G Storage
April 17, 2014 7:15:30 AM

Unleashed82 said:
Thank you very much WyomingKnott for your answer!

I know that HDDs should last way more than 2 years. But it isn’t the first time that a Seagate product “collapse” without a good reason for me. Actually it is the 3rd… Unlike WD. I have a 16GB HDD since 1998 and still working!!! But, because the down time for me is very painful (economically and as reliability factor), it is better for me to spend some more money and have a stable system for big periods of time. So I won’t settle with something under enterprise specifications. Have you tried it your self or any people that you know?

The main reason I am asking people that have tested this products with the blackarmor is that when I bought it I had a sealed Western Digital Caviar Blue and it literally destroyed in one month usage. Seagate's answer was that only theirs desktop class “eco” HDDs are compatible and Western Digital’s answer was that with this particular NAS compatibility is an issue because of the HDDs powering policies. But in bottom line for me both answers was "I don’t know buy our product"…


So please if someone has already try an WD RE or SE or RED edition to tell me if she/he had any issues and what capacity HDDs use.

Thank you very much!


If uptime is of huge importance to you, why are you relying on a single drive. As WyomingKnott suggested, rather than concentrating on drive classification (RE vs SE vs RED), you should look into RAID. At a minimum, you should consider RAID1, which would remove the dependency on a single drive failure. Buying a more expensive, enterprise drive is no guarantee it will last longer than your current drive.
m
0
l
a b G Storage
April 17, 2014 10:21:56 AM

Nothing_But_NAS said:
Unleashed82 said:
Thank you very much WyomingKnott for your answer!

I know that HDDs should last way more than 2 years. But it isn’t the first time that a Seagate product “collapse” without a good reason for me. Actually it is the 3rd… Unlike WD. I have a 16GB HDD since 1998 and still working!!! But, because the down time for me is very painful (economically and as reliability factor), it is better for me to spend some more money and have a stable system for big periods of time. So I won’t settle with something under enterprise specifications. Have you tried it your self or any people that you know?

The main reason I am asking people that have tested this products with the blackarmor is that when I bought it I had a sealed Western Digital Caviar Blue and it literally destroyed in one month usage. Seagate's answer was that only theirs desktop class “eco” HDDs are compatible and Western Digital’s answer was that with this particular NAS compatibility is an issue because of the HDDs powering policies. But in bottom line for me both answers was "I don’t know buy our product"…


So please if someone has already try an WD RE or SE or RED edition to tell me if she/he had any issues and what capacity HDDs use.

Thank you very much!


If uptime is of huge importance to you, why are you relying on a single drive. As WyomingKnott suggested, rather than concentrating on drive classification (RE vs SE vs RED), you should look into RAID. At a minimum, you should consider RAID1, which would remove the dependency on a single drive failure. Buying a more expensive, enterprise drive is no guarantee it will last longer than your current drive.


Yes this is true, though NAs/Enterprise drives are 2 orders of magnitude less likely to fail a rebuild than consumer drives, so even in RAID1 you want to use them over consumer drives to maintain availability.
Unfortunately it is NOT uncommon for consumer drives used in a NAS environment to fail quickly. The failure rates in 2 years for consumer Seagate drives in this environment are north of %20 annually as reported by Backblaze.

I would suggest using RAID 1 with NAS/RED drives either Seagate or WD. Your main problem is the LP drives. Seagate NAS drives should be fine in RAID1.
m
0
l
a c 317 G Storage
April 17, 2014 12:33:54 PM

I don't think the OP is running in a NAS?
m
0
l
a b G Storage
April 17, 2014 2:55:37 PM

WyomingKnott said:
I don't think the OP is running in a NAS?


The title says he's using a Seagate BlackArmor NAS box.
m
0
l
April 18, 2014 4:18:42 AM

First off all a BIG THANK YOU to all for your replies and for your interest!!!

To make clear about my corporation’s build. It is a middle range technical advising and support. All in all as business equipment we have 3 Windows PCs, 1 MAC mini, 1 Windows laptop and 2 Android tablets. For all Windows OS devices we use the acronis true image to clone the windows partitions in weekly base (which by the way proved life saver) . For networking we use cisco’s equipment (modem, router, switches). For storage (in corporation and on the go internet base) we use a Black Armor 400 NAS with 4 discs of 2TB Seagate BARRACUDA LP (ST320005N4D1AS-RK) in RAID1 (which replace an ancient windows file server). Each disk contains one type of files. One for general files, One with customers Backups (we also create some user accounts for some of our customers to save their sensitive backups by themselves to our disk) , One with Programs and other tools e.t.c. and One to keep our backups (acronis isos, general files). Until now we backed up the general files and the customers Backups to external disks manualy.Both WESTERN DIGITAL 2TB (WD20EURX).

The Disk that crashes was the customers Backups. But to add a new drive to the NAS and rebuild the RAID requires time and in fact a lot of it. What I want to do is to replace all the NAS drives with western digital NAS edition HDDs and buy 4 more to make clones from the NAS itself so if something goes wrong to swap them.

The main concern is, as I previous mentioned, to be 100% sure about the hardware compatibility! I am actually looking for feedback kind of answer if someone uses Western Digital RED or SE or RE drives with this NAS and a comment if there were any problems so I would be prepared for them. For a small corporation like ours to buy 8 new HDDs 250$-350$ each is a big expense and even bigger if it doesn’t work…

I am sorry if in any point I wasn’t clear! Thank you!
m
0
l
a c 317 G Storage
April 18, 2014 9:50:27 AM

TyrOd said:
WyomingKnott said:
I don't think the OP is running in a NAS?


The title says he's using a Seagate BlackArmor NAS box.


Quite right. Thanks. I've been answering the wrong question.
m
0
l

Best solution

a b G Storage
April 18, 2014 9:58:51 AM

Unleashed82 said:
First off all a BIG THANK YOU to all for your replies and for your interest!!!

To make clear about my corporation’s build. It is a middle range technical advising and support. All in all as business equipment we have 3 Windows PCs, 1 MAC mini, 1 Windows laptop and 2 Android tablets. For all Windows OS devices we use the acronis true image to clone the windows partitions in weekly base (which by the way proved life saver) . For networking we use cisco’s equipment (modem, router, switches). For storage (in corporation and on the go internet base) we use a Black Armor 400 NAS with 4 discs of 2TB Seagate BARRACUDA LP (ST320005N4D1AS-RK) in RAID1 (which replace an ancient windows file server). Each disk contains one type of files. One for general files, One with customers Backups (we also create some user accounts for some of our customers to save their sensitive backups by themselves to our disk) , One with Programs and other tools e.t.c. and One to keep our backups (acronis isos, general files). Until now we backed up the general files and the customers Backups to external disks manualy.Both WESTERN DIGITAL 2TB (WD20EURX).

The Disk that crashes was the customers Backups. But to add a new drive to the NAS and rebuild the RAID requires time and in fact a lot of it. What I want to do is to replace all the NAS drives with western digital NAS edition HDDs and buy 4 more to make clones from the NAS itself so if something goes wrong to swap them.

The main concern is, as I previous mentioned, to be 100% sure about the hardware compatibility! I am actually looking for feedback kind of answer if someone uses Western Digital RED or SE or RE drives with this NAS and a comment if there were any problems so I would be prepared for them. For a small corporation like ours to buy 8 new HDDs 250$-350$ each is a big expense and even bigger if it doesn’t work…

I am sorry if in any point I wasn’t clear! Thank you!


Since it's the NAS that controls power states for the drives, using WD drives shouldn't have any impact on its behavior.
In general Seagate external drives and NAS devices tend to more aggressively alternate between spinning down/spinning up the drive, so they are built to tolerate fewer total hours of uptime and more power cycles.
The differences are going to be minor, but there shouldn't be compatibility issues.
Share
April 23, 2014 2:07:32 AM

Hello to all!

I bought 4 WD SE HDDs 2GB each and 4 extra for clone back up. For testing proposes I switch one of the internal HDDs with one of the clones and the NAS recognize it immediately and I didn’t face any problems with the raid. Until now (5 days) I didn’t face any hardware incompatibility. Only time will tell…

Thank you all for the informations and for your answers!
m
0
l
!