Hard Drives for DAS

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
K

KingKazma

Reputable
Sep 15, 2015
50
1
4,540
Hello all,

I've been looking around for HDDs for a DAS. Initially I planned to go with WD Red Pros. However, after doing some research, and seeing the large variety of HDDs out there, I became unsure of my decision.

I was attracted to the Red Pro because of its 5 yr warranty. The drives need to be able to last , as they will be preforming several tasks and storing data 24x7 in normal circumstances. The biggest conflict I've encountered was that there seems to be a trade-off between durability and speed in the HDDs I've seen, two things I need for sure. Right now I'm on the fence between the WD Red Pro, WD Black, and the WD Re(and their Seagate counterparts).

What type of HDD should i go with? I need speed and durability for years to come.

Thanks in advance,

KingK
 
Solution
nukemaster
I would guess they made it to function on QNAP units, but I can not find any proof to back it up. I would guess if it could be used on normal systems some users would have tried it.
Sort by date Sort by votes
nukemaster

nukemaster

Titan
Nov 23, 2004
19,626
6
74,965
Blacks are faster than Reds.

I have never used the RE(too loud/fast/power consuming for my general storage needs). I would guess they are a good solid performance drive and the price seems reasonable.

No matter what you get, ALWAYS have a backup.

I used a red for network storage for a while and it is still going(a bit over 4 years). I have 2 seagate nas drives(the slow 5400 rpm ones), but they have not even passed the 1.5 year mark yet. I have had 4 blacks(one did start to fail years back, but nothing was lost). The last was a 2TB that is not used these days(went SSDs and slower storage drives on the network).

Truth be told, I have always had fairly good luck with hard drives.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
K

KingKazma

Reputable
Sep 15, 2015
50
1
4,540


Did you just say that the Re's are too fast? :lol: Half of the drives I put in the DAS will be serving as backup, and then I will have another backup separate from that as well. I know Blacks are faster than Reds, Blacks are also cheaper. My issue was that I didn't want to sacrifice too much durability for just speed. If the Re's need more power and happen to be louder, that's a price I'm willing to pay for a high increase in performance and durability. But is that the case for the Re's guess I'll have to do more research.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
nukemaster

nukemaster

Titan
Nov 23, 2004
19,626
6
74,965
My storage needs just do not need the extra speed(think compressed video/lossless and compressed audio and images) of the REs :p . It is also limited by the fact that it is all access over 1 gigabit lan.

I do not expect the RE to be much louder than the Blacks. they have the same spindle speed. They are about the toughest performance drives you can get(because of the intended use). Do note the reds and REs do have TLER. This means the drive will spend less time attempting to correct and error. This is good for raid volumes since the controller would get sick of waiting and drop the drive. Instead the controller will correct the error(all but raid0 can correct some types of errors).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
K

KingKazma

Reputable
Sep 15, 2015
50
1
4,540
I just dug a bit deeper and found the WD Gold. It seems to be the newest "Datacenter" HDD by WD and is likely to phase out the Re. It has pretty much all of the same features, even seems it consumes less power which is always a plus hehe. Maybe that will force my hand since after all the WD Re doesn't come in my desired capacity of 8TB.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
nukemaster

nukemaster

Titan
Nov 23, 2004
19,626
6
74,965
Yeah the RE maxed at 4TB

At the 8TB size, they have that shiny new helium filled(reds have it too as far as I know at this capacity) thing going on :) . Less restriction means less power(at least somewhat).

If you are looking large capacity, just note that Seagates(since you mentioned that you may consider them as well in the first post) larger drives do away with the center mounting hole(must need the space to give the platters room or something). This can cause issues on some enclosures/nas units.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
drtweak

drtweak

Illustrious
Sep 17, 2012
6,342
75
38,640
If you aren't going to do RAID and you need the speed I would say go with the Blacks. I have 8 2TB Red's (Not the Pros though as half are standalone and the other half are RAID 0 and yes I have backups) and I have yet to have an issue. My First Red I bought is about 3 years old and no issues. I have a think about not buying bigger than 2TB for a while as I have seen too many drivers over 2TB die to easily. For the backups I usually get the WD Blues only because they may run once a month or so (Video archiving mostly) and all my important stuff I have portable attached along with Cloud Backup.

Since it is a DAS are you using a Dock or some kind of enclosure? It is USB or SATA? Honestly if its USB 3.0 it won't make a difference as both are faster than what a HDD can push out. My RAID 0 can push about 350MB. But that is from RAID to RAID. Wish I had a 10Gb NIC option.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
K

KingKazma

Reputable
Sep 15, 2015
50
1
4,540

I actually do plan on doing a RAID array(probably RAID 1), also planning to dedicate some drives for a daily backup(perhaps more often depending on the workload at times). After a bit of research, I am really liking the WD Gold. High performer, low fail rate, and nice and durable; price isn't that bad either. The DAS is a tabletop enclosure, I'm thinking about a Drobo DAS, but am open to suggestions. The connection point will either be USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt 3. I see your point about the bus speed being faster than the limits of the drive, so I guess that pushes durability and dependability above speed/performance in terms of priority. At present the 8TB WD Gold is looking like the winner for me. Also, I plan to stagger the purchase of my drives, as opposed to getting them all at once. This way it is less likely any of them will fail at the same time. However the WD Gold looks so promising that drives may never fail :lol:
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
nukemaster

nukemaster

Titan
Nov 23, 2004
19,626
6
74,965
I got 3 blacks back in the day for RAID0(no need for fault tolerance on Windows[no important files], just had them short stroked for better access times and a bit more speed since they would never go into the slower center area of the drive.). One failed years ago but those last 2 just keep on going(drives are so random).

I have no experience with Drobo, but I like the idea of automatic redundancy(2 or 3 drive failure as an option that just works without playing with raid levels) and migrating looks easy(pop out the smallest drive and replace it with a larger one).

I have a very inexpensive Synology unit(before that I was just using Windows 7. It was very versatile because it had better hardware). So far so good(it is only as old as my 2 x 4TB Seagate nas drives.). I do wish it had SSD caching because small file writes can be pretty slow.

I am kind of surprised we have now seen more users in here. I have only used a VERY small portion of the drives on the market.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
K

KingKazma

Reputable
Sep 15, 2015
50
1
4,540
Here is a question about a DAS, with a seemingly obvious answer, but I would just like to be sure. I saw a product by QNAP(UX-500P), it is advertised as an expansion unit for some of their NAS units. My question is, if this expansion unit can be used as a DAS if I plug it into my computer. Any thoughts?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
drtweak

drtweak

Illustrious
Sep 17, 2012
6,342
75
38,640


Not sure on that. It looks like all RAID functions are managed by the NAS though so unless you are ok with Software RAID then it may not work properly.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
K

KingKazma

Reputable
Sep 15, 2015
50
1
4,540
I asked on the Amazon product page, and it seems it works fine plugged in to a computer. It's just not marketed as such. Anyway thanks for the help you guys, If I could give you both "best answer" I would. The information I've gotten here has been most appetizing, I'll be sure to take everything in to account when making my final decisions.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom