Drives for RAID 5

[marknashe]

Happy Holidays to all.

I have a Qnap TS-459 Pro + to use at home and would like to set it up with RAID 5. I believe Qnap/Synology use software RAID, but according to Qnap's compatibility page, you shouldnt use WD Caviar Green drives for RAID 5. They have the same note listed to the Caviar Black drives.

What drives do you guys recommend? Drives are so expensive right now, it's ridiculous.

 

[Ubrales]

You are right about the prices!

If you want WD drives, look for the "RE" drives (Raid Enabled) - they are designed for RAID.

Seagate drives work quite well in RAID. I have two 1 TB Seagate drives in RAID1 running well for 2 years (8 hours per day). Details are in my profile.

Merry Christmas!

 

[marknashe]

Thanks for the reply. I was looking at the RE drives, just to be sure.

What are you using your NAS for? I need it for VMware. I couldn't decide if 2 bays were enough

I can't find the details in your profile about the drives you have. Not sure what I'm missing.

 

[Ubrales]

Thanks for the reply. I was looking at the RE drives, just to be sure.

What are you using your NAS for? I need it for VMware. I couldn't decide if 2 bays were enough

I can't find the details in your profile about the drives you have. Not sure what I'm missing.

It's under "More Information ---> Member Configuration" and here it is:

Case: Cooler Master HAF 932
Mobo: EVGA 141-BL-E760-A1 Classified
CPU: Intel Core i7-920 DO @ 2.66 GHz (OC to 3.81 GHz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master V8
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-850HX 850W RT
GPU: EVGA 896-P3-1171-AR - GTX 275 R (GeForce)
GPU: EVGA 512-P3-1140-TR - GTS 250 HDMI (GeForce) - PhysX
RAM: Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600 – (6x2GB) 12GB Model CMD12GX3M6A1600C8
OS: Windows 7 – 64-bit
HDD: Seagate 1TB x3 (2 of these are in RAID1 for data) - ST31000528AS
Optical drives: Two R/W DVD
Linksys WMP600N Wireless dual band PCI card
Scythe Fans Controller
Logisys Multi card reader
Logitech MX 518 8 Buttons USB Optical 1800 dpi Gaming Mouse
Monitor: Dell 2208WFP 22” LCD Monitor
Speakers: Bose Desktop
External backup: Seagate 1.5TB

My Win7 is on a WD 500 GB RE drive recently added. Cloned the old drive to this one. The RE drives have a slightly better reliability. I bought it new for $60 and now the price is out of sight!

I use my RAID1 for data storage.

 

[Onus]

You definitely want TLER (Time-Limited Error Reporting) drives for a RAID 5. Otherwise, a drive that takes too long to report a [recoverable] read error may end up getting dropped from the RAID even though it is really ok. These drives (like all of them, really) are insanely expensive right now, but the alternative is simply not viable; you'll be rebuilding your RAID every couple of days because of the spurious drops.

 

[marknashe]

It's under "More Information ---> Member Configuration" and here it is:

now I see it haha

Yeah the 500GB RE drives are double that now. I was looking for 3 or 4 1TB RE drives. Maybe I'll have to settle for 3 500GB drives in a RAID 5

Thanks jtt283. I definately do not want to be rebuilding the raid often. I have this brand new qnap NAS and it's just sitting in the box until I get the drives haha

 

[Ubrales]

now I see it haha

Yeah the 500GB RE drives are double that now. I was looking for 3 or 4 1TB RE drives. Maybe I'll have to settle for 3 500GB drives in a RAID 5

Thanks jtt283. I definately do not want to be rebuilding the raid often. I have this brand new qnap NAS and it's just sitting in the box until I get the drives haha

I would not buy any hard drives at these prices

 

[marknashe]

I was thinking that too, but I have no idea when the price will drop.

 

[marknashe]

How much SHOULD a 1TB RE Drive cost normally? I saw a 500GB RE drive for $128

The last hard drive I bought was 300GB and it was about 3 years ago.

 

[Ubrales]

How much SHOULD a 1TB RE Drive cost normally? I saw a 500GB RE drive for $128

The last hard drive I bought was 300GB and it was about 3 years ago.

In summer 2011 I bought a WD 500 GB RE drive for $60 - it will be at least the third quarter of 2012 that hard disk prices will be in the pre-flood prices range.

And starting in 2012, the warranties will be downgraded to 1 year or 2 years, not the former 5 years. I have no plans to buy HDDs any time soon.

 

[Onus]

I thought it was just the consumer drives that were having their quality sacrificed so they could shorten the warranties. Aren't the enterprise drives still going to be covered for five years?

 

[marknashe]

Oh okay thanks. Originally, I was looking at WD1003FBYX, which are the 1TB RE4 drives, but I can get the older WD1002FBYS(1TB RE3) new for about $90. I wasn't sure if I should jump on that or wait it out for the newer ones to drop. Any opinion?

 

[marknashe]

I also thought the enterprise drives will be covered for 5 years still. I could be mistaken

 

[Ubrales]

Oh okay thanks. Originally, I was looking at WD1003FBYX, which are the 1TB RE4 drives, but I can get the older WD1002FBYS(1TB RE3) new for about $90. I wasn't sure if I should jump on that or wait it out for the newer ones to drop. Any opinion?

Usually, newer versions are created to get rid of flaws and short-comings of the older versions. With this in mind, I would wait for the RE4 at the right price.

And don't expect a sudden drop in prices. The marketing depts. will use "Market Segmentation" and gradually lower prices until that price level is saturated. Then the price will be lowered to the next tier and that level will be saturated. And so on. Much like selling seats in the airline industry.

In my opinion, good deals can be had during Black Friday 2012, that is if the world doesn't come to an end sooner! By then, we will have serious competition by SSDs.

 

[Ubrales]

I also thought the enterprise drives will be covered for 5 years still. I could be mistaken

What about 3 years? It is anybody's guess! One thing is sure, the HDD manufacturers are definitely trying to lower warranty claims cost.

 

[marknashe]

I hear ya! I should probably return this NAS and rebuy it when the price of drives come down.

 

[Ubrales]

I hear ya! I should probably return this NAS and rebuy it when the price of drives come down.

 

[Onus]

It may be a while, but that probably makes sense. By the time there are actually reasonably-priced drives available, who knows but that a NAS box itself may be cheaper or have more features.

 

[marknashe]

I wanted the nas for a vmware lab to test out vmotion and stuff, shared storage between two hosts. That's why I dont want to return it, since I already invested in the host computer. Tough call

 

[marknashe]

Best answer selected by marknashe.

 

[Ubrales]

Thank you!