patseguin Global Moderator Posted February 18, 2015 Global Moderator Share Posted February 18, 2015 For my home media server, I have a Synology 5-bay NAS with an expansion unit with an additional 5 drives. When I started the system out, I put in 5x 3TB Seagate Barracuda drives. When it came time to buy the expansion, I did a little more research and installed 5x 3TB WD Red NAS drives. As time has gone on, one by one the Seagate drives have developed problems and I've replaced them with WD Red drives. Just yesterday, I check on my volume status and it showed a S.M.A.R.T. error on one of the 2 remaining Seagate drives so I replaced it with a WD Red spare I had on hand. My question is what is it exactly that makes these Seagate drives fail so miserably in a NAS? Do the Red's have more cache and/or better components to deal with a lot more access? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stokkolm Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 If you're doing a lot of reading and writing consumer grade hard drives are not going to last more than a year or so. The WD RED drives are built specifically to endure a lot more abuse than a conventional hard drive is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sikh Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 To add to what Stockholm said, NAS drives are made to not spin down every second they get a chance to, which increases the reliability of drives in a NAS environment. Normal consumer drives are told to spin down every single time they are idle. So if you all of a sudden copy a 10gb file to your NAS, and all drives are idle, they will spin up quickly and perform as fast as they can for you to move that file and then spin down and maybe a minute or 2 later you decide you need to copy another set of files. Now the drives need to spin up again and spin down. Also, NAS drives are made in mind for 24/7 operation so they support TLER (Time Limited Error Recover) and they are built to handle vibration better. patseguin 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patseguin Global Moderator Posted February 19, 2015 Author Global Moderator Share Posted February 19, 2015 To add to what Stockholm said, NAS drives are made to not spin down every second they get a chance to, which increases the reliability of drives in a NAS environment. Normal consumer drives are told to spin down every single time they are idle. So if you all of a sudden copy a 10gb file to your NAS, and all drives are idle, they will spin up quickly and perform as fast as they can for you to move that file and then spin down and maybe a minute or 2 later you decide you need to copy another set of files. Now the drives need to spin up again and spin down. Also, NAS drives are made in mind for 24/7 operation so they support TLER (Time Limited Error Recover) and they are built to handle vibration better. Good explanation, thank you. I wish I had done my homework before installing all those desktop drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted February 19, 2015 MVC Share Posted February 19, 2015 Good explanation, thank you. I wish I had done my homework before installing all those desktop drives. I've even been buying Red for pretty much all my backup drives. T3X4S 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulATMOS Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 Also, the odd numbered Seagate capacity drives, specifically the 1.5TB and 3TB, had terrible reliability in desktop systems, let alone NAS. Seagate has addressed these issues by releasing dedicated NAS drives to compete with the WD Red series. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkrats Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 "If you're doing a lot of reading and writing consumer grade hard drives are not going to last more than a year or so" What makes you say this? My favourite computer is an old IBM desktop from back around 1999. It has all it's original hardware, and the HD is still running without any errors or problems. Also have a Lenovo computer that's slightly newer, but still runs okay. These are systems that are up 24/7, rebooting only when doing a quick restore from backup/ Maybe I've just been lucky? Depicus 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted February 19, 2015 Moderator Share Posted February 19, 2015 What Stokkolm is saying is a metaphor. Some drives live, some die. But a higher percentage of drives fail after a time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patseguin Global Moderator Posted February 19, 2015 Author Global Moderator Share Posted February 19, 2015 "If you're doing a lot of reading and writing consumer grade hard drives are not going to last more than a year or so" What makes you say this? My favourite computer is an old IBM desktop from back around 1999. It has all it's original hardware, and the HD is still running without any errors or problems. Also have a Lenovo computer that's slightly newer, but still runs okay. These are systems that are up 24/7, rebooting only when doing a quick restore from backup/ Maybe I've just been lucky? I don't know, what he said does make sense. The drives are on 24/7 and are provably accessed more than normal because they serve media to my house. His statement seems to be backed up by the fact that I've had 4 Seagate drives fail. I've never had a drive fail on a desktop computer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Odom Member Posted February 20, 2015 Member Share Posted February 20, 2015 If you're doing a lot of reading and writing consumer grade hard drives are not going to last more than a year or so. I personally don't agree. It probably depends on what you define as "...a lot of reading and writing...". I don't know, what he said does make sense. The drives are on 24/7 and are provably accessed more than normal because they serve media to my house. His statement seems to be backed up by the fact that I've had 4 Seagate drives fail. I've never had a drive fail on a desktop computer. By your logic: What he says does not make sense. I have 4 Seagate drives in 24/7 in my NAS for years and never had any problems nor failures. They are also not NAS optimized drives. And I also never had a drive fail in my desktop, ever since I own computers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patseguin Global Moderator Posted February 20, 2015 Author Global Moderator Share Posted February 20, 2015 Yeah, I don't know. Maybe the drives are accessed way more than normal because it is reading movies and TV shows? Or maybe something about Synology Hybrid Raid makes them access more? All I know is I had 5 Seagate drives and 4 of them failed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stokkolm Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 I personally don't agree. It probably depends on what you define as "...a lot of reading and writing...". If you're using a NAS and you're not running NAS quality disks you're asking to lose all of your data. It's as simple as that. Consumer grade drives aren't rated for it and they will fail much faster than NAS quality drives, it can't be debated. That's why they are used in a corporate environment exclusively, because you'd be fired if you were using consumer drives. I had a QNAP (it was only used for backups) at work that had the exact issue that the OP is describing. Somebody put consumer grade Seagate drives in it and guess what happened? Luckily only one failed so we were able to save the data, but that disk lasted less than a year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patseguin Global Moderator Posted February 21, 2015 Author Global Moderator Share Posted February 21, 2015 Yeah and my array only has 1 disk fault tolerance (definitely should have chosen 2). I wonder if i should just replace those last 2 drives with WD Red's now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPreston Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 Nas drives = the poor mans SAS drives.http://www.raid-failure.com/raid5-failure.aspx Enter parameters Number of disks Disk size, GB Error probability, per bits read 1 per 10^14 bits1 per 10^15 bits1 per 10^16 bits1 per 10^17 bits Result The probability of successfully completing the rebuild is 27.8% Ill take RAID6 with consumer drives over 4x4TB Red (cause my nas has only 4 ports) any day of the week, Address the problem with double parity! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Odom Member Posted February 21, 2015 Member Share Posted February 21, 2015 If you're using a NAS and you're not running NAS quality disks you're asking to lose all of your data. It's as simple as that. Consumer grade drives aren't rated for it and they will fail much faster than NAS quality drives, it can't be debated. That's why they are used in a corporate environment exclusively, because you'd be fired if you were using consumer drives. I had a QNAP (it was only used for backups) at work that had the exact issue that the OP is describing. Somebody put consumer grade Seagate drives in it and guess what happened? Luckily only one failed so we were able to save the data, but that disk lasted less than a year. I'm not debating that, just the point that you say that the drives don't last more than a year. The drives in my NAS (and all NASs I had over the years) have been working fine for a lot longer than that, without errors, without loss of data, and with a lot of write and reads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aergan Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 For my home media server, I have a Synology 5-bay NAS with an expansion unit with an additional 5 drives. When I started the system out, I put in 5x 3TB Seagate Barracuda drives. When it came time to buy the expansion, I did a little more research and installed 5x 3TB WD Red NAS drives. As time has gone on, one by one the Seagate drives have developed problems and I've replaced them with WD Red drives. Just yesterday, I check on my volume status and it showed a S.M.A.R.T. error on one of the 2 remaining Seagate drives so I replaced it with a WD Red spare I had on hand. My question is what is it exactly that makes these Seagate drives fail so miserably in a NAS? Do the Red's have more cache and/or better components to deal with a lot more access? Seagate drives generate a lot of heat and don't respond well to it. Same issue affected Maxtor and Quantum before it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Depicus Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 If you're doing a lot of reading and writing consumer grade hard drives are not going to last more than a year or so. The WD RED drives are built specifically to endure a lot more abuse than a conventional hard drive is. When you say consumer drives won't last more than a year or so you loose all credibility for the rest of your statement. Now if you want an indication of drives then this article might guide you in the right direction. https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/ AndyMutz 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stokkolm Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 That article doesn't pertain to this discussion. We're talking about drive operations in a NAS. Failure rates when installed inside a PC are completely different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Depicus Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 That article doesn't pertain to this discussion. We're talking about drive operations in a NAS. Failure rates when installed inside a PC are completely different. And your evidence for that statement ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stokkolm Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 Real world experience (in the workplace). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Odom Member Posted February 21, 2015 Member Share Posted February 21, 2015 I don't see the difference. Drives do not have different MTBFs when used in PC or NAS. They are calculated regardless of them. As to the OP and what HDD to choose, I would go with HDD indicated for NAS or 24/7 usage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T3X4S Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 How good are the Constellation drives ? Anyone have any experience with them ? I have always used WD - but just curious Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stokkolm Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 I don't see the difference. Drives do not have different MTBFs when used in PC or NAS. They are calculated regardless of them. As to the OP and what HDD to choose, I would go with HDD indicated for NAS or 24/7 usage. If you don't see the difference then why would you go with HDD's indicated for NAS usage? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Depicus Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 If you don't see the difference then why would you go with HDD's indicated for NAS usage? Explain how a NAS device is different from a PC - I'm interested in the difference between these two types of computers !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stokkolm Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 Explain how a NAS device is different from a PC - I'm interested in the difference between these two types of computers !!! A NAS is for mass storage to be used by multiple users at once. A PC HDD is made for local storage and one user at a time. Is this not obvious? +Warwagon and Anibal P 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts