2.5 Inch Drives

[Mirfster]

Okay, so yesterday I was feeling a bit froggy and bought two Dell C2100/FS12-TY Chassis with the SAS 2.5" drive backplane (24 drive slots). Price was so good, I convinced myself that I could use these for either a JBOD or even another FreeNas Server; since I have extra hardware (RAM, CPUs, HBAs, etc)...

Being as I am a C2100/FS12-TY fanboy, I didn't give it too much thought about which 2.5 inch drives to use and assumed that HGST would have a SAS or SATA 2.5" drive 2TB drive I could eventually use to fill these systems with.

So, after some quick searching I have yet to find a HGST 2.5" drive 2TB drive... Which leads me to my question(s).

1. Aside from Seagate (not even close to a fan of them); what is everyone else's opinion on a good 2.5" drive?
   
2. Is there really a significant difference between 5400 or 7200 RPM? (note the vdevs I will be more than likely using)

Couple other points:

• Not really needing the drives to be SAS at this time since SATA will work fine.
• Speed is not really a big issue since it will not be used for VMs (my ESXi and HyperV Servers all have local storage)
• More than likely, I will be using vdevs consisting of 6 drives in RAIDZ2 (so 4 vdevs total for each chassis)
• I am not adamant about the drives having to be 2TB but would prefer that; keep in mind I am going to be looking at 48 drives total
• Have already read Cyberjock's Hardware Posting and while I agree with the statement about thinking ahead on purchasing larger hard drives now, reality is cost would be the biggest prevention in considering 3TB or 4TB at this time
  
• FreeNas has been a blessing/curse since it now adds fuel to my hardware addiction...

Thanks for any input

 

[jgreco]

Samsung (now Seagate) and Toshiba both have a 2.5" 2TB 5400RPM SATA drive for around $100; Samy has the Spinpoint M9T ST2000LM003 and Toshy has the MQ01ABB200 3Gbps. WD/HGST of course has the WD Green WD20NPVX which is not recommended for FreeNAS use. It is unclear why they do not make that in a WD Red.

Seagate's only entrant in this market seems to be the Constellation nearline drives (ST2000NX0243 and friends). That drive will run you around $350 so it's probably a nonstarter.

Despite the fact that Seagate now "owns" Samsung HDD, the Spinpoint drive is basically a Samsung drive with a Seagate label on it. If I were you, I'd get over it and cope. The Samy drive is a somewhat nicer drive than the Toshy, it's faster, smaller, lower power, and 6Gbps. I've got them mixed in an array here and it is always the Toshies that are lagging on writes.

If speed isn't a primary concern, is there some reason for the 6 drive in RAIDZ2 layout? Why not 11 in RAIDZ3 with a hot spare? Same space but more resilient.

 

[joeschmuck]

FreeNas has been a blessing/curse since it now adds fuel to my hardware addiction...

Isn't that a true statement that I think many of us feel here.

Hey, you could get some 1TB SSDs and then speed wouldn't be an issue at all and you could load it up with VMs

I have always likes Samsung hard drives but I have no idea how they are for a NAS, but those are $114 at NewEgg.

 

[Mirfster]

Samsung (now Seagate) and Toshiba both have a 2.5" 2TB 5400RPM SATA drive for around $100; Samy has the Spinpoint M9T ST2000LM003 and Toshy has the MQ01ABB200 3Gbps. WD/HGST of course has the WD Green WD20NPVX which is not recommended for FreeNAS use. It is unclear why they do not make that in a WD Red.

Seagate's only entrant in this market seems to be the Constellation nearline drives (ST2000NX0243 and friends). That drive will run you around $350 so it's probably a nonstarter.

Despite the fact that Seagate now "owns" Samsung HDD, the Spinpoint drive is basically a Samsung drive with a Seagate label on it. If I were you, I'd get over it and cope. The Samy drive is a somewhat nicer drive than the Toshy, it's faster, smaller, lower power, and 6Gbps. I've got them mixed in an array here and it is always the Toshies that are lagging on writes.

Will take a look at the Samsung for sure. Seems like a good price (little lower) and added bonus of 6GB/S.

If speed isn't a primary concern, is there some reason for the 6 drive in RAIDZ2 layout? Why not 11 in RAIDZ3 with a hot spare? Same space but more resilient.

Not a bad idea, only thing is I like to keep my vdevs smaller so I have the possibility of upgrading them in smaller chucks. Of course that all may change if I see a great deal and think to myself "why not just upgrade all at once...". Will give it some thought, maybe 7 in RAIDZ3 with a hot spare or something along those lines...

Isn't that a true statement that I think many of us feel here.

Hey, you could get some 1TB SSDs and then speed wouldn't be an issue at all and you could load it up with VMs

I have always likes Samsung hard drives but I have no idea how they are for a NAS, but those are $114 at NewEgg.

Yeah, knowing myself I may look back and think I could/should use them for VMs. Will mull this over a little more and perhaps I don't need to think about filling both systems up right now and maybe consider just focusing on one for now. This $400.00 purchase is going to end up being a lot more expensive in the end..

Curse me and my impulse purchases...

Thanks all for your input as always it is greatly appreciated. Will update this once I get the systems and figure out which route I eventually take.

 

[jgreco]

Hey, you could get some 1TB SSDs and then speed wouldn't be an issue at all and you could load it up with VMs

I have always likes Samsung hard drives but I have no idea how they are for a NAS, but those are $114 at NewEgg.

Really? Using the link I provided? 'Cuz they're showing here as $98.99. Did you make Santa's naughty list? ;-)

 

[joeschmuck]

Did you make Santa's naughty list? ;-)

Maybe.

I didn't search for the deals but I'd think the OP would when it was time to make a serious purchase.

 

[Arwen]

If you get the Seagate Spinpoint M9T ST2000LM003, don't forget to change the auto-unload
option. I have one of these in my miniture media server, (with Linux & ZFS). After a month
or 2, I checked SMART and the bloody thing had a 12,390 Load_Cycle_Count. Of course I
changed that and 2 months later it's still 12,390...

Oh, and one advantage of the Seagate / Samsung over the Toshiba, is that it's 9.5mm high over
the Toshiba which is 15mm. For me, that was a break point. My miniture media server could
handle a 9.5mm, but not a 15mm drive.

 

[Mirfster]

Thanks for the insight. If I get the Spinpoint I will be sure to look into changing the auto-unload.

 

[Mirfster]

Update, just finally ordered 50 of the 2.5" caddies for $700.00 ($717.00 w/shipping). Could have been worse, I was looking at ~$1,500.00 at first...

Yeah, it appears as if loyalty has a price when deciding to go with the 2.5" drives for this model.

Show : Backstory Info

Hijacked Thread: https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...am-i-cooking-my-hdds.35618/page-2#post-256466

Anyways, will wait and be 100% sure these are the proper caddies. Even though I verified the Dell Part # and double checked with the company over the phone. Then it is off to buying the drives.

 

[karipk]

I have HP DL 380 G6 that has 16 2.5 inch disks (2xM1015 It-mode). I started with 8 disks around two years ago. I have 8 2TB WD Greens and 8 2 TB Toshiba PX3006E-1HL0 (MQ01ABB200). In two years one of each has been replaced because of some bad sectors. WD Greens have been "modified" by WDIDLE and for toshibas I use script to set the smart apm value to 254. That script prevents the Load_Cycle_Count to rise.
Toshiba hard drives has bee in production about a year. I have them in RAID-Z3.
Toshiba drives are around 95 € in Finland.

 

[Mirfster]

/

I have HP DL 380 G6 that has 16 2.5 inch disks (2xM1015 It-mode). I started with 8 disks around two years ago. I have 8 2TB WD Greens and 8 2 TB Toshiba PX3006E-1HL0 (MQ01ABB200). In two years one of each has been replaced because of some bad sectors. WD Greens have been "modified" by WDIDLE and for toshibas I use script to set the smart apm value to 254. That script prevents the Load_Cycle_Count to rise.
Toshiba hard drives has bee in production about a year. I have them in RAID-Z3.
Toshiba drives are around 95 € in Finland.

so, what are you currently running for 2.5 HDs?

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk

 

[karipk]

8 x 2TB x 2 raidZ3

Code:

  NAME  STATE  READ WRITE CKSUM
  bgrapica  ONLINE  0  0  0
  raidz3-0  ONLINE  0  0  0
  gptid/053f0efb-473e-11e5-9091-18a905643caa  ONLINE  0  0  0
  gptid/0653420a-473e-11e5-9091-18a905643caa  ONLINE  0  0  0
  gptid/07a115e0-473e-11e5-9091-18a905643caa  ONLINE  0  0  0
  gptid/08aab342-473e-11e5-9091-18a905643caa  ONLINE  0  0  0
  gptid/0962ea4b-473e-11e5-9091-18a905643caa  ONLINE  0  0  0
  gptid/0adf11ea-473e-11e5-9091-18a905643caa  ONLINE  0  0  0
  gptid/0c14068d-473e-11e5-9091-18a905643caa  ONLINE  0  0  0
  gptid/0cdd3339-473e-11e5-9091-18a905643caa  ONLINE  0  0  0
  raidz3-1  ONLINE  0  0  0
  gptid/35411239-499f-11e5-b6f0-18a905643caa  ONLINE  0  0  0
  gptid/372bed77-499f-11e5-b6f0-18a905643caa  ONLINE  0  0  0
  gptid/eaa961d8-aeed-11e5-9c5f-18a905643caa  ONLINE  0  0  0
  gptid/3ae7498a-499f-11e5-b6f0-18a905643caa  ONLINE  0  0  0
  gptid/3ca1a195-499f-11e5-b6f0-18a905643caa  ONLINE  0  0  0
  gptid/3e599015-499f-11e5-b6f0-18a905643caa  ONLINE  0  0  0
  gptid/3f637008-499f-11e5-b6f0-18a905643caa  ONLINE  0  0  0
  gptid/400cfe9f-499f-11e5-b6f0-18a905643caa  ONLINE  0  0  0

 

[Mirfster]

Well, drive caddies arrived today. It took longer than expected (vendor informed me they received the wrong caddies at first), but happy to have them. Now I will start thinking about looking at the 2.5 drives. Prices do seem to be coming down at a decent rate and if I can curb my impatience; maybe I can get them even cheaper.

 

[jgreco]

Fill them with 1TB SSD's?

 

[Mirfster]

Fill them with 1TB SSD's? :)

Would love to, I can wait a bit longer for prices to drop.

 

[jgreco]

Saw the SanDisk 1TB's for $200 last Black Friday. Tempting.

 

[Mlovelace]

Saw the SanDisk 1TB's for $200 last Black Friday. Tempting.

Mushkin Enhanced Reactor 2.5" 1TB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MKNSSDRE1TB , http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=20-226-596

$229 not bad for 1TB ssd

 

[jgreco]

It'll keep getting crazier. We've finally hit the storage revolution, where the prices on this stuff are just tanking.

 

[joeschmuck]

And if 2TB SSD's come out for $200 when my current drives start failing, I'm buying a batch of them. Hey, we all can dream.

 

[Mirfster]

I am willing to wait until end of year. Would make a niiiice XMas present. :)