FreeNAS and WD Caviar Green EZRX

[golemcito]

Hi

I´m thinking in 6 WD Caviar Green EZRX 3Tb disks in order to create a raidz under freenas in a HP microserver.

Are there anybody here who had tested this drives before under freenas? I´ve read there was problems in previous releases of this 3Tb disk version....

Thanks in advance

 

[Erwin]

Wd rzrx

I use 6 WD RZRX 3TB in a Raidz2 configuration. It is up und running 7x24 since 9 months now, with drives spinning down after 20 minutes (so actually over night). One of the drives had vibrations from the beginning and ended up with more than 300 offline_uncorrectable sectors. WD offered an advanced replacement and sent a FYPX 3TB for replacement.

In summary I see no real problem with the drives. Due to Raidz no data got lost, but I would definitely recommend Raidz2.

erwin

 

[paleoN]

In summary I see no real problem with the drives. Due to Raidz no data got lost, but I would definitely recommend Raidz2.

What's more a 6 disk raidz1 is a non-optimal configuration whereas a 6 disk raidz2 is. I also would never run that many 3Tb disks with raidz1. Do like Erwin did and make it raidz2.

 

[golemcito]

What's more a 6 disk raidz1 is a non-optimal configuration whereas a 6 disk raidz2 is. I also would never run that many 3Tb disks with raidz1. Do like Erwin did and make it raidz2.

all i had read about the numbers of drives and the best choice of raidz is about to get the best performance. the nic is a gigabit and i don't think the performance of the raidz1, with 6 disks, would be worst than 100 MB/s. Anyway i will do some tests with both configurations.

 

[Erwin]

Some more details about the WD Caviar Green series

I use 6 WD RZRX 3TB in a Raidz2 configuration. It is up und running 7x24 since 9 months now, with drives spinning down after 20 minutes (so actually over night). One of the drives had vibrations from the beginning and ended up with more than 300 offline_uncorrectable sectors. WD offered an advanced replacement and sent a FYPX 3TB for replacement.

In summary I see no real problem with the drives. Due to Raidz no data got lost, but I would definitely recommend Raidz2.

erwin

One significant difference between the EZRX 3TB and the new FYPX 3TB seems to be the timeout of the head unload. WD specifiies a minimum of 1.000.000 load cycles during a HD life cycle.
When I look on my smart values, I see for the original drives (RZRX 3TB) about 90.000 load cycles in a timeframe of about 6.800 hours (about 13 load cycles per hour in average). The replacement disk (FYPX 3TB) shows about 560 load cycles in a timeframe of about 1.730 hours (about 0,33 load cycles per hour in average). This is a significant delta. The reason seems to be a feature named IntelliPark.

Ok, even with 13 load per hour it will take 8,78 years for 1.000.000 loads, but I think it is an unnecessary stress for the drives.
The good message is that you can change the timout from actually 8 (!) seconds to a higher value by an official WD tool:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers...2LzEvdGltZS8xMzQyMTEwODQ1L3NpZC9xY2t3Wlkqaw==


On my replacement drive FYPX 3TB this timeout was disabled by default, so I disabled it on my EZRX 3TB also.

More details about Intellipark:

http://www.instantfundas.com/2011/12/intellipark-makes-western-digital-green.html
http://www.ngohq.com/news/19805-critical-design-flaw-found-in-wd-caviar-green-hdds.html


erwin