Hard drive Selection Dilemma

[darkconz]

Hi,

I have read the n00b guides and have searched around here and I am still having a dilemma between these hard drives:

1. 3TB WD Red WD30EFRX
2. 4TB Seagate ST4000DM000

For $price/GB wise, they are close to each other. I will be setting up 11 of these drives in RAIDZ3 and here is the delimma...

Seagate drive is not designed for 24/7 operation but has more storage (which I would like, even though I may not use it immediately). Can this 24/7 thing be counter acted by setting the spin down option for each drive in FreeNAS?

WD is said to be rated for 24/7 operation with 1,000,000 hours MTBF and they claim this drive is designed for NAS. This is lacking the 4TB option which I read somewhere on the web that WD might be releasing a 4TB drive this year. I need the server up in this month to move all my data over. I have approximately 5TB of data (movies, photos, videos and tons of small documents).

I know I am not even using 50% of the available capacity with either setup so even 2TB option will probably satisfy my current needs. Isn't it better to set it once and don't have to worry about upgrading in a year or two better? The other thing is about RPM of the drives. These are 5*** RPMs. I will be accessing these small documents much more frequently than streaming movies. Should I be concerned with the lower RPM or should I look into 7200 RPM drives?

These drives will be paired with E3-1230v2 and 32GB of RAM so other hardware components won't be the bottle neck for these larger drives.

Thank you in advance for helping me out.

 

[cyberjock]

I'd stick with the WD Reds. Considering how little data you have, 24TB of disk space will probably take you some time to fill. 7200RPM drives may have lower latency, but they run hotter, require more cooling, and use more power. For a machine that will be on 24x7, these are things to consider.

 

[darkconz]

I'd stick with the WD Reds. Considering how little data you have, 24TB of disk space will probably take you some time to fill. 7200RPM drives may have lower latency, but they run hotter, require more cooling, and use more power. For a machine that will be on 24x7, these are things to consider.

Yeah, thanks for your input, I originally was leaning towards the Seagates but after more reading, the drive isn't rated for 24/7. The drive hasn't been out long enough to really see the life span of it. Does anyone know if the WD reds are going to release 4TBs? Maybe I should populate 6 drives for now with 3TB then expand my pool with 6 more 4TBs.

 

[cyberjock]

I haven't heard anything about WD Reds being upped to 4TB. I'd just plan for future expansion as you see fit for the short-medium term. Stick with your 6x3TB drives for now, and add 6 more later when you need more space. For all you know by the time you plan to expand WD might discontinue the "Red" series and have 10TB drives for less than $200 a piece.

 

[darkconz]

I just noticed if I go with 2 vDevs in the pool, I will use a total of 6 drives as parity rather than just 3 if I have 1 vDev in the pool. This gives me 3 more drive's raw space if I set it up now eh?

 

[cyberjock]

I just noticed if I go with 2 vDevs in the pool, I will use a total of 6 drives as parity rather than just 3 if I have 1 vDev in the pool. This gives me 3 more drive's raw space if I set it up now eh?

Uhh, what? RAIDZ2 uses 2 drives. If you have 2 RAIDZ2s you have 4 drives. Not sure where you are getting 6 from.

 

[darkconz]

Uhh, what? RAIDZ2 uses 2 drives. If you have 2 RAIDZ2s you have 4 drives. Not sure where you are getting 6 from.

Initially I was going with RAIDZ3 with 11 drives.. I guess with 6 drives in first batch, I should use RAIDZ2. But this still means I lose 1 more drive to parity.

So 2x RAIDZ2 (4+2) or 1x RAIDZ3 (8+3) I guess RAIDZ3 has more resilience.

 

[darkconz]

WD Red it is then, here I go.

 

[cyberjock]

So 2x RAIDZ2 (4+2) or 1x RAIDZ3 (8+3) I guess RAIDZ3 has more resilience.

But wouldn't that be 5 drives of redundancy?

 

[gpsguy]

I *think* you misread what @darkconz wrote. "2x RAIDZ2 (4+2) or 1x RAIDZ3 (8+3)"

With 2 - RAIDZ2 vdev's it was 4 parity drives vs 3 drives in a single RAIDZ3 vdev.

But wouldn't that be 5 drives of redundancy?

 

[cyberjock]

You are right! LOL! I was wondering where I got it wrong! I was convinced he was right somehow and I was wrong somehow.. LOL!

 

[darkconz]

=D I bought the last 4 drives in store.. waiting for more... sigh~