WD Red Plus vs Seagate Exos ST8000NM000A

[kirkdickinson]

I have a pool that is getting full and the drives are also getting old. I haven't had a failure (yet). The pool has 6 WD 4-gig Red Plus drive in ZFS2 configuration. I am thinking about replacing them all with 8TB drives.

I was looking at Backblaze Drive stats today and saw this Seagate drive that a failure rate of 0% over 12,088 drive days and it is cheaper than the WD Red Plus drives that I was looking at. I see that they are using fewer of them than some of the other drives, so I realize that the failure rate might be higher if they had more examples.

Seagate https://www.newegg.com/seagate-exos-7e8-st8000nm000a-8tb/p/1Z4-002P-01A30
Western Digital https://www.newegg.com/red-wd80efax-8tb/p/1Z4-0002-00B89

Also see the Toshiba MG0ACA16TEY has a 0% failure rate with a lot more individual drives. That is way more storage than I need, but the price for those Toshibas, at least on Newegg is really close to the WD Plus drives. https://www.newegg.com/toshiba-mg08aca16te-16tb/p/1Z4-000B-00FR7

Why is Blackblaze using SATA drives instead of SAS drives?

What are the thoughts here on my options?

 

[sretalla]

Why is Blackblaze using SATA drives instead of SAS drives?

Price and use-case... mostly write-once data at very high volume.

I was looking at Backblaze Drive stats today and saw this Seagate drive that a failure rate of 0% over 12,088 drive days and it is cheaper than the WD Red Plus drives that I was looking at.

only 158 drive sample... could just be a lucky batch. Also only had them for less than a year, so it may play out differently after the mid-life bubble bursts (in a couple of years).

Looking overall, it's a real indictment of Seagate reliability... they have Almost every Seagate model at over 1% failure, with large numbers of drives proving even higher failure rates... I would (and do) stay clear of Seagate.

 

[joeschmuck]

Based on the choices above I would choose the WD Red Plus. I like the reliability I've seen and I like the 5400 RPM cooler drives. I'm not sure what your use case is, do you need a 7200 RPM drive?

With all that said, there is a significant price difference, one that would justify you being able to purchase a spare or two drives and still save money if you went with the Seagate drives. I would look around to see if there are any better prices for the WD Red Plus drives first. I do like Newegg, be buying from them since they came on the market.

I didn't see anything that said if the Seagate drive was CMR or SMR (I didn't have the time to properly investigate). The price difference makes me think you need to know, SMR drives are quite a bit cheaper than CMR drives.

 

[Davvo]

Generally, I prefer Seagate drives over WD ones.

 

[Etorix]

I would pick the best price per TB, and drives as big as can be afforded—so definitely 16 TB over 8 TB. Who ever has enough capacity?

I didn't see anything that said if the Seagate drive was CMR or SMR (I didn't have the time to properly investigate). The price difference makes me think you need to know, SMR drives are quite a bit cheaper than CMR drives.

As far as I know, only WD sneaks SMR drives in NAS lines. NAS/Enterprises drives from Seagate and Toshiba are all fine.

 

[sretalla]

NAS/Enterprises drives from Seagate and Toshiba are all fine.

I seem to recall an "Enterprise Archive" drive and maybe some 2.5" enterprise gear that is SMR...

Seagate Announces a Trio of 8TB Drives for Enterprise Applications

www.anandtech.com

CMR and SMR Hard Drives | Seagate US

See the list of recording technology utilized on our internal hard drives

www.seagate.com

 

[kirkdickinson]

Based on the choices above I would choose the WD Red Plus. I like the reliability I've seen and I like the 5400 RPM cooler drives. I'm not sure what your use case is, do you need a 7200 RPM drive?

With all that said, there is a significant price difference, one that would justify you being able to purchase a spare or two drives and still save money if you went with the Seagate drives. I would look around to see if there are any better prices for the WD Red Plus drives first. I do like Newegg, be buying from them since they came on the market.

I didn't see anything that said if the Seagate drive was CMR or SMR (I didn't have the time to properly investigate). The price difference makes me think you need to know, SMR drives are quite a bit cheaper than CMR drives.

Pretty sure that the Seagate drive is CMR.

The WD Red Plus drives are cheaper than Newegg directly from WD.

https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-red-plus-sata-3-5-hdd#WD80EFZZ

 

[kirkdickinson]

My use case... I have a a lot of photos (4TB). I have a small Database that gets a bunch of use every day (800MB), archived documents, graphics, invoices, website backups, and desktop publishing files. (2TB)Those get used from the server every so often. I also do nightly backups of workstation emails, and weekly backups of workstation boot drive images. (2TB) I have some video stored on the server, but never edit video directly on the server. I edit locally and archive back to the server.

I keep a month of snapshots on this server because of storage limitations. I have a backup server that syncs every night and keeps a year of snapshots. (it has the same type pool, but with 8GIG drives instead of 4)

I could go for the 16Gig Toshiba drives and put them in the Backup server and then put the 8Gig drives in my production server. That would double both server's capacity.

 

[joeschmuck]

Pretty sure that the Seagate drive is CMR.

I looked this up when I was at work today and it does look like the drive is CMR. And the drive has a 5 year warranty, well from what I could find. This makes the drive very appealing at $100 USD off the WD Red Plus + 2 more warranty years. For my use case, I wish they had a 5400 RPM variant, I don't need 7200 RPM drives.

Also, at that price you could go for a RAIDZ3 as well.

 

[kirkdickinson]

Seagate Exos 16TB Enterprise HDD X18 SATA 6Gb/s 512e/4Kn 7200 RPM 256MB Cache 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (ST16000NM000J)
at New Egg for $269.99

Seagate Exos 16TB Enterprise HDD X18 SATA 6Gb/s 512e/4Kn 7200 RPM 256MB Cache 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (ST16000NM000J) - Newegg.com

Buy Seagate Exos 16TB Enterprise HDD X18 SATA 6Gb/s 512e/4Kn 7200 RPM 256MB Cache 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (ST16000NM000J) with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

or

Seagate 16TB Exos X18 7200 rpm SATA III 3.5" Internal HDD (I think the same drive as above)
at B&H for $284.99

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1647677-REG/seagate_st16000nm000j_16tb_exos_x18_3_5.html

or

Toshiba 16TB MG08 Series Enterprise Capacity 7200 rpm SATA III 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
at B&H for $279.99

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1733282-REG/toshiba_mg08aca16te_16tb_3_5_sata_6gb_s_7200rpm_256mb_cache.html

I found the Seagate drive in quantities of 2 on Amazon for $450 ($225 each)

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-256MB-3-5-Inch-Enterprise-ST16000NM001G/dp/B09D99WSNB/ref=sr_1_4?crid=316IWPHGRJ665&keywords=seagate+exos&qid=1692307306&sprefix=seagate+exos%2Caps%2C231&sr=8-4

But, I am nervous about third party sellers on Amazon and that these drives are not OEM and not covered by Seagates warranty.

 

[joeschmuck]

But, I am nervous about third party sellers on Amazon and that these drives are not OEM and not covered by Seagates warranty.

I personally like NewEgg and love the return policy, however I have purchased from BH Photo a few times without issue.