What HDD's do iXsystems recommend?

[lexieb007]

Does anybody have a recommended/compatibility HDD list for these guy's: www.ixsystems.com

I figure if it works in these guy's rackmount NAS's it will be fine for me :)

 

[amadrid]

For a rackmount system, Enterprise class drives only. Desktop class drives are not designed to operate in a 24x7 environment. Hitachi Ultrastars, WD RE4, and Seagate Constellation's are what is recommended.

 

[lexieb007]

For a rackmount system, Enterprise class drives only. Desktop class drives are not designed to operate in a 24x7 environment. Hitachi Ultrastars, WD RE4, and Seagate Constellation's are what is recommended.

What about if the rack mounted system is powered on/off all the time? I intend to shut it down or "sleep" on a daily basis... I though this was a problem with "Enterprise drives". That's my dilemma. Its a rackmount enterprise NAS in a domestic enviroment... It won't be working 24/7 for power saving reasons :)

 

[ProtoSD]

Desktop class drives are not designed to operate in a 24x7 environment.

Where did you get that from?

I've had MANY desktop drives run for years 24x7. My DVR disk was a desktop drive that ran 24x7 for nearly 5 years. My NAS has desktop drives that have been running 24x7 for about 2 years. Sounds like marketing BS to me....

 

[cyberjock]

Where did you get that from?

I've had MANY desktop drives run for years 24x7. My DVR disk was a desktop drive that ran 24x7 for nearly 5 years. My NAS has desktop drives that have been running 24x7 for about 2 years. Sounds like marketing BS to me....

Not to mention that amadrid's post is his first and only, created this month! Im with protosd. I've had drives running 24x7 for 3+ years with extremely low failure rates. In fact, just from my personal experience hard drives seem to last longer if you leave the computer on all of the time. I've had drives with 24x7 last much longer than one or 2 in a desktop that is powered on and off regularly.

 

[lexieb007]

Ok Thanks for the reply's. But the issue is can you switch an enterprise 12 bay NAS on/off frequently (say only run overnight to do backup's) to save power. And if so, are the enterprise drives a problem with this? Consumer drives are used to this sort of "consumer" behaviour. But is an enterprise NAS with enterprise drives in it able to cope with daily on/off power cycles?? It's all very well for business software engineers to leave on their NAS servers 24/7... (they aren't paying the power bills) :)

So what's best practice for a home user who can't afford his power bills...running one of these NAS's? And are consumer drives actually an advantage in this situation?

 

[cyberjock]

So what's best practice for a home user who can't afford his power bills...running one of these NAS's? And are consumer drives actually an advantage in this situation?

If you are asking yourself those questions FreeNAS probably isn't for you. FreeNAS requires you use the correct hardware and do the build correctly the first time. This means spending $$$.

FreeNAS servers cost money. You get great performance and reliability for your money. I saw you asked some questions in the WD Red thread. Honestly, if you can't answer your own question between the other thread and this one you need to spend more time experimenting with FreeNAS.

My server costs me about $20/month in electricity. It's a little on the high side because I have 22 drives total. If you can't swallow $20/month I wouldn't be looking at FreeNAS. FreeNAS can get expensive(especially if you aren't sure what you are doing). I shutdown my severs on occasion, but the savings really isn't THAT big.

 

[lexieb007]

Sorry about that. But that's a bit unfair. I'm not unhappy about spending the money. Have already outlayed 2.8K for the NAS. Was just asking if consumer drives had an advantage when shut down all the time. That's all. I'd read enterprise drives don't like multiple power down cycles. You don't obviously live in an environment where power bills have recently jumped over 50%.... :)

 

[cyberjock]

Where did someone say they don't like multiple power down cycles? I've never read that before... anywhere. Enterprise class drives are designed for 24x7 load cycles. That doesn't mean they don't like multiple power down cycles. It only means they are designed for 24x7 load cycles. Inferring anything else is bad joo-joo since the companies do not discuss in extreme detail what they do to make them work better(besides charging a hell of alot more). Some have vibration sensors and other stuff, but without alot more detail(which are surely company secrets) it's impossible to make any conclusions aside from "Enterprise class drives are designed for 24x7 load".

 

[lexieb007]

Something to do with wdidle...

Look I'm sorry about all the questions. But it's a legitimate thing to ask.

What's the ideal drive for a 12 bay enterprise NAS that's used in a domestic situation? Now WD reds have been marketed for just that. Reduce power consumption in a domestic NAS. But then you argue (correctly), why be the bunny to test this if the company won't support boxes greater than 5 bays..

So I'm simply asking what's the alternative? Many people advise against Green drives in enterprise NAS environments..

Appols but I won't ask anymore questions if you don't want...

 

[louisk]

Where did you get that from?

I've had MANY desktop drives run for years 24x7. My DVR disk was a desktop drive that ran 24x7 for nearly 5 years. My NAS has desktop drives that have been running 24x7 for about 2 years. Sounds like marketing BS to me....

Just to stir the pot a little…

Whether something is designed to function a certain way, and whether you can get something to operate outside of its design are not the same.

I would say (and I'm sure at least somebody will disagree, and that's fine) that you can run "desktop drives" 24x7, but it's not something I would suggest for data that you want to rely on.
Desktop drives are designed for a system that is only on sometimes, or if its on all the time, the drives are allowed to spin down some of the time. When you're running storage online all the time, you will wear out the components faster if they weren't designed for that use case.

 

[ProtoSD]

Just to stir the pot a little…

kinda what I was doing also ;)

Whether something is designed to function a certain way, and whether you can get something to operate outside of its design are not the same.

I would say (and I'm sure at least somebody will disagree, and that's fine) that you can run "desktop drives" 24x7, but it's not something I would suggest for data that you want to rely on.
Desktop drives are designed for a system that is only on sometimes, or if its on all the time, the drives are allowed to spin down some of the time. When you're running storage online all the time, you will wear out the components faster if they weren't designed for that use case.

While I agree and understand there's *some* difference, other than price, for enterprise level drives, I've been in this field long enough to know without a doubt that power cycling drives will cause them to fail a lot faster then letting them spin til they wear out.

 

[cyberjock]

...I've been in this field long enough to know without a doubt that power cycling drives will cause them to fail a lot faster then letting them spin til they wear out.

I totally agree. I used to have 5 computers in my house, on at various times. About once every 9 months or so one of them would experience a hard drive failure. I was in the Navy and going out to sea alot so the drives weren't getting the kind of work you'd typically expect for a 'home' use. Anyway, when I built my first server it had 8 hard drives. I left it on 24x7 and had zero failure for about 18 months. Even now when I look at my statistics for drives the server drives seem to last longer despite being on 24x7. I do know that thermal cycles is a big deal for alot of precision devices. While I wouldn't expect the thermal shock of the hard drive controller to be significant, I'd bet the thermal shock to the disk head and media to be fairly significant. Personally, I believe the high failure rates of hard drives that are cycled alot to be due to this cyclic stress.

Starting in 2009 I started upgrading to SSDs. Who wouldn't... they are AWESOME for improving performance. All of my machines except FreeNAS server are SSD. I've had zero failures. All of my drives are Intel SSDs. Despite power cycling these I've had zero failures. I know that watching friends buy less expensive SSDs from other companies some have had random failures(IMO roughly inline with standard rotating platter drives). Based on all of this, I always recommend Intel SSDs to friends that ask for reliability. They may not be the fastest SSD, but I've never had one fail yet(knock on wood). I'm also convinced that going from SATA300 to SATA 600 really isn't that big of a deal for desktop users. The "big ticket" item for SSDs has always been the several magnitude difference in seek times.

 

[paleoN]

While I agree and understand there's *some* difference, other than price, for enterprise level drives, I've been in this field long enough to know without a doubt that power cycling drives will cause them to fail a lot faster then letting them spin til they wear out.

All hard drives like to be on or off. None like to be power cycled. To get the maximum life out of a hard drive you should leave it on assuming it isn't in a hostile thermal environment, e.g. all laptops.

Desktop drives are designed for a system that is only on sometimes, or if its on all the time, the drives are allowed to spin down some of the time. When you're running storage online all the time, you will wear out the components faster if they weren't designed for that use case.

In fact repeatedly spinning a drive down will shorten its life. Desktop drives are not designed for 24x7 use. As long as they are on, but not in constant use you're fine. IMO, if they are in constant use you should be looking at enterprise SAS drives not even SATA ones.

 

[RvdKraats]

I agree that leaving a disk spinning will make it last longer. Startup/shutdown puts a bigger load on disks mechanically, thermally, and electrically. I, however, also shut down my FreeNAS regularly because of the electricity bills. Mine's just a simple home setup (4 disk RAIDZ2 in a quad core XW4600 workstation), so there's no need to run this system 24/7. I chose ZFS for it's focus on data integrity, so if my disks will wear out earlier because of my regular shutdowns i expect to retain my data without problems...and if this means having to buy a new disk a bit earlier than usual, so be it...good excuse to slowly upgrade to a larger capacity :)

For disk recommendations...hmmm, i always stick to Seagate disks. Even my earliest disk still works. Maybe i'm lucky, but so far no Seagate has failed me, in contrast to other brands.