# Drive reliability for NAS... now questioning my original choice



## copenhagen69 (Jun 2, 2015)

After all the help I received in the last thread on server/cloud storage solutions I decided to with the NAS option.

I was pretty sure I wanted to go 3TB WD Red drives for my NAS but then I found some posts that made me question that decision ... 

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/

Western Digital Red 3 TB (WDC WD30EFRX) 3TB 0.9 years life span and 12.87% failure rate annually ...

After I saw that it made me instantly question my choice. 

From looking around I have found that pretty much this is what people seem to agree on ... 
Always Hitachi if price is no object, Seagate because the bang-for-the-buck of the 4TB drives is hard to beat (but keep an eye on them, especially as they get older), and WD Reds for the best overall balance of price/reliability.



thoughts?


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## rtwjunkie (Jun 2, 2015)

Can't speak to the 3TB ones, but I have 6 of the 2TB Reds in my server, 4 of which are well into their second year (approaching 2 full years), and not one sign of being any worse for the wear.  The other two are 6 months old and still fantastic as well.  SMART reports great on all of them, and temps are fine.  Read/Write as quick and responsive as ever.


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## Sasqui (Jun 2, 2015)

Here's an article refuting Backblazes methods and analysis:  http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/6...bility-myth-the-real-story-covered/index.html

That said, I'd shell out more for the WD Black series.  In my opinion, the 5 year warranty speaks for itself.  My own experience with WD blacks has been nothing short of amazing, but my own singular experience is anecdotal.


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## rtwjunkie (Jun 2, 2015)

Sasqui said:


> Here's an article refuting Backblazes methods and analysis:  http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/6...bility-myth-the-real-story-covered/index.html
> 
> That said, I'd shell out more for the WD Black series.  In my opinion, the 5 year warranty speaks for itself.  My own experience with WD blacks has been nothing short of amazing, but my own singular experience is anecdotal.


 
I trust my own anecdotal experience as well as Tweaktown much more than BackBlaze!


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## copenhagen69 (Jun 2, 2015)

Sasqui said:


> Here's an article refuting Backblazes methods and analysis:  http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/6...bility-myth-the-real-story-covered/index.html
> 
> That said, I'd shell out more for the WD Black series.  In my opinion, the 5 year warranty speaks for itself.  My own experience with WD blacks has been nothing short of amazing, but my own singular experience is anecdotal.



oh that is a good read there! I guess I wont ever be going back to that site again .. thanks! 

hmmm I never thought of the blacks for NAS use before ... they have been great drives for my desktop though and really enjoyed them in Raid0 ... I am curious if the price jump on them is worth it for a NAS that wont need the extremely fast speeds for some photos/vids and movie watching. I wouldnt want to waste their ability just sitting there and could put the money elsewhere, like more RAM in the NAS.


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## Kursah (Jun 2, 2015)

I've had more WD Black series fail than any other drive, but that 5 year warranty does speak for itself. You take a risk with any modern platter drive. Honestly, as many recommend, get different drives of the same capacity. That way if you end up getting a bad drive out of a bad batch, not all of your drives came from that batch. I try to do that where possible. Honestly I've had great luck, but I don't pay the premium for Black drives anymore...RMA takes forever, and my last 2 RMA replacements had bad sectors or failures within months. So maybe they NEED the better warranty for the hotter running, performance-oriented drives?


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## rtwjunkie (Jun 2, 2015)

And then there is me.  I've had great luck with WD Blacks.  In fact, the only reason I replace is because I exceed their capacity.  Have 4 in use in 2 computers as game hard drives, and one as a data storage drive in an external enclosure for my server.


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## Sasqui (Jun 2, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> And then there is me.  I've had great luck with WD Blacks.  In fact, the only reason I replace is because I exceed their capacity.  Have 4 in use in 2 computers as game hard drives, and one as a data storage drive in an external enclosure for my server.



Look at my sig   I've never had a single WD fail on me... and I even have two more 1TB WD blacks in my NAS


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## Sasqui (Jun 2, 2015)

copenhagen69 said:


> oh that is a good read there! I guess I wont ever be going back to that site again .. thanks!
> 
> hmmm I never thought of the blacks for NAS use before ... they have been great drives for my desktop though and really enjoyed them in Raid0 ... I am curious if the price jump on them is worth it for a NAS that wont need the extremely fast speeds for some photos/vids and movie watching. I wouldnt want to waste their ability just sitting there and could put the money elsewhere, like more RAM in the NAS.



Just me... rather have a reliable hard drive than more space or ram.  I thought WD also makes and enterprise version of the red drives with 5-year coverage?


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## rtwjunkie (Jun 2, 2015)

Sasqui said:


> Just me... rather have a reliable hard drive than more space or ram.  I thought WD also makes and enterprise version of the red drives with 5-year coverage?


 
Yes they do, the Red Pro.  Also, the RE series are basically Enterprise versions of the Blacks.  Rugged as hell, I've owned a few and were very worth it.


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## copenhagen69 (Jun 2, 2015)

Sasqui said:


> Just me... rather have a reliable hard drive than more space or ram.  I thought WD also makes and enterprise version of the red drives with 5-year coverage?



Yes they do. The Pros but they say they are for 8-16 HDD NAS systems. I'm not sure if that messes anything up when you only have 4?

From there site ... 

*WD Red Pro NAS Storage NAS Hard Drive*
The next generation of hard drives for medium to large business network attached storage systems.

*Storage for 8 to 16 bay NAS solutions*
Joining the original color of NAS, WD Red Pro continues the formula of success that has led the WD Red product family by adding support beyond consumer, SOHO, and small business markets into medium and large 8-16 bay business storage systems. WD Red Pro hard drives integrate WD's exclusive technology, NASware 3.0, to provide unparalleled support for drive compatibility, reliability, and performance.

*Professional solutions*
Designed specifically with SMB customers in mind the WD Red family has expanded with the addition of WD Red Pro, which is available for the 8 to 16 bay medium to large-scale NAS environments. With capacities up to 4 TB, WD Red Pro carries a 5-year limited warranty and was engineered to handle the increased workloads from your business.


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## rtwjunkie (Jun 2, 2015)

@copenhagen69 no I don't think it messes anything up. I think they are for 8-16 because they are more resistant to vibration and heat, vibration especially, that you get in large hdd setups.


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## copenhagen69 (Jun 2, 2015)

That does make sense ... I also found this review, which does make sense on why they warranty certain things the way they do ... Posted about the WD Red Pros



> These are premium NASware 3 drives (newest version) and are made for use in any type NAS. Notice that these drives have a 5 year warranty. The more drives in an array, the closer the tolerance between drives becomes more important. You could use this drive as an only drive but you would not need the close tolerance specs. I have 5 Raid Enclosures in use, each with 4 drives. I have off the shelf consumer drives in some of them but most have been upgraded to premium drives because of block failures. The drives with block failures will rebuild themselves more often. The info on these drives on Amazon is quite good and accurate.
> 
> Bottom line is that the more drives in an array, the closer is the required tolerance between individual drives for 24/7 operation.
> 
> ...


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## claes (Jun 2, 2015)

Sasqui said:


> Here's an article refuting Backblazes methods and analysis:  http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/6...bility-myth-the-real-story-covered/index.html


This article is really, really bad and doesn't take into account:
1. BackBlaze's own caveats about their data - the three faults TT points to are clearly accounted for in BB's study (sourcing, enclosures, and environment).
2. BackBlaze's actual data - if you look to the study you'll find that TT's claims are grossly exaggerated.
     2a. Most drives are bought OEM, which isn't ideal, but is not "most drives are pulled from enclosures"
     2b. Even if some are pulled from enclosures or bought from shady vendors, BB doesn't make broad claims about manufacturers, they make claims about specific model numbers.
     2c1. BB concedes that there environment is not like most home-user environments (this should be obvious) - but, if you look into HW return/failure rates (there's a french distributor that keeps track of these numbers internationally) you'll notice that the numbers match up surprisingly well.
     2c2. More importantly, TT is flat out wrong about the conditions being worse - modern HDDs lift their heads when vibration limits are exceeded and actually perform better and last longer in "hotter" conditions (~45*C) than in cooler conditions. Sure, BB's storage pods are definitely not representative of a typical home user with 2 or 3 HDDs, but the disks are (mostly) designed to take these circumstances into account ("mostly" because some drives have really bad parking for 24/7 use).
3. Google's confirmation of these studies - Google has confirmed BB's numbers year after year, and BB also updates their study every year.



rtwjunkie said:


> I trust my own anecdotal experience as well as Tweaktown much more than BackBlaze!


You really shouldn't trust tweak town - look at their reviews! They are a pr firm at best.



copenhagen69 said:


> oh that is a good read there! I guess I wont ever be going back to that site again .. thanks!
> 
> hmmm I never thought of the blacks for NAS use before ... they have been great drives for my desktop though and really enjoyed them in Raid0 ... I am curious if the price jump on them is worth it for a NAS that wont need the extremely fast speeds for some photos/vids and movie watching. I wouldnt want to waste their ability just sitting there and could put the money elsewhere, like more RAM in the NAS.


Blacks are great drives, but they don't hold up in NAS situations as well as slower spinning drives with power saving features (although you can edit a Black's FW to adjust to your needs).

My experience: Have purchased ~3,000 HDDs for various RAID installs for customers, monitored over three years now. My numbers, per model, tend to match up w/ BackBlaze's.


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## rtwjunkie (Jun 2, 2015)

@claes I said "more than", not that I trust them completely.  Backblaze takes the absolute worst situation drives could be in and then includes loads of cheap, consumer drives in there as well, and then tries to apply their reliability results to brands.  No thanks, I don't trust them.


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## copenhagen69 (Jun 2, 2015)

claes said:


> This article is really, really bad and doesn't take into account:
> 1. BackBlaze's own caveats about their data - the three faults TT points to are clearly accounted for in BB's study (sourcing, enclosures, and environment).
> 2. BackBlaze's actual data - if you look to the study you'll find that TT's claims are grossly exaggerated.
> 2a. Most drives are bought OEM, which isn't ideal, but is not "most drives are pulled from enclosures"
> ...




a lot of info in there ... just curious if you have links to the french distributor or google? I just am curious what their information says ...


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## claes (Jun 2, 2015)

With respect, this is all mostly inaccurate.


rtwjunkie said:


> Backblaze takes the absolute worst situation drives could be in


I think we can both agree that BB's storage pods are not "the absolute worst condition" drives could be in. Honestly, it's surprising they don't see much higher failure rates. That said, having purchased and built my own storage pods, I feel confident in saying that they aren't much worse than most desktop NAS solutions and better than a lot of desktop solutions (drives don't like to be held in tight, stiff, conditions - they need room to vibrate!!!).


rtwjunkie said:


> and then includes loads of cheap, consumer drives in there as well,


I'm not sure what your point is here - how will anyone know about how cheap, consumer drives perform and their reliability if no one tests them?
Google uses loads of consumer drives for their own storage needs, and yet the internet still works (and BB is still in business doing huge backups for thousands of customers).
Moreover, if you'd read the study you'd note that they have used enterprise drives in these conditions (as has Google, and as have I) and found reliability to be about the same. They (we) buy consumer drives because *all hard drives fail* - it is much more cost efficient to buy cheaper consumer drives that die a little sooner than paying the premium for a few more months of life, particularly in storage applications.


rtwjunkie said:


> and then tries to apply their reliability results to brands.  No thanks, I don't trust them.


Again, if you had read the study, you would notice that they do not do this - they specifically make claims about specific models of HDD.

For example, in their latest study, despite the 7200.11 fiasco that Seagate faced a few years ago and the meddling results of the 7200.12, and some of Seagate's drives having enormous failure rates still, BB still recommends those Seagate drives that have low failure rates. It is, quite plainly, the exact opposite of taking the results of a model and applying it to an entire brand.



rtwjunkie said:


> No thanks, I don't trust them.


To each his own


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## rtwjunkie (Jun 2, 2015)

My point about them using cheap consumer drives is because they spread FUD about what may be a perfectly usable and reliable drive for the average consumer.


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## claes (Jun 2, 2015)

copenhagen69 said:


> a lot of info in there ... just curious if you have links to the french distributor or google? I just am curious what their information says ...


No problem 

http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en/us/archive/disk_failures.pdf
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/934-1/taux-retour-composants-12.html - most recent I think
http://storagemojo.com/2007/02/19/googles-disk-failure-experience/ - these guys do a great job of analyzing the veracity of these studies and doing their own research
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive_failure - fair outline of what makes a drive die


EDIT:
BB's FAQ - https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-stats-faq/


> Q: Why do you hate Seagate?
> 
> A: *We love Seagate!* This is a common misconception about our hard drive stats posts. Both of our hard drive stat posts indicated a slightly elevated failure rate from their compatriots, however, *the price of the Seagate drives cannot be beat, and they work great in our environment.* This goes back to the price to density to failure-rate ratio that Backblaze likes to use, and in it, *Seagate often comes out on top!*


BB on enterprise drives - https://www.backblaze.com/blog/enterprise-drive-reliability/


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## copenhagen69 (Jun 2, 2015)

Perfect, thanks @claes for the abundance of info ... I got a lot of reading to do haha


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## SuperSoph_WD (Jun 3, 2015)

Hey there, guys!  

I think it's only fair to contribute with just a little more details about how drive reliability is measured in WD HDDs and help out @copenhagen69 
Basically, we no longer measure the reliability of our hard drives using Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF). We use Component Design Life (CDL) and Annualized Failure Rate (AFR) instead. 
And the results has shown that the Component Design Life of the drives is 5 years and the Annualized Failure Rate is less than 0.8%. You can see this in this article from our KB: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=0LSeMS

However, you know that the mechanical hard drive is a very sensitive hardware, which is why doing regular backups is the best way to avoid significant data loss. Whereas the limited warranties give you some peace of mind that you'd be provided with a replacement soon enough. You can also take a look at our warranty policies worldwide here:  http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=9ADmd1

Hope this was useful! Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD


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## R-T-B (Jun 3, 2015)

HGST Ultrastars (A Western Digital Company now) are totally awesome.  I'm not so fond of their old Deskstar drives, but I think Toshiba handles that now.

SuperSoph, is there any reason the simple MTTF (Mean Time To Failure) isn't used?  MTBF has always been a bit fuzzy how they calculate it but I'd think simple MTTF would be easy to understand.


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## lZKoce (Jun 3, 2015)

People above me, owned way way more HDDs than me. My humble experience is, I've got a WD black 0.5 TB, running in one of the laptops. Approaching 2 years, I am pretty satisfied with it. The blue series though- not so much. I had one die on me, with not much of reason I think. I'd even go to say Blue and Green are not worth it generally. Especially green.

I had to buy a new 2.5 inch drive last month and this time around I went with 1 TB Hitachi (HGST) - as mentioned a subsidiary of WD anyway. It was pretty good price. The seller really wanted to sell me 1 TB WD Black. The main argument being 5 year warranty....but somehow I wasn't up for spending the premium over a regular 1 TB 2.5" drive. There's Seagate and Toshiba there too. I hope the Hitachi holds well.


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## FordGT90Concept (Jun 3, 2015)

SuperSoph_WD said:


> And the results has shown that the Component Design Life of the drives is 5 years and the Annualized Failure Rate is less than 0.8%.


That's sad.  Most of my drives are over 10 years old.  Designing for five years...

As to the OP, I trust nothing less than 7200 RPM Western Digital Black/RE or Seagate Barracuda/ES drives.  Too many horror stories from the power saving drives.


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## SuperSoph_WD (Jun 3, 2015)

R-T-B said:


> HGST Ultrastars (A Western Digital Company now) are totally awesome.  I'm not so fond of their old Deskstar drives, but I think Toshiba handles that now.
> 
> SuperSoph, is there any reason the simple MTTF (Mean Time To Failure) isn't used?  MTBF has always been a bit fuzzy how they calculate it but I'd think simple MTTF would be easy to understand.


Hey, @R-T-B

Well, the reason is that we believe this is the best way to measure WD drives’ reliability.
However, the people who make those decisions at Western Digital are nowhere near me to ask, so unfortunately, I can't provide you with a more accurate answer at the moment. :/

SuperSoph_WD


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## R-T-B (Jun 3, 2015)

SuperSoph_WD said:


> Hey, @R-T-B
> 
> Well, the reason is that we believe this is the best way to measure WD drives’ reliability.
> However, the people who make those decisions at Western Digital are nowhere near me to ask, so unfortunately, I can't provide you with a more accurate answer at the moment. :/
> ...



Kinda what I was expecting, but thanks for trying to humor me anyways.


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## copenhagen69 (Jun 3, 2015)

R-T-B said:


> HGST Ultrastars (A Western Digital Company now) are totally awesome.  I'm not so fond of their old Deskstar drives, but I think Toshiba handles that now.
> 
> SuperSoph, is there any reason the simple MTTF (Mean Time To Failure) isn't used?  MTBF has always been a bit fuzzy how they calculate it but I'd think simple MTTF would be easy to understand.



Those are same price as the WD Red Pro's ... although after the deathstars some years ago I have stayed away. Is it safe to return or still kinda questionable?


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## R-T-B (Jun 3, 2015)

Ultrastars are the same price as Red's?

Usually where I look they are way more expensive.  a 2TB 7k6000 for example costs around $200, at least last I looked.

As for the Deskstars that are now made by Toshiba, they probably have a crappy reliability record like always unless Toshiba cleaned up shop.  Just my feelings on it.  The Ultrastar drives are intended for servers and are pretty fast, very reliable pieces, if kinda loud.


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## copenhagen69 (Jun 3, 2015)

Well the Pro Versions of the WD Red are similar. The normal Reds are way below the Ultrastar


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 3, 2015)

copenhagen69 said:


> Those are same price as the WD Red Pro's ... although after the deathstars some years ago I have stayed away. Is it safe to return or still kinda questionable?



Its been alright to return for a long time now - The original deathstars were made by IBM for HGST, now WD probably make drives for HGST but the same drives are also rebranded for some Toshiba drives which im currently using - I have around 4 or 5 HGST rebranded Toshiba drives, Ive done a few builds with them for other people too and all but 1 of them are still working.

Ive used rebranded HGST drives for my NAS, external drives & also two in my PC and they have been absolutely fine. One in my PC started going south a few weeks ago that needed replacing but i replaced it with the same model. everything else is still chugging along just fine.


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## claes (Jun 3, 2015)

copenhagen69 said:


> Those are same price as the WD Red Pro's ... although after the deathstars some years ago I have stayed away. Is it safe to return or still kinda questionable?


I've had great experiences with newer deskstars and, when my client can afford it, I always encourage UltraStars. Toshiba has been very good to me, too (~600 drives).

I feel like I should say that, at least IME, unless you're running a bunch of disks in a RAID array there's not much to worry about. Some drives are duds (7200.11), some are wonderful (SpinPoint F3, 7k2000), but in a single drive situation reliability is far less of a concern than it is in an array. You really can't go wrong with most disks for daily use.

My best advice for HDD reliability is to a) pay extra for shipping (most of my DOAs are, IMO, due to bad shipping), b) avoid OEM drives (poor packaging), and c) have a backup plan (on and off site)!!!

EDIT!!!
It's also worth looking at platter sizes - I avoid 3tb drives because they have odd platters and, if you look back at BB's data, 3tb drives have a tendency to fail more than their 2tb and 4tb counterparts. If you really want to get into that detail you can check this out, although I'm not sure how accurate it is: http://rml527.blogspot.com


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## Bronan (Jun 3, 2015)

I hate seagate i have just lost 2 of them in less than 2 years one has been replaced by the shop selling them the other i left too long at the shelf to replace, yes stupid but its done.
If i remember well there is no actual not owned by WD anymore, as far as i know is seagate and samsung hd sold to WD and hgst seems to be bought by them as well.
So i would not be surprised that WD gives each a separate label, as in seagate cheap crappy less reliable hgst a bit better but still not really reliable and WD the creme the la creme .....

I am searching drives for my nas to replace the now almost 2 year old samsungs and am kinda weary to buy anything at all, because of the above mentioned reasons.
I simply do not know what to choose for a 4 x 4 Tb disk nas system formatted as raid 5.


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## claes (Jun 3, 2015)

Bronan said:


> I hate seagate i have just lost 2 of them in less than 2 years one has been replaced by the shop selling them the other i left too long at the shelf to replace, yes stupid but its done.
> If i remember well there is no actual not owned by WD anymore, as far as i know is seagate and samsung hd sold to WD and hgst seems to be bought by them as well.
> So i would not be surprised that WD gives each a separate label, as in seagate cheap crappy less reliable hgst a bit better but still not really reliable and WD the creme the la creme .....


WD owns HGST, Seagate bought Samsung. Toshiba is still doing it's own thing but with Hitachi's old factories.


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## The Von Matrices (Jun 3, 2015)

I certainly can't support the >12% WD RED failure rate.  I'm using 16 x 3TB WD REDs in a RAID 60 running 24/7, and over three years I've replaced only two drives (both due to high unrecoverable read errors) for an annual failure rate of 4.1% over that time.  The main reason I chose Western Digital instead of Seagate is because WD allows you to RMA drives with unrecoverable read errors whereas Seagate requires the drive to be completely dead before you can issue an RMA.


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## Bronan (Jun 3, 2015)

The Von Matrices said:


> I certainly can't support the >12% WD RED failure rate.  I'm using 16 x 3TB WD REDs in a RAID 60 running 24/7, and over three years I've replaced only two drives (both due to high unrecoverable read errors) for an annual failure rate of 4.1% over that time.  The main reason I chose Western Digital instead of Seagate is because WD allows you to RMA drives with unrecoverable read errors whereas Seagate requires the drive to be completely dead before you can issue an RMA.



Yes thats the issue i constant had with support, the drive did run and sometimes worked. But when i tried to read data stored on it, the drive failed and the data from for instance a huge backup file ended up being unrecoverable. Ofcourse also the index files ... 
Seagate refused to see that as a failing drive. Funny enough now a couple of weeks after the warranty its giving massive errors in the seatools program but since the warranty passed can no longer get a new one

btw lol i was right seagate bought WD:
http://www.storagenewsletter.com/ru...-wd-for-16-billion-new-company-named-seawest/
seagate bought also samsung and hgst...
So every hardrive on the planet is owned by seagate ...


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## rtwjunkie (Jun 3, 2015)

Let's asks @SuperSoph_WD to clarify this...seems we would have heard about it somewhere besides that newsletter.


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## R-T-B (Jun 3, 2015)

FreedomEclipse said:


> Its been alright to return for a long time now - The original deathstars were made by IBM for HGST, now WD probably make drives for HGST but the same drives are also rebranded for some Toshiba drives which im currently using - I have around 4 or 5 HGST rebranded Toshiba drives, Ive done a few builds with them for other people too and all but 1 of them are still working.
> 
> Ive used rebranded HGST drives for my NAS, external drives & also two in my PC and they have been absolutely fine. One in my PC started going south a few weeks ago that needed replacing but i replaced it with the same model. everything else is still chugging along just fine.



You got it kind of wrong...  IBM made the drives on their own originally, then outsourced to HGST, who then eventually became it's own group and bought IBM's tech portfolio.  HGST remained independent until WD bought them, and now is only a server drive division of their company.  Toshiba owns HGST's old Desktop division though, which was to prevent trade regulators from getting mad that WD buying Hitachi made them too big.


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## copenhagen69 (Jun 4, 2015)

@SuperSoph_WD 

I am curious why the pros are 8-16 drives and the normal reds are 1-8? What's the difference in them to make you all state that? Is it bad to put pros in less than 8 drive setup?


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## Bronan (Jun 4, 2015)

I allways had pro drives in the large cabinets as well and kinda never put them into smaller cabinets and never thought about why 
So good question.


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## RCoon (Jun 4, 2015)

Bronan said:


> btw lol i was right seagate bought WD:
> http://www.storagenewsletter.com/ru...-wd-for-16-billion-new-company-named-seawest/
> seagate bought also samsung and hgst...
> So every hardrive on the planet is owned by seagate ...



That's an April Fool's article...


WD owns Hitachi (HGST) 2.5" division (they own the Hitachi 2.5" factories)
Seagate owns Samsung's HDD division
Toshiba don't make their own drives, they relabel drives from OEMs like WD. They just make SSDs (Via OCZ's/JMicron's controller tech). They also own HGST's 3.5" division. (they own the Hitachi 3.5" factories)



FreedomEclipse said:


> Its been alright to return for a long time now - The original deathstars were made by IBM for HGST, now WD probably make drives for HGST but the same drives are also rebranded for some Toshiba drives which im currently using - I have around 4 or 5 HGST rebranded Toshiba drives, Ive done a few builds with them for other people too and all but 1 of them are still working.
> 
> Ive used rebranded HGST drives for my NAS, external drives & also two in my PC and they have been absolutely fine. One in my PC started going south a few weeks ago that needed replacing but i replaced it with the same model. everything else is still chugging along just fine.



I tend to follow Freedom's advice on HDD's. He uses and abuses more HDD's than most, and has a tendency to place his trust in worthwhile products.

EDIT: To note, the RMA rate of all 3.5" HDD's are within about 0.5% of each other. The overall RMA rate of most drives in manufacture is ~3-4% last time I checked the figures (2-3 years ago). If you're buying a hard drive, it has just as much chance of failing as any other. I remember in 2012 the RMA rate of Seagate drives was something like 3.2%, while WD's RMA rate was 2.9%. Honestly, such a small percentage is hardly worth getting worked up about. You're playing the lottery with HDD's, only in this field, you're playing with 10 number combinations instead of 6.


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## Bronan (Jun 4, 2015)

This far i have not been lucky with either WD and Seagate i am well beyond 11% failing rate on them. Seagate hold the record on failing for me now over 23%.
Only 1 of the samsung drives has failed on me this far almost 4 years which they would pass at august 2015. I might keep one nas running with them to see how long they last.


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## SuperSoph_WD (Jun 4, 2015)

Bronan said:


> btw lol i was right seagate bought WD:
> http://www.storagenewsletter.com/ru...-wd-for-16-billion-new-company-named-seawest/
> seagate bought also samsung and hgst...
> So every hardrive on the planet is owned by seagate ...





rtwjunkie said:


> Let's asks @SuperSoph_WD to clarify this...seems we would have heard about it somewhere besides that newsletter.



Hey guys!  

Not happening! Don't sweat it!  Check the date of that article, it's an April fool's joke. 

_*Quoted from the comment below the article:*_
_For newspapers in some countries, it's a tradition to invent crazy news on April 1. This April fool
press release, dated April 1, has been totally invented by StorageNewsletter.com as we do each year for the fun.

It's a joke.
_​SuperSoph_WD


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## SuperSoph_WD (Jun 4, 2015)

copenhagen69 said:


> @SuperSoph_WD
> 
> I am curious why the pros are 8-16 drives and the normal reds are 1-8? What's the difference in them to make you all state that? Is it bad to put pros in less than 8 drive setup?



Hi again, @copenhagen69

I'd suggest you to take a look at the spec sheet of both drives here:
WD Red - http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=Q6TRWL
WD Red Pro - http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=PjvoaH

As you can see, there are slight differences and the most noticeable ones are the RMP, the warranty & the capacities. The slight differences in the WD Red Pro are there because these drives are enhanced for bigger and much more demanding NAS configurations, than the regular home NAS/RAID array. However, it is still compatible with desktop class systems (any 1 - 16 bay NAS).

Let me know if you have more questions! 
SuperSoph_WD


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## Easo (Jun 4, 2015)

Well, from my experience, Seagates do fail.
We have a bunch of HP ProDesk 600's, basically only thing, that ever dies in them is the Seagate Barracudas.


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## rtwjunkie (Jun 4, 2015)

All HDD fail. It's only a matter of when, not if.


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## Sasqui (Jun 4, 2015)

copenhagen69 said:


> That does make sense ... I also found this review, which does make sense on why they warranty certain things the way they do ... Posted about the WD Red Pros
> 
> "I came out of an industry where the test results of solid state devices determined the warranty and price. I had a discussion with a Seagate Engineer and he said that if they guarantee a drive for 5 years, they only expect to have a very small percentage fail during the warranty."



I'm inclined to buy into that.


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## copenhagen69 (Jun 4, 2015)

SuperSoph_WD said:


> Hi again, @copenhagen69
> 
> I'd suggest you to take a look at the spec sheet of both drives here:
> WD Red - http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=Q6TRWL
> ...




Thanks for the reply!!

Yes I knew the basic differences  but I just wanted to double check that there was nothing crazy like Pros must have at least 8 drives or they lose all hope and stop working ... maybe not that extreme but you know. Thanks for clearing that up!!

Also, any thoughts on this statement I found online ....

"I came out of an industry where the test results of solid state devices determined the warranty and price. I had a discussion with a Seagate Engineer and he said that if they guarantee a drive for 5 years, they only expect to have a very small percentage fail during the warranty."​
Is that a pretty accurate thought process in the industry?


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## Sasqui (Jun 4, 2015)

copenhagen69 said:


> Thanks for the reply!!
> 
> Yes I knew the basic differences  but I just wanted to double check that there was nothing crazy like Pros must have at least 8 drives or they lose all hope and stop working ... maybe not that extreme but you know. Thanks for clearing that up!!
> 
> ...



If you look at this:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236740

It's the 3TB Red Pro at $159.99 (with promo code), they compare Red vs Red Pro in a matrix, the Red Pro has what they call "extended testing"... so that may be your answer right there.

The Black and the Red Pro seem to be about the same price!


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## copenhagen69 (Jun 4, 2015)

Sasqui said:


> If you look at this:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236740
> 
> It's the 3TB Red Pro at $159.99 (with promo code), they compare Red vs Red Pro in a matrix, the Red Pro has what they call "extended testing"... so that may be your answer right there.
> 
> The Black and the Red Pro seem to be about the same price!



great deal on 1 ... I tried to buy 4 and only save $16 total even though I saved $10 on 1 drive. I was kinda annoyed after that haha


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## Devon68 (Jun 4, 2015)

Well if I was building a NAS I would probably go with the WD red. I always used WD and cant complain even thou I'm sure others are the same and have about the same MTBF rating. Go with the best customer support/ warranty.


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## Sasqui (Jun 4, 2015)

copenhagen69 said:


> great deal on 1 ... I tried to buy 4 and only save $16 total even though I saved $10 on 1 drive. I was kinda annoyed after that haha



With free shipping I wonder if you did multiple purchases you could use the code each time?


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## copenhagen69 (Jun 4, 2015)

Sasqui said:


> With free shipping I wonder if you did multiple purchases you could use the code each time?



that is what I am going to try next ... 

If not, I will just go amazon prime. 2 day shipping $165 total


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## Uplink10 (Jun 7, 2015)

Sasqui said:


> That said, I'd shell out more for the WD Black series.


I would not, WD Black HDDs are too expensive especially for NAS.



Sasqui said:


> Just me... rather have a reliable hard drive than more space or ram. I thought WD also makes and enterprise version of the red drives with 5-year coverage?


If you are using RAID you can afford less reliable drive and those enterprise drives start at 1.5x/2x the price of a consumer drives so it is better to buy consumer drive and because you are using RAID you are ready for HDD failure. 
Backblaze tried this when 6TB HDDs were not yet available and it worked out good for them.

I think that you are all forgetting that if someone is using RAID he doesn't need to use the best HDDs (enterprise HDDs) available because using normal consumer HDDs is a lot cheaper in the long and short run.

I would use 3TBs HDDs because they have the lowest price per GB. I would use Toshiba DT01ACA300.


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## copenhagen69 (Jun 7, 2015)

@Uplink10 

Why can't I find a warranty on the Toshiba? Is it warrantied?


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## Uplink10 (Jun 7, 2015)

copenhagen69 said:


> Why can't I find a warranty on the Toshiba? Is it warrantied?


Of course it is, first warranty depends on your country laws so if you live in Europe you can bring the receipt to seller and they have to take care of it or you can just bring it to authorized service center and show them the receipt. Even if the warranty expired when they check serial number they still have to provide service because the warranty starts from the day you bought the drive and not the day the serial number "got activated".


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## copenhagen69 (Jun 7, 2015)

Uplink10 said:


> Of course it is, first warranty depends on your country laws so if you live in Europe you can bring the receipt to seller and they have to take care of it or you can just bring it to authorized service center and show them the receipt. Even if the warranty expired when they check serial number they still have to provide service because the warranty starts from the day you bought the drive and not the day the serial number "got activated".




True. But I'm not in EU I am in U.S.  The stores normally offer a 90 day return policy but that's about it and the manus normally want you to return product to them and not the store.


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## claes (Jun 7, 2015)

Toshiba drives have 2 year warranties for OEM/bulk and 3 years for retail.


Uplink10 said:


> If you are using RAID you can afford less reliable drive and those enterprise drives start at 1.5x/2x the price of a consumer drives so it is better to buy consumer drive and because you are using RAID you are ready for HDD failure.
> Backblaze tried this when 6TB HDDs were not yet available and it worked out good for them.


Sure, but most consumers aren't setting up RAIDs with 45 drives in torturous 24/7 workloads with the kind of redundancy BB has in their poorly designed storage pods. For the average consumer this sort of cost analysis doesn't really make sense, particularly if they are using better hardware and aren't setting up a RAID 50/60 or similar.

Given the rate of disk failure in RAID rebuilds it makes a lot of sense for a consumer to be interested in high quality drives, having a hot spare, and having a proper backup system (RAID is not a backup!!!).

http://www.raid-recovery-guide.com/raid5-bad-rebuild.aspx

Moreover, most consumers aren't going to the trouble of changing firmware level settings on a drive to optimize for it NAS use (nor would they know where to begin), which is something BB can afford to do. For example, a lot of users were using WD Greens in RAIDs and experiencing incredibly high failures, while others would change park settings and have a stable NAS for years.


> I think that you are all forgetting that if someone is using RAID he doesn't need to use the best HDDs (enterprise HDDs) available because using normal consumer HDDs is a lot cheaper in the long and short run.


Again, RAID is not a backup and RAID 5/6 have notoriously high failure rates during rebuilds (particularly with disks >1TB). If your drives aren't optimized for RAIDs (either OOB, like enterprise or NAS drives, or by hand by editing the firmware) you run an even greater risk of losing your whole array then you do already (unless, like BB, you have hundreds of spare disks of the exact same make and model that you can use at hot spares).



> I would use 3TBs HDDs because they have the lowest price per GB. I would use Toshiba DT01ACA300.


Toshiba makes great drives but, again, I'd avoid 3TB drives due to their unusually high failure rates compared to their 2 and 4TB counterparts across brands, but if you can afford two spares on top of your redundant disk(s)...

Honestly, hardware RAID for consumers really doesn't make that much sense, particularly in terms of cost over time. IMO ZFS is the way to go for most home users.

EDIT: Also, just for the sake of being complete, looking at BB's latest numbers the Toshiba 3TB drive has the third highest failure rate with a sample of only 50. I've had good experiences with Toshiba but, again, it might be worth avoiding 3TB drives due to their unusually high failure rates.
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/
http://translate.google.com/transla...fr/articles/934-6/disques-durs.html&sandbox=1


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## Uplink10 (Jun 8, 2015)

claes said:


> Given the rate of disk failure in RAID rebuilds it makes a lot of sense for a consumer to be interested in high quality drives,





claes said:


> Again, RAID is not a backup and RAID 5/6 have notoriously high failure rates during rebuilds (particularly with disks >1TB).


I know RAID is not a backup but it is a lot better than having 3 drives in external enclosures which are not in RAID and connected directly to your PC in use. I currently have that setup and I am considering building NAS PC but to be fair I use them as cold storage and that means they are not constantly in use.
Failure rate during rebuild could be mitigated by using different drives by brand, age and batch and by using RAID 6 instead of RAID 5. But if you are using 3TB drives that also means that failure during rebuild is less likely to happen than if you were using drives with higher capacity because it takes longer to rebuild.



claes said:


> Honestly, hardware RAID for consumers really doesn't make that much sense, particularly in terms of cost over time.


I definetly agree, software RAID is more versatile (you are not limited to drives connected to specific controller in instance where you have more than one controller) and also free, if you are using Linux.



claes said:


> Toshiba makes great drives but, again, I'd avoid 3TB drives due to their unusually high failure rates


3TB drives have unusually higher failure rates but Toshiba DT01ACA300 does not have "that" high failure rate especially when you compare it to Seagate Barracuda 7200.14.


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## claes (Jun 8, 2015)

RAID is really no better than having 3 external drives, unless you have a fourth and fifth drive to spare.

Failure rate can be mitigated in the way you are suggesting but if you look into the research this "mitigation" is in no way significant and relies on enterprise hardware to achieve even those middling improvements (ECC memory and Enterprise disks).

In the case of RAID 5, you'll want to keep two-three spares around - one hot-spare for your rebuild and at least a second for the inevitable rebuild failure. Mixing drives will not help much in this situation (it often leads to more problems here).

In the case of RAID 6, as you know, you're looking at three to four spare disks. Still, if one fails, you'll want to have a hot spare.

YOU DO NOT WANT TO RUN RAID 5 OR RAID 6 VIA SOFTWARE RAID. THIS IS A BAD, BAD IDEA AND SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASES FAILURES DURING REBUILD. You especially don't want to run an array (hard or soft) across different controllers.

Hardware RAID cards have dedicated ECC memory, battery back-up units, and their system is usually attached to a UPS - this is how they survive disk failures so well.

Point being that a proper RAID setup will cost a user a) $100 for a PERC + cables and BBU, b) $150 for a really low-end UPS, and c) not just three disks, but at least four (R5), if not five (R5+spare, R6), but, better, six (5 w/ two spares, 6 w/ one spare) or seven (6 w/ one spare). Then, if you choose to add capacity, you have to hope that your disk is still manufactured and buy another. THAT'S why it doesn't make sense for a consumer.

BB and other enterprises get away with RAID because they have 45 disks in an array in RAID50/60 or better. To match this sort of "security" for three disks worth of storage a user would have to buy 6-8 disks, plus some spares.

Even then, most data centers do not user consumer drives for all of the reasons above - if you want reliability, you pay for it. BB only uses consumer drives because they buy hundreds of disks at a time and are happy to throw them away after a couple of months.

ZFS, which is not software RAID, is an excellent middle-ground. While you'll want to pay for either ECC memory or a UPS, you don't have to buy a ton of disks at once, you can mix and match as you please, and you can add any disk at any time to any array whose controller has a port to spare.

BUT, all of this, still, is not a backup. Grab some external drives or an online backup service for redundancy because, eventually, disks fail!


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## SuperSoph_WD (Jun 12, 2015)

copenhagen69 said:


> Thanks for the reply!!
> 
> Yes I knew the basic differences  but I just wanted to double check that there was nothing crazy like Pros must have at least 8 drives or they lose all hope and stop working ... maybe not that extreme but you know. Thanks for clearing that up!!
> 
> ...



Hi again, @copenhagen69

I'm sorry for the late reply! I will be off till the end of next week, so I had a lot of stuff to take care beforehand! 

Though, I'm not exactly sure how to respond to this statement, I'm gonna give it a try! If a 5-year warranty is set for a product, there is only expected to be a small percentage of failures, but still nothing can be a 100% really. WD doesn't currently manufacture SSDs, but if the statement is referring to manufacturing IN GENERAL, then yes, pretty much all manufacturers do it the same way.

For example, a certain processor manufacturer has mentioned that they produce all their processors to be at their highest level (3GHz). After a batch of processors is manufactured, they then test them and see where they fall. The ones that hit the 3GHz are sold as their top of the line, the ones that fall into 2.8GHz fall into the lower bracket, then the 2.5GHz fall into the next lower bracket, and so on.

So I guess that statement could be accurate for most of the hardware industry. 

SuperSoph_WD


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