danioj

Hope it doesn't skew the results, but I VPN'd in and set the other 2 going at the same time in separate tty's. I don't think it will based on first glance as all 3 Pre Reads are running at the same speed. Did an edit of the above post to reflect.

I'd be interested in how you do this. http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=609&sid=113 Once you have created the boot usb and WDIDLE3 is on it you boot from it in a PC where the WD drive is installed. As a precaution I would NOT boot from your Unraid box, I wouldn't like to give Data Disk access to any other OS but Unraid. I guess you could just disable the drives first - but I'd just use another computer to be safe and avoid costly mistakes. Anyway, configure your bios to boot from the new USB. You should be presented with a DOS prompt. Execute the following and follow whatever prompts you're given: Essentially what you are going below is checking the current head parking delay of the drive (note I think WDIDLE3 will only recognise WD Drives) to see if you "need" to change it and if so then execute a command that changes the head parking delay on the drive to 300 seconds (same as the Red's). See what the current timer is (8 seconds default for Green's): WDIDLE3.EXE /R Set the timer of the Green Drive to the same as the Red Drives (300 second default for Red's): WDIDLE3.EXE /S300

Interesting packaging! (See IMG). Going out tonight but couldn't help taking some pictures and plugging one of the drives in. Interesting initial thing though, I tried to do an initial S.M.A.R.T report before I do a 3 cycle preclear and it appears the drives don't come with S.M.A.R.T enabled (See Screen Shot). For everyones benefit I intend to do the following before I go to bed tonight: -- Enable S.M.A.R.T (and get an initial report) -- smartctl -s on /dev/sdc smartctl -d ata -a /dev/sdc smartctl -a -A /dev/sdc >/boot/20150402_SG8TB1_Initial_Report.txt EDIT: Still some time so did some investigating. No need for the above. S.M.A.R.T was not enabled by default in my BIOS of my new board for the Backup Server. I don't know if enabling it forces some other command to be executed or not but no matter - enabled it in BIOS and was able to obtain an initial S.M.A.R.T report for 3 of 3 drives (EDIT - changed file to have all 3 reports included in one file - attached). -- Run 3 Cycle Preclear (bjp faster preclear is the one I am going to use) -- preclear_bjp.sh -f -A -c 3 /dev/sdc preclear_bjp.sh -f -A -c 3 /dev/sdd preclear_bjp.sh -f -A -c 3 /dev/sde EDIT: Started preclear for ALL 3 drives in one go in a separate tty (God I love IPMI) using above command before I go out. Initial Pre Read running @ ~170MB/s for ALL 3 drives. -- End-- Ill post the results of it once it is done. 20150402_SG8TB123_Initial_Report.txt

Dear Daniel, Thank you for placing an order with us, we now have the item(s) you ordered in stock ready for you to pickup. *dances*

I'd be surprised if it was much slower or slower at all TBH. The only performance related differences I can see in the drives is the cache. 64MB vs 128MB. Makes no difference, at the current price point I've decided to bite the bullet. I'm going with the Green's - I'm just going to give the suckers a bloody good Garycase style workout before they go in the Array and also WDIDLE3 them to the same spec as the Red's!

On topic but away from helping the OP - why is the user forced to drop to the command line when there is a disk issue here. I see more and more instances of the GUI locking up or being inaccessible by users (and have experienced it myself). I consistently see posts suggesting only Advanced users are expected to use the command line. Therefore shouldn't there be the issuing a bug report?

Really? All as Exhaust! For me the two intake fans drawing cool air in (next to the drives) and then the exhaust fan (near the cpu) drawing air out pulls all ambient room temp air in over the drives and then over the cpu and then out the rear! Seems very optimal to me! Obviously this is without your experience but I am wondering why the issues you are noting exist!? P.S. I put a little drawing (sorry - it is quick and dirty) together to indicate what I mean!

Thanks. Nice to get another opinion. I think I am going to make the decision and get the Greens plus a spare. Feels like more value to me. A side question (without starting another thread - but while I have your attention). How many PC cycles would YOU run on these? I only did 1 on the red's but that was when I was impatient and setting up my first rig. I'd like to follow best practice this time.

Hello All, With all the discussion about the new 8TB Seagate's (which I am buying) dying down I have switched focus to my main server again, which I need to add drives to. I currently have 5 WD Red 3TB's (1 parity) and need to add more space. However the difference in price between the Greens and the Red's in Australia is just making me pause. As I note in the topic, I know this has been discussed and in summary it appears that while the Red's are more $$ than the Greens the extra $$ is worth it for an extra years warranty and the reported longer lifespan. That opinion is also reflected here: http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Western-Digital-Green-vs-Red-Hard-Drives-602/ However at the moment in AUS the difference (at the cheapest price point) between 6TB Green (AUD$307) and 6TB Red (AUD$389) is $82. So when I buy 3 new ones I have to justify to myself an extra AUD$246 for an extra yr warranty on one drive and a longer advertised lifespan which in reality doesn't make much difference. I can run WDIDLE3 on the Green's and make it more like a red in operation anyway too. I know it comes down here to what I want to pay for and if the extra $$ is worth the warrenty but other than that am I missing something? Daniel

Some more tests conducted which seem to show how the drives perform. http://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/2vxboz/seagate_archive_hdd_v2_8tb_st8000as0002_write/ Liked the last post:

Conratulations! Here you go. Some steps are optional or not applicable, and, as always, there is more than one way to skin a cat, but what I did is here. WARNING! Do not do this with disks containing needed data! -- You have been warned. 1. Disable auto page refresh: Main==>Settings==>Display Settings==>Auto page refresh==>Disable Automatic page refresh is nice, but slows server down considerably. 2. New config: Main==>Tools==>New config This resets array configuration - it forgets all disks. 3. Assign disks - Parity, and two data unRAID will say "Start will bring array online and start parity sync". 4. Check the "Parity is already valid" checkbox. To be able to skip parity sync and still fool unRAID that it has valid parity, since we are only interested in writing speed test. 5. Start array. This will start parity sync. 6. Cancel parity sync. 7. Stop the array. 8. Unassign (set to "no device") one data disk. 9. Start array. It will say "unprotected, replace the missing disk a.s.a.p." 10. Stop array. 11. Assign back the disk which was unassigned in step 8. 12. Start array. This will start data disk rebuild. Then I just copy-pasted the main page progress report into a separate file from time to time. Thanks for the info! Shame, I wont be able to run the tests this weekend like I expected. Just had a call from the supplier and now they are saying mid-April. Grrrrr. Have my C2550D4I, memory, SFX PSU and Silverstone case already waiting to put these in too! Now I have to wait! Ill run the tests when I get them though. Sigh.

@pkn: my supplier has informed me that the 3 8TB's I have ordered will arrive tomorrow! ;D Can you post or PM me the procedure you followed for recording your test timings. Ill do the same thing just to provide extra data.

Do you already have the q25 and are wanting this case? What about a q26? No - I had ordered the Q25 but they keep pushing it back 4 weeks month on month. For whatever reason it is just not becomming available. I cant find the Q26 either Thanks for the update on the cooling. I am looking to fill the sucker eventually with 8 x 8TB drives (4 to start with) and 2 x SSD's. Wierd - the cooling system looks allot like the Q25 and the ratings for the Q25 from a cooling perspective has always been excellent. Need to think before I pull the trigger! Thanks for the quick reply man!

Resurrecting this thread. In my backup server project (which is currently in bits on my test bench) I think I switching to this case from the Lian-Li PCQ25B. My supplier just cant get the Lian Li Case and has suggested this Silverstone box. They have it in stock - given the comments in this thread I think Ill go with it! Unless others have had any issues with it since this thread was last used?

Do the files that you're waiting to move have a version (or file with the same name and location) exist on the Array!? I.e on a a"Full" disk!? Remember there might room on an Array but have full disks. If so then Unraid will try and overwrite that file and if there isn't enough space on that disk (not the overall share) then I think it will fail. The way around it I think would be to move that file to a disk with more space then execute the mover again and I think it would work. Or you could move some files from that disk to increase the space enough to let the overwrite happen. Also - remember to check the "min free space" variable for disks. This is the min free space required before the disk is considered Full. Ie if it is set to 30GB at least that much needs to exist to copy to the disk. Hope this helps.

NOTE: I appologise in advance if the below includes any technical inaccuracies. I am not a data specialist nor do I work in the field. I am at best a SOHO user with a Systems Engineering Background. This post is made up of my opinion only and my comments are based on what I have learned in these forums and my understanding of the product and the wider subject. I guess it all depends on what you want. I love my Unraid Box, it's all becoming much of a hobby too. I use it to store my Media and run some minor applications. However mainly I am concerned about my Data. I want it accessible at all times and I don't want to loose any of it. EVER. I feel my Unraid Master Server (12TB) running apps / Backup Server (16TB) running nothing but stock Unraid Setup (The Backup part of my setup is nearly complete) meets my needs. It's an excellent Product. BUT, I do feel that LT is ignoring/forgetting/choosing not to address some core features of a traditional RAID System (which competitors - that I won't discuss here - have now) in favour of more "additional features" and virtualisation. For me - and this is the big plus of Unraid - the feature of each disk having its own filesystem is just too much to look past for me. Unlike with many competitors if controllers fail, multiple disks fail (beyond what is covered by parity and cannot be rebuilt) etc then ALL data can be LOST! With Unraid (which at the moment is tolerant up to 1 disk unless additional measures are taken) if a similar scenario happens the only data which is lost is the data on those failed disks! You can stick the remaining disks into a USB dock and still access the data! Awesome! As a means of further positives Unraid has a Realtime redundancy model and not Snapshot - so Parity is calculated Real Time. Like I said above, if more than one drive fails then data is still recoverable (and more importantly easily accessible from the other drives), only the disk which is being accessed is spinning at the time of being accessed, you don't need an OS to run it on, it has a really nice GUI which is improving all the time to manage most things and it is supported by a VERY active community (which is better than ANY other I have experienced). As a means of negatives (and these are my own and what i mean by CORE features which competitors already have in their product, but as I said above are not enough to make me move) There is no data validation (e.g. CRC etc), Poorer(er) fault tolerance in that it only supports 1 drive failure before there is data loss (I don't worry about this now as I have moved to a FULL Backup system - which technically I should have had anyway no matter how much data I have), data errors are not managed (e.g. if rot occurs then this can be copied to Parity meaning potential data loss). Unraid (IMHO) is in a difficult spot. Many competitors have the Media Centric / Virtualisation features (which are the focus of LT's latest release) and LT have to catch up. I would have liked them to consolidate on their core product first and make it the best damn RAID system software product they can and then add additional features later, but I don't think that is possible for them right now. One might speculate that this is because of their licensing model (e.g. pay once and not ongoing) as new sales are based on what new customers want and people seem to want those additional features I mention above - and it seems unless their RAID system is also an ALL-IN-ONE RAID System, Media Server, Virtualisation Host etc etc. It is seen as a deal breaker. Some people talk to the use of SW Linux and RFS and the supportability of such software as an issue - but I don't think that is one for me. Quite the Contrary - It seems to have served LT well in the past and I don't (and never have) seen an immediate need to move from something that is working (e.g. Barney Stinson Quote: Newer is Always Better). They have a solid product which is lasting. While I am sure LT have a long term strategy for moving OS's / FS's (noting that BTRFS and XFS are options in v6). Here comes my biggest issue ...... Development and Roadmap. Development with Unraid takes (in comparative terms) FOREVER! There is no PUBLIC release schedule (either for bugs or feature enchancements), milestones, development plan. You just don't know when another BETA is going to pop up, how many there are going to be, when it will move to RC, how many of them there will be and then when there will be FINAL. You can make the jump to the new version and install the BETA but remember you ALWAYS get the caveat (this is BETA software so data loss cannot be guaranteed) - which I guess if you have a backup running the latest stable version its not too much of an issue. I sometimes forget about this because in the main I think of Unraid as a community supported product - but then remember I PAID for it - so I get upset again! All in All for me Unraid is an excellent Product (for now) and I hope it continues to be. It needs to be competitive and I guess thats what LT is trying to do right now with v6 and I can't blame them for that. Does it offer a solution which offers the BEST protection for your data. I would say no. But I think they will get there. Always have a Backup of your data, be careful to run the stable version of the OS (on your main server at least) and I think this is the product for you. As with any choice of solution there are Pro's and Con's for each and I think Unraid has more Pro's than Con's. Thats why I use it.

+1 for the The WD Red. I am a big fan of these drives. I am not sure how much of a comparison this is (given you are talking about 6TB drives) but if it helps at all: Last checked on Fri Mar 13 00:28:32 2015 EST (eleven days ago), finding 0 errors. Duration: 7 hours, 54 minutes, 8 seconds. Average speed: 105.5 MB/sec Parity Disk (3TB) and 4 data disks (4x3TB) Given what I have experienced with these WD 3TB Red's (when funds permit) I will be migrating to the WD 6TB Red's.

Is this fact? Unraid rebuilds drives with sequential writes!?

Oh thanks, I must have missed that. Was it included in v5? For the life of me I don't remember downloading it and adding it to /boot for v5, but maybe I did. Yeah, I get the Parity reference. Just wanted to play with v6 and do something "Useful". I've been meaning to Pre_clear this disk for ages. Figured - Might as well.

Hi Guys, I couldn't seem to find an answer to this in the forums so I think I have something fundamentally wrong. I pulled an old laptop out this morning (one that has an esata port). I added an old 2TB WD Green into an enclosure I have, plugged the enclosure into the esata port and booted into Unraid Trial. My intent here is to have a look at the interface before I move forward with it. I thought a nice simple test would be to pre_clear the drive and see what happens. However I noticed a few things. Firstly pre_clear.sh was not at /boot. No matter how many "pre_clear.sh location Unraid v6" type searches I do, no one seems to have asked the question. Secondly I thought - Ill try the GUI. Drive initially showed up as (Unmountable). Not surprising as it used to be part of my old ReadyNas Raid 5 setup. So I go into disk settings select xfs and format the drive. Then to my surprise (in about 3 mins and after a manual GUI refresh) the drive is Green and the Array is started. No Clearing or anything .... Am I missing something here? Daniel

I am building a server with this case. The advice is correct - it will NOT accept a 3 in 2 or higher cage of ANY type that I have seen! However, there is a fan mount on the bottom of the case (to the left of the lower drive cage and to the right of the PSU as you look into it) Soooo, I bought one of these: http://www.caselabs-store.com/hdd-cage-assy-standard/?src=prn This allows for an extra 4 drives. Taking the drive amount to 14. 3+5+4+2.

That is an Unbelievable deal!!!

Nothing new for me. Been running for over a year. Last problem I had was last summer. I found the memory I was using was unstable for this motherboard. Bought 2 8GB ECC and all is well. @dmacias do you have your disks connected to each of the controllers on the board? My thought is here - are you going to upgrade in the future and plug into a SATA port on one of the Marvell controllers not in use and then have an issue?

http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-ssds-are-obsolete/ I enjoyed this article. Made me think about why SSD's exist and what could / should be done when the engineers apply some further research and experiment.

@bjp999 I like that idea for transitioning to those drives in a production environment. Don't think it impacts my scenario though. I'll continue to use 3TB WD Reds in main server and Seagates in Backup. For now. I'll see how these Seagtates perform in others main environments and in my backup scenario but no need to transition my WD's yet as still 1.8 yrs warranty left and spinning along quite nicely. As for my 3 Seagates here - I imagine it's going to take "a loooong time" to do a continuous backup of my 12TB of data on the main server (unless because they are zerod the backup application I use writes the continuous backup sequentially??) and of course if it's continuous I get a nice sequential parity write too. It's unlikkey I'll have much regular file turnover - just weekly filling every Sunday so I'm hoping all is ok- proof as they say is in the pudding!! :-)