From Green to Red

[mark-hc]

I started my unraid server with WD Black drives 1TB.

 

Then forum members recommended the WD Green drives for cost effectiveness, they felt the Blacks were not necessary by unraid. Overkill...Fair enough.

 

Disk 5 of the 2TB Greens in my array  has failed after 2 years, luckily still under warranty.

 

I replaced a 2tb green Parity with a new 3TB red. After parity was finished, unraid reported everything healthy.

 

So I went to add another drive into Unraid. When I rebooted the server the BIOS reported Disk 5 S.M.A.R.T failure and refused to boot up.

 

I ignored the error and let unraid boot. Unraid reported no problem with Disk 5.

I powered down, and swapped cables etc. but Disk 5 kept getting same error.

 

So I took disk 5 out and mounted it in windows and used Western Digital diagnostics and it reported a S.M.A.R.T error. I tried wiping the drive and it found bad sectors and failed to write zeros. RMA'd it.

 

Doing some researched I find many are reporting the Green drives failing after a few years. I don't think the green drives are built tough enough for a server (heat, 24/7 operation, lots of writing).

 

I will be switching to Reds now. Parity is rebuilding the drive. Time for unraid to do it's duty!