So I primarily use my UnRAID array drives for video media storage.  I'm in the need of another drive here soon.

 

Up to this point I've been using ST3000DM001 drives, they've been rock solid for a year now.

I'm going to need to increase capacity on my existing 3 drive array.

 

I know the ST3000VN000 is supposed to be more of a NAS rated drive, but I also know it's a little slower on paper.

I could also go the WD Red route too, but Newegg has a $20 promotional gift card with purchase of the Seagate drive.

 

So my concern I guess is that I know the ST3000DM001 drives are 7200RPM.  For what I'm doing with this array, would I really notice any difference between the ST3000DM001 and the ST3000VN000 drives?  Or should I also think about switching up manufacturers for drive variance?

 

None of this probably matters, but if someone says one route is better than the other, it'd at least shut my brain off from over thinking this

I'd definitely go with the NAS drives.  You are very unlikely to notice any speed difference between them and the 7200rpm units, except a modest difference in parity check times.  Clearly 5900rpm drives aren't as fast as 7200rpm drives; and since both units have the same areal density, the 7200rpm drives DO have a speed advantage ... it's just not one that will make any real-world difference.

 

BOTH drives easily exceed the maximum speed of a Gb network;  so there is ZERO difference in the perceived performance of your array.  And the NAS units run MUCH cooler; use less power; and have longer warranties.  I've built several systems using both the Seagate NAS units and WD Reds, and won't use anything else these days ... they're both superb units that are rock-solid and run at amazingly low temperatures.  They don't even get warm to the touch after a full parity check.

 

I'm not overly concerned with the heat.

Full drive rebuild and a parity check only shows my drives at about 30 degrees C which is well within what is considered ambient limits.

 

The longer warranty, durability and performance (as in rebuild time or parity check time) are all key factors for me.  And to some extent power.

 

 

 

 

The NAS drives will "win" in the power utilization; durability; and of course warranty length ... but the 7200rpm drives will have better parity check and rebuild times.    Given that the two units have identical areal density (1TB/platter), the 5900rpm NAS units going to be 18% slower than the faster drives ... nothing you can do about that.    As I noted above, that won't have any real-world impact on the performance you'll see EXCEPT for slower parity checks, and longer rebuild times.

 

If parity check times and rebuild times are key factors, then you should stay with 7200rpm units.  Note that if you add even ONE of the NAS units to the system, that will limit the parity checks and rebuilds to the speed of that drive ... so you need to stay with ALL 7200rpm drives if you don't want that slight degradation of those functions.

 

Hmmm that is a dilemma.  I'd prefer not to add an hour + of parity/rebuild time to an array that may have a failed disk.  Ideally you'd want to rebuild that as quickly as possible.

But that warranty and power.  Grrrr... 

 

Thanks for helping!

As I noted above, I only use the NAS-quality drives (Seagate NAS and WD Reds) these days.

 

To me it's a pretty straightforward choice ... the performance is still good enough to saturate my Gb network;  the power consumption is notably lower; the temperatures are consistently lower (as I noted, the drives don't even get warm to the touch);  and of course the warranty is much nicer.

 

It's true that a parity check or disk rebuild will be ~ an hour longer than it would be with all 7200rpm drives.   

 

But I just don't think that's a concern.   

 

BTW, for parity check, that's indeed an extra hour that you'll see every time you do a parity check.  But for drive rebuilds, you'll probably spend LESS time rebuilding, since the drives are likely to be more reliable -- thus you'll be doing fewer (and less frequent) rebuilds 

 

Of course if I had unlimited piles of cash I'd go with WD Re drives

 

It's kind of interesting, it looks like random access the WD is a little better, where as sequential the Seagate is a little better based on the anandtech review of 4TB NAS drives anyway...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7258/battle-of-the-4-tb-nas-drives-wd-red-and-seagate-nas-hdd-faceoff

 

Looks like the Seagate drives require a little more juice, but 3/4 of the time my array will be spun down anyway and my cache drive is an SSD.

The random access would be nice if it were equal, but I think the sustained sequential bandwidth would be better in this instance.

The Seagate NAS drives are slightly faster than the WD Reds ... they have identical areal density, but the Seagate spins at 5900rpm whereas the WD Reds spin at 5400rpm.

 

Note, by the way, that the current WD RE drives, while superb drives, have lower areal density than the NAS units (800GB/platter vs. 1TB /platter for the NAS units).    This means that even with their 7200rpm rotational speed, they would not outperform the NAS units in sustained data rate (they RE units have appreciably better access times, however).