Enterprise HDDs, Power Usage, MD-1510, 2TB HDD, User Sharing Questions

[dashahz]

Hello!  I have been doing some reading on unRAID and have been impressed with what I have read so far.  I have a few questions that I couldn't find answers to on the forum that I was hoping to get some help on. 

 

1. It seems like a lot of people here use consumer-grade hard drives vs enterprise grade hard drives.  Also, it appears that Tom himself sells consumer grade hard drives.  I was always under the impression that enterprise grade hard drives are recommended in situations where the hard drives are placed very close to each other since the vibration can sometimes cause problems (http://www.beowulf.org/archive/2009-January/024405.html). 

 

However, I believe that the unRAID server is not connected together using a RAID card (please correct me if I am wrong) and so the TLER (time limited error recovery) feature built into enterprise grade hard drives might actually be a bad thing for an unRAID server.

 

Can someone clarify whether they prefer enterprise hard drives over consumer ones and why? 

 

2. I am planning on buying a prebuilt system from Tom.

a. Tom offers 3 models.  I assume that the MD-1500/LI Media Storage Server is the best since it appears to offer the best cooling (according to the description at http://www.lime-technology.com/joomla/products/md-1510-server).  Besides cost, is there any reason to get the cheaper MD-1510/LC or MD-1510/LL models?  Are there any other benefits or features offered by the more expensive LI model that the cheaper LC or LL models lack?

 

b. I noticed that Tom offers an upgrade "Extra 1GB USB Flash with unRAID Server Pro OS" on his solutions.  Is there any reason that this upgrade is needed since the Pro OS is already included with the server?

 

3. What is the maximum number of watts that the MD-1510 takes at full load at any given time?  I want to ensure that it will work on the same UPS that is connected to a Dell PowerEdge 2900 server that I currently have.  The PE 2900 appears to consume a max of 150/160 watts (judging from the "APC BR1500LCD" LCD menu).

 

4. I need the ability to access a volume of about 6TB of space using unRAID.  This is because I plan to use unRAID to backup an existing server which has about 6TB of data.  I believe that the "user sharing" or "disk spanning" feature will help me with this as long as I assign them correctly and have enough hard drives.  Is this correct or did I miss something?  Also, is it possible to expand a "user share" at a later point in time in case I need to?  I understand that I can add more drives, but I wasn't sure if the user share volume can also be expanded.

 

5. What is people's take on the WD 2TB hard drive (wd20eads model)?  Anyone have any experience with this?  I know that Seagate had a lot of issues with their 1.5TB drives and so I wanted to know if anyone has had or heard of any problems with WD's 2TB drives.

 

6. Is there an ETA on the dual parity feature?

 

7. Is there an extended warranty or support contract that we can purchase beyond the 1 year that Tom offers with his hardware solutions?

 

Thanks!

[Joe L.]

Hello!  I have been doing some reading on unRAID and have been impressed with what I have read so far.  I have a few questions that I couldn't find answers to on the forum that I was hoping to get some help on. 

 

1. It seems like a lot of people here use consumer-grade hard drives vs enterprise grade hard drives.  Also, it appears that Tom himself sells consumer grade hard drives.  I was always under the impression that enterprise grade hard drives are recommended in situations where the hard drives are placed very close to each other since the vibration can sometimes cause problems (http://www.beowulf.org/archive/2009-January/024405.html). 

Unlike Raid5, the drives are not all used simultaneously, therefore, the vibration issues you are describing are not present.  Most of the time, most of your drives will be spun down unless recently accessed.  Even if they were spinning, unless currently being accessed, there is no disk head-seeking activity, so no vibration.

However, I believe that the unRAID server is not connected together using a RAID card (please correct me if I am wrong) and so the TLER (time limited error recovery) feature built into enterprise grade hard drives might actually be a bad thing for an unRAID server.

Correct, correct.

2. I am planning on buying a prebuilt system from Tom.

a. Tom offers 3 models.  I assume that the MD-1500/LI Media Storage Server is the best since it appears to offer the best cooling (according to the description at http://www.lime-technology.com/joomla/products/md-1510-server).  Besides cost, is there any reason to get the cheaper MD-1510/LC or MD-1510/LL models?  Are there any other benefits or features offered by the more expensive LI model that the cheaper LC or LL models lack?

 

b. I noticed that Tom offers an upgrade "Extra 1GB USB Flash with unRAID Server Pro OS" on his solutions.  Is there any reason that this upgrade is needed since the Pro OS is already included with the server?

The spare is to minimize any down-time if the flash drive were to fail. (the time it would take to obtain a new "Pro" license key)

3. What is the maximum number of watts that the MD-1510 takes at full load at any given time?  I want to ensure that it will work on the same UPS that is connected to a Dell PowerEdge 2900 server that I currently have.  The PE 2900 appears to consume a max of 150/160 watts (judging from the "APC BR1500LCD" LCD menu).

Others will need to answer... It would highly depend on the specific disks installed.

4. I need the ability to access a volume of about 6TB of space using unRAID.  This is because I plan to use unRAID to backup an existing server which has about 6TB of data.  I believe that the "user sharing" or "disk spanning" feature will help me with this as long as I assign them correctly and have enough hard drives.  Is this correct or did I miss something?

You are correct.  You can put up to 20 data drives in an unRAID array.  With 2TB drives that is 40TB of data. (I've not heard of anybody with that size array... but some day, when the 2TB drives are more afordable I'm sure we will)

  Also, is it possible to expand a "user share" at a later point in time in case I need to?  I understand that I can add more drives, but I wasn't sure if the user share volume can also be expanded.

The user-share is not a physical drive or volume. It is a logical union of all the physical drives and is dynamically created in memory as needed every time the unRAID server is booted.  It will dynamically create a consolidated "share" of each of the similar top-level folders on your disks and update itself as files are added or deleted on the physical disks.  You don't need to do anything to "expand" it.  You just need to add files to the server as your needs dictate. (You can define how the server will allocate files to your physical disks based on available space, etc... there are multiple allocation methods available)

 

5. What is people's take on the WD 2TB hard drive (wd20eads model)?  Anyone have any experience with this?  I know that Seagate had a lot of issues with their 1.5TB drives and so I wanted to know if anyone has had or heard of any problems with WD's 2TB drives.

Too early for much feedback.  I think the Seagate 1.5TB drives are OK if you update the buggy firmware.  (I just purchased one from Fry's this past week and it came with new, fixed firmware.  I have two others, they too came with updated firmware.  Unless you purchase from a vendor with old stock, you will likely get newer versions too. )

6. Is there an ETA on the dual parity feature?

No time estimate.  Current focus is creation of new web-front-end and interface API. 

7. Is there an extended warranty or support contract that we can purchase beyond the 1 year that Tom offers with his hardware solutions?

 

Thanks!

You'll need to e-mail Tom on that. No idea.  You are the first to ask as far as I know.

 

Joe L.

[dashahz]

Thanks for the quick response Joe L - much appreciated! 

 

Is there any reason you opted for the Seagate 1.5TB vs the WD 1.5TB hard drive?  I'm wondering whether it just a personal preference towards Seagate, or if there was a more technical reason?  I'd rather stick with drives that the unRAID community trusts.

 

Also, could you please answer this question:

"Tom offers 3 models.  I assume that the MD-1500/LI Media Storage Server is the best since it appears to offer the best cooling (according to the description at http://www.lime-technology.com/joomla/products/md-1510-server).  Besides cost, is there any reason to get the cheaper MD-1510/LC or MD-1510/LL models?  Are there any other benefits or features offered by the more expensive LI model that the cheaper LC or LL models lack?"

[Joe L.]

Thanks for the quick response Joe L - much appreciated! 

 

Is there any reason you opted for the Seagate 1.5TB vs the WD 1.5TB hard drive?  I'm wondering whether it just a personal preference towards Seagate, or if there was a more technical reason?  I'd rather stick with drives that the unRAID community trusts.

Yes... price... last week's 1.5TB Seagate was $117. shipped... and I trust the drives now that the firmware is fixed, and they have a 5 year warranty...     (the WD versions did not exist when I purchased my first two 1.5TB drives)

 

I know there was some buggy firmware... I pretty certain that is in the past, but the bad press resulted in some great bargains.   The early 1.5TB drives with the buggy firmware drove standard Raid5 users bananas...  Way too likely to have two time-outs on two drives and have the whole array lost.

 

Also, could you please answer this question:

"Tom offers 3 models.  I assume that the MD-1500/LI Media Storage Server is the best since it appears to offer the best cooling (according to the description at http://www.lime-technology.com/joomla/products/md-1510-server).  Besides cost, is there any reason to get the cheaper MD-1510/LC or MD-1510/LL models?  Are there any other benefits or features offered by the more expensive LI model that the cheaper LC or LL models lack?"

The differences are just size and number of disks that are possible in a given case.  I have a much older MD1200 server, in a Coolermaster Stacker case.  I have no first-hand knowledge of his current case styles/offerings.

[dashahz]

Joe:  Thanks again for all of the prompt information!

 

Others:  If anyone has, or is familiar with the current MD 1510 offerings, can you please answer this question:

"Tom offers 3 models.  I assume that the MD-1500/LI Media Storage Server is the best since it appears to offer the best cooling (according to the description at http://www.lime-technology.com/joomla/products/md-1510-server).  Besides cost, is there any reason to get the cheaper MD-1510/LC or MD-1510/LL models?  Are there any other benefits or features offered by the more expensive LI model that the cheaper LC or LL models lack?"

[SSD]

I have no firsthand knowledge of Tom's offerings, so can't help there.

 

Just thought I'd chime in on the Seagate vs WD GP drives.  I was once quite a Seagate supporter, but after buying several of the WD I greatly prefer them ...

 

1.  They run cooler

2.  They consume much less power (you need a smaller PSU)

3.  For media / unRAID use, they are more than fast enough to keep up with gigabit ethernet.

4.  I like that they can report temps / get smart report without spinning up the drive.  Small thing for most, but if you think about it, seems pretty silly to require a drive spin up for this.  And if they do something stupid like that, what other stupid things are they doing under the hood?

 

I'm a little disappointed that WD 1.5 and especially 2.0 offerings are priced at such a premium.  In these economic times, though, the market analysis likely bears this out at the most profitable posture for WD to take.  Once demand returns, WD will likely be more interested in moving drives than pulling high profits from those that will buy the biggest drive on the block even at a premium.  We also need to root a bit for Seagate to get in the game at 2TB to push WD prices lower.

 

I should note that although I love WD drives for unRAID use, I'd be pushing for faster drives (SSD or at least 7200 RPM high density) for workstation use, where it really makes a difference in performance.  Unless and until we start seeing faster networking options, "faster than gigabit ethernet" is what you're looking for in unRAID drives.  That's a pretty easy target for modern SATA drives, including GP drives.

[dashahz]

Thanks for the info bjp999!  I know what you mean by the cooler thing:  I initially used a Seagate 1TB drive in my computer to store all of my data in.  But after the Seagate was getting too hot compared to my other drives (Samsung F1 and WD 640GB drive), I switched over to the WD 1TB Black series drive and have been very happy with it in terms of temperature and performance.  The Seagate didn't appear to be defective since I ran Seatools on it successfully and so Seagate Support wasn't willing to replace the drive either.

 

That's interesting that the WD's can report SMART info without spinning up the drive.  That seems like a definite plus.  Do you know if the WD Black series also does this, or is just the Green series?

 

Since it is easy to upgrade drives with unRAID, I think I will get a 2TB drive as my partity drive and then consider smaller, cheaper 1TB drives for now until the prices on the 1.5TB or 2TB drives become better.

[Joe L.]

Since it is easy to upgrade drives with unRAID, I think I will get a 2TB drive as my parity drive and then consider smaller, cheaper 1TB drives for now until the prices on the 1.5TB or 2TB drives become better.

Unless you really want to spend an extra hundred or so for the 2TB drive now, it is just as easy to upgrade the parity drive as it is any other drive, so I would not go with  the 2TB drive at all unless you get a pair (or more of them) and really need it to be a 2TB drive.

 

As far as the 1TB vs. 1.5TB...  You can often find a 1TB on sale for around $100.   When I recently saw the 1.5TB for $117. shipped, it made sense to me for the extra $17 to get 50% more storage... otherwise I would have gotten a 1TB myself.  It is really all about cost per Gig of storage.  7.8 cents Per Gig is not too bad.

 

Since we can incrementally grow our arrays so easily, and since prices keep dropping and disk sizes growing, I buy only as I need the additional capacity.  It is a huge advantage of unRAID over other RAID array implementations.

[dashahz]

Good point Joe L.  I'll stay away from the more expensive 2TB drives for now.

 

Thanks.

[lionelhutz]

Tom has LC and LL servers that use Supermicro CSE-M35T-1B 5 into 3 drive cages and the LI that uses the Icy Dock MB455SPF-B 5-into-3 drive cages. So, look them up and decide which one you like the best. They are both tray types so you have to bolt the drives to the tray. The Icy Dock looks like it has better SATA backplane connectors and reportedly has a removable/replaceable fan. But then, sure looks like you could change the fan on the Supermicro too.

 

Other than this, the only other difference appears to be the case itself so you can look them up too and see which one you like the best.

 

Another note on you needing 6T of space. unRAID will combine a commonly named directory on each drive into a single user share. You can write to this share and the data will go to one of the drives, depending on some settings. However, unRAID does not create one large 6T space. In other words, you can write a bunch of files to the 6T share but you can't write one big file. If you use 2T drives the largest possible theoretical file size is 2T even if you have 10 drives creating a 20T share.

 

Peter

 

[Joe L.]

Another note on you needing 6T of space. unRAID will combine a commonly named directory on each drive into a single user share. You can write to this share and the data will go to one of the drives, depending on some settings. However, unRAID does not create one large 6T space. In other words, you can write a bunch of files to the 6T share but you can't write one big file. If you use 2T drives the largest possible theoretical file size is 2T even if you have 10 drives creating a 20T share.

No single file can span more than one physical disk.  If you have 10 drives each with 1 Gig free, the biggest file you can add is a 1 Gig file, even though you have 10Gig free.  (Now, you can add 10 1Gig files, one on each physical drive, but not anything that won't fit on the available space on each drive.)

[dashahz]

Ahh!  That's an important point to consider that I didn't think about.  Fortunately, the files I am backing up are raw photos which are from 10-40mb.  So, I think this shouldn't pose a problem for my situation now.

 

Thanks for the pointer!

[Nyago123]

Just tossing in my $0.02...

 

I have a WD20EADS, which I got recently for around $255 shipped (thanks to PC Connection for honoring a pre-order price).  I didn't put it into my unRAID server, but I did put it into my workstation and freed up some Seagate 7200.10 750GB drives, which went into my unRAID server.

 

So far my experience has been positive... the drive performs well and has reasonable temperatures.

 

My experience with the Seagate 1.5TBs: I own 4 1.5TB Seagate ST31500341AS drives + 1 1TB 7200.11 drive.  These suffer from random link hard reset errors in unRAID, even with updated firmware, and tend to run from 42C to 51C.  My WD drives tend to run 6-8 deg C cooler under identical stress conditions (same position, same ventilation, same ambient temperature during parity check... I've tested this).  None of the 750GB 7200.10 drives suffer from the link hard resets in unRAID and they run about 4 deg C cooler on average.

 

So if I were buying a 1.5TB drive today, I'd buy a WD15EADS... $155 @ Amazon currently; only around $30 above the Seagate price.  I just don't know which is bigger (for unRAID parity reasons)... a Seagate 1.5TB or a WD 1.5TB? 

 

I will definitely be keeping my eye on the WD2002FYPS enterprise drives and the new "green" 2TB Seagate Barracuda LPs (Anandtech link).  With 2TB essentially still a new capacity level, I'd say it's time to hold off buying storage for a few months if possible (i.e. buy just what you need) and pick some more up during the usual summer slowdown.

 

[dashahz]

Which one will last longer and be quieter: the LC or the LI model (from Tom's offering)?  I keep hearing that the LC is "rugged", but that it may be loud without a fan mod.  Can anyone confirm this?  My first goal is fewer problems down the road and then loudness.

 

In addition to Tom's servers, are there other places I could buy a prebuilt system that people could recommend that would be large, reliable and relatively quiet?

 

Thanks.

[Romir]

The Icy Dock 5-in-3s aren't exactly what I'd call quiet either and modding them is more involved because the fan doesn't just plug into the back of the cage. Its stuck extremely tightly in the fan holder and is hard to remove without breaking it. After that you need to desolder the fans wires, cut your new fans, and solder it to the connectors.

 

I never modded mine because the air flow through the units never impressed me in the first place and the noise was banished to the guest bedroom. What I didn't expect was a drive vibration/hum/drone/whine that penetrated downstairs.  It was a high pitched vibration that would continually ramp up and down in its intensity. It annoyed me enough that I stopped using the cages and downsized my drive count by swapping my 750gb drives for 1.5tbs. That ended up being the worst storage decision I ever made so I don't look upon the catalyst of it too kindly.

 

I really liked how those drive trays were compatible with the external e-sata units I already owned, but I couldn't live with the amplified seek noise from those 5-in-3s. I wish the Norco 20 hot swap bay server had been popularized a year ago, because it would've worked out much better for me.

 

[dashahz]

Romir:  Thanks for the information.  So just to clarify, you don't like the drive noise that the Icy Dock's created, correct?  Would you recommend the Supermicro cages?

 

Also, I take it you like the Norco offering (I haven't looked into it yet).

 

Thanks.