Toshiba 5T 7200RPM/PMR Drives - $139.99 FS and no tax (depends on your state)

[SSD]

Toshiba 5T 7200RPM/PMR Drives - $139.99 at B&H

 

See HERE for more info, including link to BackBlaze mini-review of these drives. That and the price convinced me to the push the trigger. I've seen at this price once or twice elsewhere, but not with no tax (in my state anyway) and free shipping.

 

I'm in for a few. Will post results after preclear. Moving more of my 3T that are pushing 5 years old to the backup array.

[B_Sinn3d]

Bought two of these about a month ago.  First two were not detectable in multiple systems,  rma process was easy and replacements passed 3 preclears and have been running solidly.

 

I hope I was just extremely unlucky with the first two but it does cause some concern.

 

[SSD]

Were they retail boxed drives? From B&H? I guess if you're going to get an early failure, completely DOA is quickest and easiest to deal with.

 

Weird to get 2 like that. Sounds like they may have had some shared experience - like getting dropped from a high distance in shipping.

[Loch]

I was looking at these as well. B&H seem to have some of the best prices around, although I have seen the 4TB for as low as $119. Since the rest of my drives are 3TB or less, not sure if I want to go out all for even more (currently) unusable space.

 

One of my 3TB is starting to through out errors and SMART shows very slowly increasing Offline Uncorrectable of 8 and Pending Reallocation hovering between 5 and 10 but 0 Reallocated. It's a 1.5 yr old WD30EZRX that gets the most use. I figure it probably needs to be replaced but the question is, would you trust it to replace the parity drive (with a larger drive) and then use the old parity (WD Red) in it's place? or would rebuilding the parity just incorporate the errors? (which I guess may already be done)

 

And has anyone used extended warranty through credit cards to replace a drive? That might be nice for these short warranty drives.

[SSD]

I would say that WD drive is scary. If ever called upon to rebuild a different failed drive, the drive could generate errors that corrupt or stop the rebuild. Although not a red alert emergency, I'd recommend getting it out of there be a priority for August.

 

At only 1.5 years old, is it still under warranty? I'd go that route after swapping it out.

 

You can use swap disable process to install a new larger drive as parity simultaneously using the current parity disk to replace the data disk.

 

Going to 5T parity only makes sense is you plan to grow your array with larger drives. Otherwise a 3T does exactly the same thing. I'd suggest buying two of whatever you get. You'd then have plenty of room for expansion. Or maybe plan to use the second one as a second parity disk once the dual parity enhancement is complete.

 

I actually have 2 6T HGST earmarked for my 2 parity disks. One has been a warm spare. The other requires swapping it out of data duty where it is currently about half full. I'll use one of the Toshiba's to replace it. I wish 6T were more price competitive size, as I'd be buying that size. But after this exchange, my largest data drive will be 5T but I'll have 6T parity. Most drives are still 4T. No more 3T's. With many drive slots to grow using 5T and 6T drives.

 

The bigger benefit is beefing up my backup server. Although still not large enough to backup everything, it will back up most. I save my bluray ISOs which are also converted to mkv's, and if these are not backed up, I'm not losing much.

[Loch]

Thanks bjp.  I just checked and although the Pending Reallocation remains at 0, Offline unCorrectable is now to 1 and Pending Reallocation is 7. The fluctuation bothers me.  Actually I was off a year on the warranty (2yrs) - it expired Jan 2015. So WD may not do anything however the extended warranty idea might work for replacement refund. I guess I'd have to figure out what they require for it to "fail".

 

Thanks for the swap-disabled idea. I totally forgot about that. It sounds like you essentially have to "fail" the disk if it hasn't red balled (ie just remove it from the array and restart the array) and then you can put in the new drive as parity and the parity drive as the "failed" drive. It should then copy over the parity to the new drive and rebuild the parity drive to a original data drive.  Sounds a little risky but it is probably safer than other options.

 

Now to just decide on the size. 5TB seems huge as my entire array is only 9TB but for a $20 difference for 4T->5T it does seem silly to go smaller. Dual parity will eventually be awesome, but as I live within a short drive of several computer stores and could easily have a new HD in <1hr, I don't know that spending the $$ on a spare makes a lot of sense. If a drive red-balls, I'd just turn the system off and be up and running < 2 hours. 

[B_Sinn3d]

Were they retail boxed drives? From B&H? I guess if you're going to get an early failure, completely DOA is quickest and easiest to deal with.

 

Weird to get 2 like that. Sounds like they may have had some shared experience - like getting dropped from a high distance in shipping.

Retail from B&H.  I guess it could have been damaged during shipping but outer and inner box had no damage. 

[SSD]

Thanks bjp.  I just checked and although the Pending Reallocation remains at 0, Offline unCorrectable is now to 1 and Pending Reallocation is 7. The fluctuation bothers me.  Actually I was off a year on the warranty (2yrs) - it expired Jan 2015. So WD may not do anything however the extended warranty idea might work for replacement refund. I guess I'd have to figure out what they require for it to "fail".

 

Thanks for the swap-disabled idea. I totally forgot about that. It sounds like you essentially have to "fail" the disk if it hasn't red balled (ie just remove it from the array and restart the array) and then you can put in the new drive as parity and the parity drive as the "failed" drive. It should then copy over the parity to the new drive and rebuild the parity drive to a original data drive.  Sounds a little risky but it is probably safer than other options.

 

Now to just decide on the size. 5TB seems huge as my entire array is only 9TB but for a $20 difference for 4T->5T it does seem silly to go smaller. Dual parity will eventually be awesome, but as I live within a short drive of several computer stores and could easily have a new HD in <1hr, I don't know that spending the $$ on a spare makes a lot of sense. If a drive red-balls, I'd just turn the system off and be up and running < 2 hours. 

The choice of whether to get a second parity disk has little to do with how fast you can get a new disk. As soon as a disk fails, your array is unprotected. If, when trying to rebuild the failed disk, another disk fails or encounters a read error, the rebuild will fail (or even if it continues, will be corrupt). Dual parity protects from this type of failure. It would also protect if two drives in the array failed at the same time. This is somewhat unlikely, but if someone is not paying attention, a drive could fail and unRaid will emulate it, and you might not know it until another drive fails and the array suddenly goes offline.

[De1taE1even]

I was just about to post about these drives as well.  I just picked up 4 of them from Best Buy.  They're listed at $144.99 online, but when they checked me out, they rang up at $139.99.  I know tax makes it more expensive than B&H, but I like buying from a local store if I can.  It just makes returns quicker and more convenient.  I should add that these drives were not in stock in the store.  I paid for them "site to store" so shipping is free and they will arrive in 3-4 days.  Also, keep your eye on Amazon if you prefer that vendor.  They have these drives listed at $139.99, but they're out of stock right now.  This is certainly no knock against B&H.  They're a great vendor as well.

 

Could you imagine paying less than $600 for 20TB of storage just a couple years ago?  Yay for technology advancement.