Toshiba 5T Drives

[SSD]

I bought a few of these on a good sale from B&H. $28/T is hard to pass up, when 6T drives are going for $42/T!

 

Quite fast and all going well.

 

They are getting warmer than other drives - up to 43C in very well cooled drive bays. I would not recommend for a super quiet mini-server where heat dissipation is an issue.

 

One VERY surprising thing - the last 4 digits (xxxxxxxxXXXX) of the serial numbers are identical! The 4 before that (xxxxXXXXxxxx) vary by drive. I had to make some quick and dirty enhancements to myMain to allow me differentiate the drives and their attributes for these drives.

 

Is this true of all Toshiba drives - or is this new for 5T? Anyone know?

[BobPhoenix]

I'll look tonight at my 3TB Toshiba's but I believe it is NEW.  I don't remember it being the same when I bring up myMain on my Toshiba drive server.

[RobJ]

One VERY surprising thing - the last 4 digits (xxxxxxxxXXXX) of the serial numbers are identical! The 4 before that (xxxxXXXXxxxx) vary by drive. I had to make some quick and dirty enhancements to myMain to allow me differentiate the drives and their attributes for these drives.

 

Is this true of all Toshiba drives - or is this new for 5T? Anyone know?

 

That IS surprising, going to be a minor nuisance to deal with.

[BobPhoenix]

I'll look tonight at my 3TB Toshiba's but I believe it is NEW.  I don't remember it being the same when I bring up myMain on my Toshiba drive server.

Nope must be new.  Here are my Toshiba Drives all appear to have unique last 4.

[SSD]

You are right - no repeats in last 4 chars - but they are no exactly random either.

 

The all end with "S".

 

A bunch of them end with "GS"

 

Those serial numbers are 9 digits, the new ones are 12.

 

But they are what they are. Right now I am special casing Toshiba drives as I indicated (second set of 4 chars) for "Toshiba" brand drives. But I think I will also add the caveat that the serial number be 12 chars long before invoking this new logic.

 

Could be that I just happen to get a bunch of relatively sequential drives. If they were more randomized, I might not have seen this.

[garycase]

Interesting change ... I wonder if the last 4 digits are a manufacturing batch number => but even if that's the case it's strange they'd put it at the end with the actual unique drive #'s in the middle of the serial number.

 

I suspect MyMain isn't the only drive utility out there that will be tripped up by this change 

[SSD]

I put my hand behind the drive cage holding these 4 drives and the air coming out was cool. I have to believe that they are not doing the best job at shedding the heat from inside the drive. They are in one of my Rosewill 4in3s, outside my server case, with 120mm fan pulling air past them. I am curious if the SuperMicros, with their aluminum horseshoe shaped trays, might do a better cooling job with the direct metal to metal contact. But they are inside the case and the fan is not as powerful.

 

Not complaining with 43 degrees for the preclear, though, although I am used to 5 or more degrees cooler.

 

On the last leg - post read. All 4 look good so far.

[BobPhoenix]

A bunch of them end with "GS"

I have two dead ones that end in GS as well so maybe they expanded the last two into the last 4 with the 5TB drives.

[BobPhoenix]

I've got 5 on order from Amazon so will see what those serial numbers look like ~Aug11th.

[jasonfox]

I ordered two of these (5TB) from Amazon back in April.

 

xxxxx4PUFS9A

xxxxx4PQFS9A   

 

Only 1 digit difference in serial # from those two.  I have 4 more coming from the most recent sale. I'll post what I find from those when they arrive if it anyone will find it useful.

[SSD]

My preclear stats provided below. The bottom one was a little slower than the others. It as the highest sdx, and perhaps was slower due to running 4 simultaneous preclears. Or maybe it really is a little slower, not sure. Probably coincidentally, but the slower one's serial number is quite a bit different than the other 4.

 

I ordered two of these (5TB) from Amazon back in April.

 

xxxxx4PUFS9A

xxxxx4PQFS9A   

 

Only 1 digit difference in serial # from those two.  I have 4 more coming from the most recent sale. I'll post what I find from those when they arrive if it anyone will find it useful.

 

xxx2xxWUFS9A

xxx3xxTUFS9A

xxx3xxTRFS9A

xxy7x3Z2FS9A

 

All of my serial numbers end with FS9A. The top three above are extremely similar.

[Bungy]

Hmm I wonder why your preread is slower than the zeroing time. You got good speeds either way so I wouldn't worry or even put any time into it.

[garycase]

Brian => Both Amazon and Newegg show the model # for the Toshiba 5TB's as PH3500U-1I72, but I can't find this in the platter capacity database.    The blowup of the actual drive on Newegg's site shows MD04ACA500 on the drive's ID plate, which IS in the database (showing 1TB platters).    Does this match what you have?

 

I'm going to add a couple drives to my HTPC for additional storage, and the cost of these is certainly very attractive ($100 less than buying Reds in this case) ... so I'm thinking I'll give them a try.  I don't always buy based on price, but at $29/TB for storage I don't really need to be all that reliable (it's all backed up to one of my UnRAID servers every night) it's hard to resist these drives ... and the fact you've exercised them a good bit also adds a bit of confidence that they're reasonable drives.

 

One question:  Are these notably noisier than NAS units?  I don't mind that they run a bit warmer ... they are, after all, 7200rpm units ... but I DO care if they add a lot of extra db to the noise level 

 

 

 

[SSD]

Brian => Both Amazon and Newegg show the model # for the Toshiba 5TB's as PH3500U-1I72, but I can't find this in the platter capacity database.    The blowup of the actual drive on Newegg's site shows MD04ACA500 on the drive's ID plate, which IS in the database (showing 1TB platters).    Does this match what you have?

 

I'm going to add a couple drives to my HTPC for additional storage, and the cost of these is certainly very attractive ($100 less than buying Reds in this case) ... so I'm thinking I'll give them a try.  I don't always buy based on price, but at $29/TB for storage I don't really need to be all that reliable (it's all backed up to one of my UnRAID servers every night) it's hard to resist these drives ... and the fact you've exercised them a good bit also adds a bit of confidence that they're reasonable drives.

 

One question:  Are these notably noisier than NAS units?  I don't mind that they run a bit warmer ... they are, after all, 7200rpm units ... but I DO care if they add a lot of extra db to the noise level 

 

Based on the preclear time, I'd say 1T platters are a reasonable assumption.

 

I can't speak to the noise level as they live in an unfinished basement with a lot of other drives and equipment. Unless they had a high pitched whine, I wouldn't care. But the sound of the for Toshiba's are not differentiable about the noise floor. Perhaps other owners would have more to say on the topic of noise.

 

I think I'd be a bit concerned RE heat. Not sure what your HTPC's cooling capabilities are, but my drives are in an externally mounted Rosewill (plastic) 4in3 (totally full with 4 Toshibas). The cage has a 120mm fan pulling air over them and I have been pleased with their cooling to date. The drives precleared with temps between 39 and 43C. In contrast, the 5T Seagate SMRs, similarly mounted, were running in the low to mid 30s (from memory). I will be putting the Toshibas inside the server and will better see their heat properties in the Supermicro cages. They do an exceptional cooling job, but there are 20 drives in there and will not be isolated like their current setting. I will monitor their heat doing a parity check, but that is a couple weeks out because I am in the middle of migrating data from some smaller disks in my array that are destined for the backup server to free up drive slots for them. If I put one of these in my htpc (currently retired), dependent on side mounted case cooling, I'd be worried that temps would get out of hand.

 

I don't understand your HTPC use case, unless it is a "portable" machine to take on vacations or something. But I might look at SSDs, 2.5" laptop or portable drives. Or even an 8T SMR if high capacity and cool operation are the requirement. I have a 2T WD passport that I take with me on travel that is nice and quiet and plugs nicely into a WD live. There is now a 4T version of that drive. Again, I don't understand your use case for 5-10T in the htpc so not sure these are options.

 

Nice to see you do have an eye towards economy! With the need to renew every 5 years or so, I try to be a smart drive shopper.

[garycase]

My HTPC "lives" in an open cabinet behind our 60" TV (which is mounted on an articulated mount so it sticks out a couple feet and is angled towards the seating).    It has 8 tuners, so can record anything my wife can possibly throw at it.    The drives are currently 2 & 3TB WD A/V units (one of each), which work very well -- but are getting fairly full, so I'm thinking about replacing them with 3 5TB units as a 15GB volume (using Windows spanning -- no error tolerance, since it's all backed up every day).    This is just for our recorded TV ... my 4000+ DVD collection resides on a dedicated server along with our music collection.

 

They're mounted in a CoolerMaster 4-in-3 cage with a 120mm fan blowing directory over them, so they're very well cooled.  They both run in the very low 30's .. although I expect the Toshiba's will run warmer, based on your experience.

 

Just for grins, I just ordered ONE so I can check both the temps and noise level ... if it works nicely I'll buy two more.  If not, I'll just relegate it to backup use and buy 3 5TB or 6TB Reds.

 

 

[BobPhoenix]

I've got 5 on order from Amazon so will see what those serial numbers look like ~Aug11th.

All of these are FS9A drives as well.  So going to be weird looking in myMain.  bjp999 if you patch this could you release a fix and maybe at the same time you can remove an incompatibility reported with unMenu and unRAID 6.1rc3 at the same time.

[SSD]

I've got 5 on order from Amazon so will see what those serial numbers look like ~Aug11th.

All of these are FS9A drives as well.  So going to be weird looking in myMain.  bjp999 if you patch this could you release a fix and maybe at the same time you can remove an incompatibility reported with unMenu and unRAID 6.1rc3 at the same time.

 

Can you confirm that the 5th-8th columns are unique ID numbers?

 

The rc3 issue might be as easy as creating an mdcmd command in "/root" that is acts as a pass through to the real mdcmd. This would fix everything - including powerdown and unmenu and anything else that depends on /boot/mdcmd.

 

I have so many updates to myMain that have not been released. I am going to try to put an update .zip together and send out a beta. It address Areca controllers, the loopback device, a bunch of GUI fixes created by the unmenu re-skinning that took place during my "sabbatical", defines new drive sizes, new logos (e.g., Toshiba), the Toshiba ID "hack" discussed, and many others. I've debated sending this out. Not trying to compete the the new stock GUI. But am thinking I will send them so that others that like and use myMain can benefit.

[BobPhoenix]

5th-8th:

1) K2SH

2) K95C

3) K681

4) K692

5) K7YS

[garycase]

FYI I installed the one I ordered in my HTPC (after putting it through my usual WD Lifeguard testing routine for the last 2 days) ... and it's just finishing up a copy of over 2TB of recordings from another drive.  It's VERY quiet (can't hear it at all from 2 feet away -- it's in an excellent Lian-Li cabinet) ... and the temp is only 33 after 2TB of copies at over 100MB/s.  A couple degrees warmer than my other drives, but certainly nothing to be concerned about.

 

I'm impressed ... for $29/TB this is a real bargain.    Clearly I need more than a couple days worth of experience, but I'm setting this as the primary recording drive, which will get a LOT of workout 24/7.    Recording 3-4 shows at once is more of a workout than a constant copy (since there will be a lot of seeks), but if it's still doing nicely after a month or so I may just build a whole server full of these puppies 

 

[garycase]

Didn't even look at the serial #, but with only one drive it wouldn't help with the discussion r.e. where the variances are anyway.    If I buy a bunch of them, I'll let you know.

 

[Bigdady92]

What are the avg temperatures on these hard drives? I have 3 of them coming and I'm already pushing 120 degrees F on my 4TB Toshiba.

 

[SSD]

What are the avg temperatures on these hard drives? I have 3 of them coming and I'm already pushing 120 degrees F on my 4TB Toshiba.

 

120F = 48C

 

Pretty toasty. I'd look at extra coming even for these. Toshiba's 5Ts run about 5C hotter than my hottest 4T (~43C vs ~38C in my system). I don't have any Toshiba 4Ts to compare.

[garycase]

My 5TB  runs 34-36 when very active => hit 36 while recording 4 channels of HDTV at the same time it was copying about 1.5TB of previous recordings to another drive.

 

[BobPhoenix]

I'll confirm tonight when I get home but mine have temps similar to Gary's I believe.