Toshiba X300 5 TB Drive - anybody have experience with it?

[Unqualified Spectator]

I can grab one for $139 - but I thought I would ask around first. It is WAAAY cheaper than a WD Red. It isn't billed as a "NAS" or heavy use drive but then, there's precious little difference between a WD Green and a Red and I've had good results with both of those. Some folks have reported them as noisy - didn't seem to matter if they were 4,5 or 6 TB - Some report them as very quiet (Suggests quality issues potentially). Any Thoughts?

 

http://www.microcenter.com/product/457043/X300_5TB_7,200_RPM_SATA_III_6Gb-s_35_Desktop_Internal_Hard_Drive_-_HDWE150XZSTA

[c3]

This Toshiba X300 is a 7200rpm drive, which means more heat than the WD Blue/Green/Red.

 

[Unqualified Spectator]

Yep - It's just getting 5TB for the price of a 4TB and the speed is a double edged sword. That 5 TB drive would retire 2 3+ year old WD 1.5TB drives and add 50% more storage. I did find out that this - X300 is just another retail name for MD04ACAxxx series, while P300 is just another retail name for DT01ACAxxx series. The person who reported that said the X300 still had MD04 etching on the controller board - so they appear to be a rebadging and a reduction in warrenty period to 2 years.

 

Maybe not so great. A few bucks is not worth the problems with your data. My WD Greens are awesome.

[AndroidCat]

Coincidentally I just bought 2 Toshibas today @ Microcenter, but decided to go with older gen as they have 3y warranty vs 2y for x300.  I've been using older 5T from Toshiba and they've been great.

 

[jasonfox]

I have purchased about 15 of these over the last year, mostly the older model (PH3500U-1I72) and a few of the x300's just in the last month.  All have performed well with no issues. They run hotter than the 5400 rpm drives they replaced, but that was to be expected. I can't speak to noise as the servers they went in are the attic so I never hear them. 

[Unqualified Spectator]

Thanks, jasonfox - It's great to hear that you've have had such good experiences. My server is in a closet in the basement, so noise isn't a real issue for me, either. Neither is heat, but i have not been running any drives that operate at speeds greater than 5400. My drives run between 64 and 84 degrees F.

 

Yours are running in the ATTIC? Is it a controlled, conditioned airspace or right out in the rafters?

 

I know I can wait around and eventually I can score some 4TB WD Greens or Reds for $100 to $120 - but getting a TB extra for $20 is awesome. Right now, this deal seems to be really good - 5TB Reds are $200 right now, 6TB drives are running at $260. I want to replace my two tiny drives with two decent drives and start ripping my Blurays. I need 5 TB at least to get started and I need to upgrade my server to real hardware - but it's been fun and a solid learning experience working on minimal hardware.

 

AndroidCat - what Microcenter do you shop at and are they offering the older Toshibas at this price? Is it just luck of the draw to score older units with 3 year warrenties?

[AndroidCat]

Dallas, they have/had both types.

[unevent]

Coincidentally I just bought 2 Toshibas today @ Microcenter, but decided to go with older gen as they have 3y warranty vs 2y for x300.  I've been using older 5T from Toshiba and they've been great.

+1. The new X300 is a design from Toshiba.  The older gen with 3y warranty was a drive from their production asset acquisition from Hitachi as a result of WD and Hitachi merger.  It was a better drive than the x300 from what i have been reading so far.  Best Buy still carries the old gen 5TB 3y warranty (retail) drive for $145.  I run 9 of the old gen retail drives, 8 3TB and 1 5TB.

 

[jasonfox]

Thanks, jasonfox - It's great to hear that you've have had such good experiences. My server is in a closet in the basement, so noise isn't a real issue for me, either. Neither is heat, but i have not been running any drives that operate at speeds greater than 5400. My drives run between 64 and 84 degrees F.

 

Yours are running in the ATTIC? Is it a controlled, conditioned airspace or right out in the rafters?

 

It's right out in the rafters. We put down flooring, and use it for storage with the servers sitting by the hatch for easy access. We recently put in some temperature controlled fans, but last summer it was 38C+ up there and the drives got up to 50C+. That was warmer that I would like. (Thus the new fans). 

 

 

[Unqualified Spectator]

BRUTAL...you are a real sadistic one, eh? Well, if they took THAT - no worries!    None At All!

[Acps]

I have 3 of these in a Micro-ATX case, since August. I have not had a single issue at all, and max temp during a Parity Check only gets up to 102F.

 

The only thing I would keep in mind when buying any HDDs in not to buy them all at once. To avoid manufacturing problems with several drives at once. If you buy 4 in the same purchase at Amazon you are likely to get 4 nearly identical serials. While as long as they are free from defects is fine. To have 4 go bad at the same time is a NAS wrecker. Not just with Toshiba, but with any Manufacturer.

 

I will buy more 5tb Toshiba's here once I get a Sata card picked out for expansion.

[doubleohwhatever]

Careful with those WD green drives getting too hot in an attic. We've started moving away from them because they just can't take the heat long-term. We keep the climate control on 80F (with good air turnover and server air flow) to keep costs down and the WD green drives just can't take it more than a year or two. Over the past year we've lost nine drives and eight were WD green drives. I used to sell the WD green drives on eBay when we upgrade to larger disks but now I just toss the damn things.

[SSD]

Careful with those WD green drives getting too hot in an attic. We've started moving away from them because they just can't take the heat long-term. We keep the climate control on 80F (with good air turnover and server air flow) to keep costs down and the WD green drives just can't take it more than a year or two. Over the past year we've lost nine drives and eight were WD green drives. I used to sell the WD green drives on eBay when we upgrade to larger disks but now I just toss the damn things.

 

Wow! If your drives are dying at that rate in an unRaid sever where disks are mainly spun down most of the time, either it is bad luck or your server is way too hot in your attic. The setting in your thermostat may be 80F, but in an attic the ambient may be much warmer. And inside the server, the temps are going to be a lot hotter.

 

I'd suggest pulling smart reports from your drives and looking at the temperature attribute. Should give some indication of how hot the drives have gotten in the past. If you are running above 50C, much less 60C, it would be hard to blame the drives. I am not a huge WD fan, but I couldn't blame drive failures on the manufacturer if they are running so hot.

 

There is also evidence that heat is not as bad as temperature differential. So if the server in the attic is very cold in the winter, and then when you spin up your drives it gets quite hot, and this happens frequently, that could damage the drives more than running them at a consistent warmer temperature.

 

A third possibility is you bought a large set of the same drives from the same production run had some sort of defect. This is why buying a group of drives from the same company at the same time is discouraged.

 

I've been here a long time and monitor drive failure statistics and reliability stats, and your story is not consistent with others. I really think you need to look for another cause or risk continuing to lose drives, even from other models and manufacturers.

 

By the way, drive temps are normally quoted in degrees C not F. 102F is less than 40C, a very safe temp. 50C is 122F, and from there things get dicey IMO. 60C is 140F.

[Acps]

By the way, drive temps are normally quoted in degrees C not F. 102F is less than 40C, a very safe temp. 50C is 122F, and from there things get dicey IMO. 60C is 140F.

 

That is because 99% of hard drive manufacturer's are not in the USA, hence the standard is metric.

 

You can easily spot the Americans because we are to lazy to learn how to convert from the Imperial system, or maybe it is just stubbornness.

 

But 102F is the highest I have seen any of my drives, and I have 6 packed into 1 side of a Micro-Atx case, I did upgrade the stock fans for some better airflow, heat will not be a factor for my drives. It was the rolling brownouts until I put on APC unit online.

[c3]

Careful with those WD green drives getting too hot in an attic. We've started moving away from them because they just can't take the heat long-term. We keep the climate control on 80F (with good air turnover and server air flow) to keep costs down and the WD green drives just can't take it more than a year or two. Over the past year we've lost nine drives and eight were WD green drives. I used to sell the WD green drives on eBay when we upgrade to larger disks but now I just toss the damn things.

 

Wow! If your drives are dying at that rate in an unRaid sever where disks are mainly spun down most of the time, either it is bad luck or your server is way too hot in your attic. The setting in your thermostat may be 80F, but in an attic the ambient may be much warmer. And inside the server, the temps are going to be a lot hotter.

 

I'd suggest pulling smart reports from your drives and looking at the temperature attribute. Should give some indication of how hot the drives have gotten in the past. If you are running above 50C, much less 60C, it would be hard to blame the drives. I am not a huge WD fan, but I couldn't blame drive failures on the manufacturer if they are running so hot.

 

Yes, having climate control set at X does not indicate what the drives are experiencing. 80F is an excellent ambient air temp, but if your drives are not getting enough of it (cfm), they will over heat and have shorter life span.

 

Check those SMART reports and ensure good airflow across the drives. You should not need to change the climate control from 80F.

[mrow]

By the way, drive temps are normally quoted in degrees C not F. 102F is less than 40C, a very safe temp. 50C is 122F, and from there things get dicey IMO. 60C is 140F.

 

That is because 99% of hard drive manufacturer's are not in the USA, hence the standard is metric.

 

You can easily spot the Americans because we are to lazy to learn how to convert from the Imperial system, or maybe it is just stubbornness.

 

But 102F is the highest I have seen any of my drives, and I have 6 packed into 1 side of a Micro-Atx case, I did upgrade the stock fans for some better airflow, heat will not be a factor for my drives. It was the rolling brownouts until I put on APC unit online.

 

Actually most hard drive manufacturers (Seagate and WD) are based in the US, their factories are just based overseas.

 

Maybe this has changed but when I start getting into building PCs and later servers around 15 years ago temps were always quoted in celsius unless the user changed it, and I'm from the US. When I see temps quoted in fahrenheit I'm totally thrown off because 99% of people online, including Americans, use celsius so I have no idea off the top of my head whether those temps relate to.

[SSD]

Computer component temps are always in C. I knew that 60C is killer hot for a drive but would not have been able to tell you what that was in F, even though I was born and raised in US. I'd also not be able to tell you what temp C would be a nice spring day of 72F.

[JonathanM]

Computer component temps are always in C. I knew that 60C is killer hot for a drive but would not have been able to tell you what that was in F, even though I was born and raised in US. I'd also not be able to tell you what temp C would be a nice spring day of 72F.

Quick easy way to get close for room temps is the 82-28 crossover.

32F ~ 0C

82F ~ 28C

104F~40C

212F~100C

Everybody knows the 0-100C points, the other two are nice and easy to remember because they use the same digits.

[c3]

These data points might help you remember;

 

60C (140F) is hot enough to burn (damage) your skin in 5 seconds. PPE recommended.

50C (122F) was hot enough to stop flights at PHX (6/26/1990).

40C (104F) is a dangerous fever.

 

[SSD]

Some people are bilingual and able to talk and even think in different languages. At my very best, I could converse (poorly) by translating words I hear to English, and words I said to the foreign language in my head. The foreign word had no meaning.

 

The tips above are useful (82-28 is a really good one for me). I also know that -40 is the same in F or C. But they don't let me "think" in Celsius for most temperature discussions, only convert. But for computer temps its exactly the opposite. I think in C and have to convert to and from F. Weird but I think I am not alone.

[Unqualified Spectator]

Thought I would follow up on this - I did acquire a single example of the older version of this drive (The Model MD04ACA500 version) and ran a single SMART test run.

 

Not good. See the results HERE : http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=46316.0

 

Really kinda sucks - I was excited at the prospect of solid storage that didn't break the bank. I will probably RMA this and maybe it's an isolated event. I''ll let you guys know!