NAS Hard Drives vs Non NAS Drives

[d8sychain]

Most of what I've read or watched on hard drives and specifically NAS drives is, 'Oh, if you have a NAS set up then you need a NAS drive' , 'These drives are made for NAS with there ABC Firmware'. But, do I really need NAS drives? Not much is said in depth of what really makes a NAS drive good for NAS other than it just is. What about a Black, or Green, or even a Blue? I wanted to see this subject covered in more depth.

 

No one really covered any physical design differences, except for Linus Tech Tips, who mention better vibration tolerances, for having multi drives sandwiched together and vibrations messing with one another, hence the better tolerances. What else?

 

Firmwares. They handle error correction differently to prevent them from dropping out a RAID. Is there anything else unique to NAS firmwares? Also, what about use in say, unRAID? All the drives are handled as JBOD and passed through by the controller. Software manages the RAID and data. Is there even an issue of a drive dropping out of a RAID?

 

If I said anything in error, feel free to correct me.

[ashman70]

In my three unRAID servers, I have a mix of NAS and non NAS drives, mostly because I had them on hand. When I replace drives for my unRAID servers, I don't generally buy NAS drives unless they are on sale. I do have a Synology 12 bay NAS that has NAS drives in it and that is a primary data store for my media, for this I buy NAS drives.

[RobJ]

In my experience here, I think there are many more non-NAS drives in use than NAS drives, in the unRAID community.  I'm not an expert, but I think NAS drives are more necessary for traditional RAID arrays, and unRAID isn't one.  I have yet to see hard evidence that NAS drives are better, apart from the fact that they are usually higher quality, and usually have better reliability.  What has attracted unRAID users is their quality, not the NAS designation.

[c3]

I have yet to see hard evidence that NAS drives are better, apart from the fact that they are usually higher quality, and usually have better reliability.  What has attracted unRAID users is their quality, not the NAS designation.

 

Could you share this hard evidence of the higher quality and better reliability?

 

[RobJ]

I have yet to see hard evidence that NAS drives are better, apart from the fact that they are usually higher quality, and usually have better reliability.  What has attracted unRAID users is their quality, not the NAS designation.

 

Could you share this hard evidence of the higher quality and better reliability?

You got me!    No hard evidence, just the impression I've gotten from user reports and industry chatter, no particular source in mind.

 

By the way, I'm still planning hoping to get back to Turbo Write and your feedback.  Lately I seem to be working projects on a LIFO stack, and older projects are suffering, keep getting pushed back further and further.  My Firefox tab count keeps going up and up.

[c3]

There are people who confuse a warranty with quality. A warranty is a financial statement. The best case I can share for this is the 10 year/100,000 mile warranty on KIA cars. They knew they had quality problems, so they made it clear they would pay for them. The cars were not reliable. In the past 7 years KIA has climbed from second to last (151 defects per 100 cars) to second best (86 defects per 100 cars). The warranty has not changed, but quality has.

[garycase]

Agree that warranty does NOT equal quality => but it IS a good indication of the backing a manufacturer is willing to put behind a specific product; and USUALLY has some relationship to the quality of the products.  BUt the Kia example is a good one -- clearly this is a very low-end brand that many of us would never consider in our automobile purchase; but they made a conscious decision to let folks know they were actively working on their quality issues by backing their products for a much longer-than-normal period ... and it's paid off.

 

Having said that, I DO buy NAS-rated drives (primarily WD Reds) for all of my systems these days -- and haven't had a drive fail in a VERY long time.    I DO test them thoroughly when I receive them; and have had one or two that I had to return; but I think those were most likely shipping damage, as they were poorly packaged.  But once they pass my initial testing; I've had absolutely no failures in over 3 years.

 

On the other hand, with a fault tolerant system -- especially if you're using dual parity -- it's "no big deal" to replace a drive and do a rebuild -- so if you'd prefer to just buy the least expensive drives, go for it.  That's what BackBlaze does ... and it's a strategy that's worked well for them.

 

[tdallen]

I've had bad experiences with Green drives (DOAs and both warranty and non-warranty failures) and so far good experiences with Red drives (no DOAs, no failures).  Now admittedly they haven't been around as long and my personal experience is a very small/poor data sample.  Their better warranty is real, though, and there are other theoretical advantages like construction, vibration resistance, TLER, etc.  I don't need any more convincing than that to continue spending a little bit more for NAS drives.

 

I don't really buy regular desktop hard drives anymore.  I use SSDs in my laptops and desktops, and NAS drives in my servers.

[Squid]

I've had bad experiences with Green drives (DOAs and both warranty and non-warranty failures) and so far good experiences with Red drives (no DOAs, no failures).  Now admittedly they haven't been around as long and my personal experience is a very small/poor data sample.  Their better warranty is real, though, and there are other theoretical advantages like construction, vibration resistance, TLER, etc.  I don't need any more convincing than that to continue spending a little bit more for NAS drives.

 

I don't really buy regular desktop hard drives anymore.  I use SSDs in my laptops and desktops, and NAS drives in my servers.

TLER isn't utilized by unRaid, nor should it be since the drives are presented as JBOD  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_recovery_control  but go with whatever drives you are comfortable with at such and such price point.

[garycase]

... I don't really buy regular desktop hard drives anymore.  I use SSDs in my laptops and desktops, and NAS drives in my servers.

 

Basically the same, although I also use NAS drives in my desktops for storage needs beyond my SSD capacity.  For example, my main desktop (typing this on it) has a 500GB SSD for the OS;  a 1TB SSD to hold my VM's; 2 3TB WD Reds, and 2 4TB WD Reds for additional storage.  ALL of my systems -- my desktop, wife's desktop, my laptop, and 2 HTPC's have SSDs for their primary drive ... I don't buy anything else these days.

 

[BobPhoenix]

I've had bad luck with OEM desktop drives.  Failure rates: 15-20% WD Green OEM, 5-10% WD Red NAS OEM, 40% Seagate OEM (ST3000DM01 & ST4000DM00s), HGST Cool Spin 5% Retail, HGST NAS < 1% Retail.  Will not buy an OEM HDD any more and will stick with WD Red NAS retail for one server and HGST for the rest.

[mr-hexen]

BUt the Kia example is a good one -- clearly this is a very low-end brand that many of us would never consider in our automobile purchase;

 

Not sure why you consider CURRENT Kia products as part of a "low end brand". We bought one this year and couldn't be happier with it. Nothing compared in the same price range, NOTHING.

[garycase]

BUt the Kia example is a good one -- clearly this is a very low-end brand that many of us would never consider in our automobile purchase;

 

Not sure why you consider CURRENT Kia products as part of a "low end brand". We bought one this year and couldn't be happier with it. Nothing compared in the same price range, NOTHING.

 

I'm sure they're very nice cars these days -- indeed the K900 looks rather nice.  It's just not a brand I'm likely to buy ... indeed probably due to brand prejudices based on their earlier models.  I've never owned one -- our recent cars have been Audi, Lexus, Mercedes, and a Prius -- but I agree the K900 looks very nice, and at a mid-50's price is a LOT less than I paid for our last car.