Seagate Ironwolf 8TB vs WD Red 8TB

[tucansam]

Not the "pro" model of either.  Noticed pricing for each is about the same, more or less.

 

Has anyone compared the two?  This would be for parity use.

 

Thanks.

[SSD]

58 minutes ago, tucansam said:

Not the "pro" model of either.  Noticed pricing for each is about the same, more or less.

 

Has anyone compared the two?  This would be for parity use.

 

Thanks.

 

Would you propose a methodology for this test?

 

Comparing drives is not easy. Sure, you can compare performance, warranty, price, specs (including MTBF), but individual experiences vary and are anecdotal given the few that any one person might buy. Even 100 drives would represent a very small sample, and none of us are going to buy even that many of a specific drive model.

 

BackBlaze posts reliability information about various models they purchase, and they buy a lot more than us! You can argue that their usage characteristics are different, but it is sort of the best info we have. Historically HGST drives have, as a brand, been the longest lasting drives. WD and Seagate have not fared nearly as well. In fact, the worst of the HGSTs have been much better than the best of the other brands in the vast majority of cases.

 

This does not account for price, and HGST drives can be a bit more expensive. But not always, and even if they are a bit more, might be with the premium due to longer warranty, better performance, and positive long term studies.

 

So I would suggest broadening your search you include the HGST NAS 8T, which IMO is the best of the bunch. And they are 7200 RPM, so are considerably faster, which would help a bit with write speed.

 

The only time I look at Seagate or WD is if the price is much lower. Recently you could buy 3 8T Seagate Archives for the price of 2 HGSTs. At that price point, Seagate got me! 

 

Comparing the specific models above. The WD spin at 5400 RPM compared to Seagate at 7200. So Seagates are faster, will run hotter, and will use more power. 

[HellDiverUK]

I had terrible problems with noise from the 8TB Red.  They vibrated badly.  I also had two DOA, they were totally trashed despite being well packed in retail boxes.

 

I have had great success with the "white label" WD 80EZZX drives I shucked out of MyBook enclosures.  They're quieter, and a lot cheaper.

 

 

All that said, my main box uses the very excellent Seagate Ironwolf drives.  They're really nice, very fast, very quiet, and run pretty cool for a 7200rpm drive.  I've also got 2x 8TB Archive drives which work great in unRAID.  They've run like champs for well over a year.

[jondak]

I have both of them in the array:

 

3 seagate ST8000VN0022  - 2 as parity , 1 as data

2 WD80EFZX  - as data

 

the seagates runs hotter (as they are 7200 rot) than the WD

 

The preclear stats:

 

WD80EFZX:

 

Step 1 of 5 - Pre-read verification: [15:29:54 @ 143 MB/s] SUCCESS
Step 2 of 5 - Zeroing the disk: [15:18:13 @ 145 MB/s] SUCCESS
Step 3 of 5 - Writing unRAID's Preclear signature: SUCCESS
Step 4 of 5 - Verifying unRAID's Preclear signature: SUCCESS
Step 5 of 5 - Post-Read verification: [15:30:37 @ 143 MB/s] SUCCESS

 

Ironwolf:

 

# Step 1 of 5 - Pre-read verification: [11:42:02 @ 189 MB/s] SUCCESS #
# Step 2 of 5 - Zeroing the disk: [11:30:07 @ 193 MB/s] SUCCESS #
# Step 3 of 5 - Writing unRAID's Preclear signature: SUCCESS #
# Step 4 of 5 - Verifying unRAID's Preclear signature: SUCCESS #
# Step 5 of 5 - Post-Read verification: [11:40:35 @ 190 MB/s] SUCCESS #

 

For now i had no problems. In Romania the Ironwolf are around 30 euros cheaper so was worth the buy,

[tucansam]

90% of my data drives are now, and all will soon be, 8TB Seagate Archives v1 and v2.  5900 rpm as I recall.  Have a single WD Red as parity now, looking to add a second parity drive soon.  Was just curious if 2x WD Reds (5400rpm) would offer less performance than 2x Ironwolves.  Parity check performance isn't critical, but writes are to some extent.  If the performance would be noticeable, its worth it.  If not, I'll just buy another WD Red instead of having to buy two Ironwolves.  

 

Heat is not an issue.

 

[John_M]

On 07/07/2017 at 12:07 AM, tucansam said:

Was just curious if 2x WD Reds (5400rpm) would offer less performance than 2x Ironwolves.

 

@jondak 's preclear figures suggest that the Ironwolf is around 30% faster than the Red for sequential reads and writes. At €30 cheaper I'd say it's a bargain. On the other hand, for all I know, it might have terrible seek times.

[jbartlett]

Here's the speed graph for the WD 8TB Red. Ran the test multiple times including this one with a 3 scan avg every 5%

 

[jbartlett]

A straight read of the WD 8TB Red took 56626 seconds (15 hours 34 minutes) from end to end using an optimized block size for speed.

[TUMS]

My 8tb reds have been good I have 3 of them. No vibration, no noise.

Still prefer HGST Ultrastar drives though. That's pretty much all i've been buying lately is hgst.