WD - Easystore 10TB External $179.99


burr

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3 hours ago, H2O_King89 said:

You think there going to be reds?


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Probably not.  My last purchase of an 8TB Easystore yielded a "white label" WD80EMAZ drive.  All the others previously were Reds.  Many others reported the same.

 

It seems WD is moving to white label drives in these enclosures; however, that does not mean these are generic, lower-spec drives.  They appear to be equivalent to Red label drives from a features, functionality and performance standpoint.  The biggest difference is that the white label drives are more likely to support the updated SATA spec and, thus, could have the 3.3v reset issue which is easily solved with some tape on pin 3.

 

I notice zero difference between the Red and White drives in my array, other than the SATA spec. 

 

No one is reporting yet on what drives are in the 10TB Easystore, but, Red or White, its a good deal.

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Picked up 3 yesterday at BB. They are White drives, WD100EMAZ, 256MB. As stated above, it's accepted that these are "updated" Red drives. Supposedly shuckers were reselling the Reds on Ebay and undercutting WD's Red drive market so they started with the White labels on the new external drives.

I've gotten Whites and Reds from the 8TB externals in the past. No noticeable difference.

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On 11/9/2018 at 4:51 AM, Hoopster said:

Probably not.  My last purchase of an 8TB Easystore yielded a "white label" WD80EMAZ drive.  All the others previously were Reds.  Many others reported the same.

 

It seems WD is moving to white label drives in these enclosures; however, that does not mean these are generic, lower-spec drives.  They appear to be equivalent to Red label drives from a features, functionality and performance standpoint.  The biggest difference is that the white label drives are more likely to support the updated SATA spec and, thus, could have the 3.3v reset issue which is easily solved with some tape on pin 3.

 

I notice zero difference between the Red and White drives in my array, other than the SATA spec. 

 

No one is reporting yet on what drives are in the 10TB Easystore, but, Red or White, its a good deal.

Did you have to do the 3.3V fix (Kapton on pin 3) or not? I will receive an 8TB Easystore tomorrow from BB, and was hopping it will be a Red drive....But it seems it's going to be a White apparently. Now, I'm wondering if I should still try to shuck it or just return it.........

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Did you have to do the 3.3V fix (Kapton on pin 3) or not? I will receive an 8TB Easystore tomorrow from BB, and was hopping it will be a Red drive....But it seems it's going to be a White apparently. Now, I'm wondering if I should still try to shuck it or just return it.........

How I understand, the pin thing is only an issue if you have an old power supply. That being said I don’t know about back planes? I have a norco and need to test it out.

The sell is over but looks like it will happen again on 22
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34 minutes ago, French-Guy said:

Did you have to do the 3.3V fix (Kapton on pin 3) or not?

I did not need to do the Kapton tape fix as my hot-swap backplane is powered by Molex connectors which completely bypasses any 3.3v SATA power reset issue.  The only way to know if it would have been necessary would have been to connect it directly to SATA power for pre-clear but, I did not do that.

 

$155 for an 8TB Red/White drive is a great deal.  The white drives in my array are no different from the reds in any way that matters.  I would not return it just for the color of the label.  I imagine future Red drives will have the same SATA 3.3v reset issue with older power supplies.

 

 

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41 minutes ago, burr said:

I did not have the 3.3v issue on the 10's I got, but I put them in a istar BPU-350SATA.  Drives are scary fast compared to my old 3tb 7200rpm Seagate's.

Did you do a pre-clear on those drives? How long did it take? What is the bottle neck when you do a pre-clear? CPU? Ram? Interface (Sata II vs Sata III)?

I'm using iStar BPN-DE340SS...

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31 minutes ago, French-Guy said:

Did you do a pre-clear on those drives? How long did it take? What is the bottle neck when you do a pre-clear? CPU? Ram? Interface (Sata II vs Sata III)?

I'm using iStar BPN-DE340SS...

It was roughly 50 hours each on the preclear hooked up to a lsi SAS9211-8I.  Pretty sure the drive/controller is the bottleneck.

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I have been buying a lot of the 8TB my books, around 25 on different dates, the initial batches came with reds, then whites that worked fine with Sata power, performance wise identical to the reds, around sept 2017 all that have come have the 3.3v issue, to me doing the tape was not that easy, so i simply changed from sata power to molex power from the PSU, then use sata power adapters (not plastic infused but stapled) and finally the Silverstone  4-in-1 SATA Power CP06-E4 and been running fine.

Edited by Abula
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/18/2018 at 5:34 AM, French-Guy said:

But I shouldn't have the 3.3V issue with a WD Red drive, right?

 

Most of the Easystore/My Book drives are "white label" Red drives and may need pins 1-3 taped to disable the SATA 3.2+ spec Power Disable (PWDIS) function in order for most motherboards to recognize them through their SATA ports, both onboard and HBAs.

 

The current anecdotal evidence, and my own experience, shows the 10TB Easystore's are presently assembled with white label WD100EMAX drives which have this PWDIS feature.

 

On my SuperMicro X7 and X9 boards with a mix of SAS2LPs, 9211-8i's, and M1015 HBA's in Norco RPC-4224 chassis, I've had to tape the pins for these newer-spec'd drives.

 

I just got my new X11 system up and running with a Chenbro RM43348 chassis and I went ahead and taped the WD100EMAZ pins but I haven't tested whether it needs it or not.

Edited by Auggie
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Most of the Easystore/My Book drives are "white label" Red drives and may need pins 1-3 taped to disable the SATA 3.2+ spec Power Disable (PWDIS) function in order for most motherboards to recognize them through their SATA ports, both onboard and HBAs.
 
The current anecdotal evidence, and my own experience, shows the 10TB Easystore's are presently assembled with white label WD100EMAX drives which have this PWDIS feature.
 
On my SuperMicro X7 and X9 boards with a mix of SAS2LPs, 9211-8i's, and M1015 HBA's in Norco RPC-4224 chassis, I've had to tape the pins for these newer-spec'd drives.
 
I just got my new X11 system up and running with a Chenbro RM43348 chassis and I went ahead and taped the WD100EMAZ pins but I haven't tested whether it needs it or not.

Wait I thought there wouldn’t be an issue with backplanes?


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On 11/26/2018 at 12:16 PM, H2O_King89 said:

Wait I thought there wouldn’t be an issue with backplanes?

 

On 11/26/2018 at 6:47 PM, H2O_King89 said:

I have a Norco 4224 and it work with out the mod needed

 

It didn't with mine with 1 LSI 9211-8i, 1 SuperMicro SAS2LP, and 1 IBM M1015, connected to a Norco 4224.  Not sure which of the HBA's I initially tried without taping, but it was with at least two drives that I experienced no power-up unless the pins were taped, after which I started taping them all immediately after shucking.  FWIW, the Norco in this setup is the "newer" version that supports only a single PSU and thus has a differently designed "backplane".  I've retired this case and relocating the X9 hardware to my older, dual-PSU capable 4224 for my backup server.

 

And next PWDIS drive I get I'll test it without tape in both my new Chenbro as well as the Norco system (all three HBA's)...

 

FYI, rebuilding an 8TB drive on the X9/Norco setup netted an average of 110MB/s.  Rebuilding a 6TB of the same array on the new X11/Chenbro averaged 198MB/s, and replacing an 8TB with a 10TB averaged 117MB/s; the CPU utilization maybe pegged 50% now and then, but it was typically idling around 5%, unlike the X9/Pentinum which maxxed out quite often during rebuilds.  Certainly a big step up, especially for my VMs.  Now I have to build a noise reduction cabinet to quiet down this maddingly howling rig, and upgrade my home network to 10Gb...

 

Edited by Auggie
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