NAS or Desktop HDD?

[Dal1980]

I couldn't find this question anywhere so I'm asking it as I'm about to take the plunge on the worst part of unRaid... *gulp* the parity drives. I say it's the worst part but obviously it's the best part when it one day saves me but until that day it's the part of the whole build that will cost the most money without seeing anything in return for it. 😣

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitter about having to pay for parity (I want parity, I NEED parity, and, 2 of 'em! 😁) but there was a question that occurred to me as I read up on some Seagate drives about them not living up to being bashed around in a RAID. I realise that the 'un' part of the product name kind of tells me this isn't RAID I'm still presuming that there is certainly some similarities. 🤔

 

So the question I had was simply this:

Should I spend the extra and buy NAS specific hardware or is unRAID gentle enough with a regular desktop HDD? I guess this is two questions since I imagine that Parity and Data are treat quite differently in read and write so it maybe that it is better to use a more robust drive in Parity over Data for example. 💭

 

The cost of 2x Seagate Barracuda 6TB (ST6000DM003) HDD vs 2x Seagate IronWolf 6 TB (ST6000VN0033) works out at approximately £60 difference. Since the Barracuda runs at only 5400 while IronWolf is a 7200 it may be that it is worth spending the extra for the IronWolf on parity drives(?) Is this worth it and what is the recommendation for the Data drives?

 

My particular unRaid will be used to serve music, movies with some VM's to run a very low traffic web server and PFSense. There will only ever be a couple of people at most streaming media so I'm not going to be putting too much load on these disks. It maybe also worth noting that I will be using 2x 256 SSDs for cache.

 

Any advice before I go buy my first 2 parity and what I need to keep in mind when I start gradually buying my data disks to extend?

 

😊

 

Many thanks

Dal

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, Dal1980 said:

 

Any advice before I go buy my first 2 parity and what I need to keep in mind when I start gradually buying my data disks to extend?

There are systems built with unRAID that use all types of drives from plain desktop drives to NAS drives to Enterprise-grade drives to NAS Pro, etc. These are used as both parity and data drives.

 

The parity drive(s) get a lot of activity any time any data is written to the array (not cache) and during parity checks, which, depending on the size of the drives can take many hours (or even more than a day with the largest drives).  Disk rebuilds of failed drives will cause a lot of parity drive activity as well.

 

My parity checks with 8TB drives take about 16 hours.

 

I personally use 7200 RPM HGST NAS drives for parity and 5400 RPM WD Red/White NAS drives for data.  It is a preference and not a requirement.

 

Many others are using non-NAS drives for both parity and data.  I don't think it makes a lot of difference.  Drive reliability should be the biggest concern regardless of brand, use/rating, etc.  Again, there are many opinions on what drives are the most reliable. Some swear by the Backblaze reports and others have had very different experiences (differences due to sample size, I am sure).

 

There really are no "recommended" drives for unRAID other than user recommendations based on their experience.

Edited May 29, 2019 by Hoopster

[Dal1980]

Thanks Hoopster that helps. 🙂

 

I would also like to add that I'm more interested in the type recommendations (i.e. Desktop, NAS etc) than an actual brand name or particular model. 

 

You might have answered my parity choice question with the fact of it being a drive type that is busy alot of the time (potentially) so might prove to be sensible to run speedier more rebust drives for at least them. 

 

Does anyone see sense in using NAS for 4TB data drives? It's probably going to be still a bit of a jump in price but not sure if it's really worth it or not... Opinions and advice please, I'm all ears (well, eyes I mean 😆

 

 

 

[Hoopster]

23 minutes ago, Dal1980 said:

Does anyone see sense in using NAS for 4TB data drives?

I went with the WD NAS drives for data because the 8TB NAS drives are helium-filled. Helium supposedly reduces wear on the heads and platters.  The 4TB WD NAS drives are air only.

 

My backup server uses my old 3TB WD Red NAS drives from my original server.  With only a $15 difference per drive for NAS vs. non-NAS at the time I brought them,  I opted for the NAS drives because, somehow I reasoned, they must be "better."  😀

 

Again, I am not sure NAS vs. desktop drives for data drives makes a big difference unless there are other factors of importance to consider.

[Vr2Io]

3 hours ago, Hoopster said:

There really are no "recommended" drives for unRAID other than user recommendations based on their experience.

Agree.

 

3 hours ago, Dal1980 said:

I'm more interested in the type recommendations (i.e. Desktop, NAS etc) than an actual brand name or particular model.

Just oppsite, I concern model more than other factor, i.e. 6TB will be XXXX, 8TB will be YYYY or ZZZZ. Because "Model" really means for what hardware is. So, when I need some disks, I will try that model first, if fine then 2nd 3rd until next change. ( but also take in account sometimes model name will use by different hardware )

 

Your experience is the result of your decision.

Edited May 29, 2019 by Benson

[ken-ji]

There is one thing to consider with NAS vs Desktop, and this is dependent of your case/enclosure.

Modern NAS drives have vibration sensors to compensate for having a higher density of drives packed together. 

[Wayne66]

I just bought 2 - 10tb enterprise drives to replace my existing dual parity. I was thinking that the 7200rpm drives would improve parity checks and ultimately write speed, probably more so as the data drives which are 5400 now get replaced with faster drives. So I posted about this on another forum and the general consensus is that I wouldn't see any real performance improvements and that I should just leave the 5400 drives in as parity and add as data drives. 

 

It's obviously time consuming to change the parity drives. Is it worth it?

[Dal1980]

Well I've bought 2x NAS as I was thinking of the durability and not particularly the speed. For me, I know for my use I won't particularly be affected by any difference on the level of drive speed access. What could potentially be a problem is my parity drives being in constant motion which is where I thought spending the extra for the parity at least would pay off (it may only actually be in peace of mind, but that's fine). For my data drives I've got some old clunky ones anyway until I get them swapped out for larger better tech drives when the pennies are lined up in front of the Amazon gates 😔

 

I'm not sure on how this all works but I'm going to take a guess that having a slow disk in the array has more of an impact than if your parity drives are 5400 instead of 7200, for instance I have a WD 2TB Green in my data array which may make more of a mark on the overall speed than if I'd gone for 54 over 72 for my parity (I'm guessing at this point so maybe a healthy question to ask the community)

 

My disks are arriving tomorrow YAY

Edited May 31, 2019 by Dal1980
word correction

[Vr2Io]

3 hours ago, Wayne66 said:

I just bought 2 - 10tb enterprise drives to replace my existing dual parity. I was thinking that the 7200rpm drives would improve parity checks and ultimately write speed, probably more so as the data drives which are 5400 now get replaced with faster drives. So I posted about this on another forum and the general consensus is that I wouldn't see any real performance improvements and that I should just leave the 5400 drives in as parity and add as data drives. 

 

It's obviously time consuming to change the parity drives. Is it worth it?

In most case, it won't help much after swap. One point to support swap action was it can provide fast speed when reading data on it ( base on other disks no activity ). I also think if have two durable disks, people should place it as parity or data disk ? ...... my answer still data.