What Hard Drives are you using?

[flambot]

Greetings,

 

Just wondering what hard drives people are using. Most people seem to go for the cheapest (that's my response), but is one brand better than another??

 

I've had a really good run with WD greens (EARX, EFRX)  (2,4 and 6tb). My last drive was a Seagate ST6000VN0041 ...but it's suddenly showing some unusual numbers on some of the fields under smart. I've requested a replacement. Seems some of these drives are better rated for NAS options than others. I've been freaking out how expensive they are - especially some of the smaller sizes now. Makes it real expensive to have a spare on standby.

 

Looking at my options here in New Zealand, I found something called a WD Purple. HDD manufacturers sure like colours?

 

Are there any preferences? Does rotational speed make any real difference?

 

Cheers

Edited August 15, 2019 by flambot

[testdasi]

2 hours ago, flambot said:

Just wondering what hard drives people are using. Most people seem to go for the cheapest (that's my response), but is one brand better than another??

 

Seems some of these drives are better rated for NAS options than others.

 

Looking at my options here in New Zealand, I found something called a WD Purple. HDD manufacturers sure like colours?

 

Are there any preferences? Does rotational speed make any real difference?

Brands don't matter any more.

 

You don't need to care too much about "NAS" options for Unraid. Except for warranty, it really doesn't make any diff for consumer-level usage.

 

Only WD likes colours.

Hitachi likes stars.

Seagate used to like fish (hey "SEA"gate!) but they have moved on to creating strange animals e.g. FireCuda (fire fish? how does it work?) and IronWolf (wolf that can rust?) and SkyHawk (as opposed to WaterHawk?)

 

Rotation speed makes a difference but it depends on the use case. If you are using for home media then you are highly unlikely to see any diff between 5400rpm and 7200rpm. I use the cloud for my home media (which is even slower than 5400rpm) and nobody in the household has even noticed.

 

As to preference, Unraid has a cult following for the WD Red.

I buy whatever the cheapest highest capacity I can find based on my need at that point.

[flambot]

@testdasi - all very good points. All my drive are WD (mostly green, a few reds), but the last one I brought was a Seagte as it was cheaper than the others. I've had a good run out of WD. 

 

Once the Seagate was in the server, I noticed a strange little noise when a drive spun up or down. I'm assuming it is the SGate. Currently have a high error count on the Sgate (have another post), but it's debatable if this is an issue or not. The WD drives don't have the same smart registers as the Sgate.

 

Appreicate the input. Cheers