Which 2 TB drive should I buy?


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I'm new to unRAID, but I've used the Hitachi Desktop 2 TB drives on my NAS (which is being phased out w an unRAID build), and on my media PC for over a year, and they've been brilliant, even after running AAM (accoustic management) on the ones in the media PC. Limited noise and a good deal back then. For my new unRAID I'm going for the what's on sale from the REC'd drives as in here.  :)

It seems final setup will be 3 Hitachis, and 6 WD (on sale). Any ideas on this mix?

 

 

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I'm new to unRAID, but I've used the Hitachi Desktop 2 TB drives on my NAS (which is being phased out w an unRAID build), and on my media PC for over a year, and they've been brilliant, even after running AAM (accoustic management) on the ones in the media PC. Limited noise and a good deal back then. For my new unRAID I'm going for the what's on sale from the REC'd drives as in here.  :)

It seems final setup will be 3 Hitachis, and 6 WD (on sale). Any ideas on this mix?

 

 

Yes, buy them as you need them.    Prices only seem to go down and no sense in spinning disks if you are not using them.  Other than that, unraid really does not care what disks you use as long as you keep away from the disks with firmware issues of their own.
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Just to clarify I don't need to install the jumpers on the WD EARS drive if I have  the unRAID Server version 4.7 AiO?

 

If you select MBR 4K Aligned.

 

 

Total noob here....  so in the Unraid web interface just choose MBR 4K Aligned before you install the hard drives? (Does this apply them to all the hard drives?)  as the Default partition format? thank you

 

Could I start out with 2 Hard Drives or do I need 3? 

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if i understand correctly once you set 4k alignment in unraid settings its ok to leave it on for all drives (AF and non-AF)

the drives wont be compatible with older versions of unraid

 

 

Does anyone knows if the EARS drives need other treatments?

I read reports of fallure and the heads parking to often is it advices to use a tool like

and solutions like here http://www.synology.com/support/faq_show.php?lang=enu&q_id=407

and here http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1367904

anyone can shed light on this?

 

 

update

another link

http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=233472#p233472

 

many of these links are older maybe its just false alarm

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if i understand correctly once you set 4k alignment in unraid settings its ok to leave it on for all drives (AF and non-AF)

the drives wont be compatible with older versions of unraid

 

 

Does anyone knows if the EARS drives need other treatments?

I read reports of fallure and the heads parking to often is it advices to use a tool like

and solutions like here http://www.synology.com/support/faq_show.php?lang=enu&q_id=407

anyone can shed light on this?

 

I'd also like to see a reply to this. I'm about to put my "final" order next week, and still between F4 Samsungs and the WD drives (Firmware updates, or head parking fix w the tool?). At least Firmware updates is a factory rec'd fix for the Samsungs. So despite of all my reservations, if there's a problem w any drive on the update, RMA should be simple. Hence back to the drawing board w the extra drives decision. Still the Hitachis are pricier, and LPs N/A locally.

 

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Probably around 20 WD EARS have passed through my hands to date. I've never done anything except install a jumper for older versions of unraid. None have died prematurely on me, but I did see one DOA.

 

Thanks!

I've only had one WD go bad on me too (out of maybe 15-16 over the years), and have never used desktop Samsungs for one reason or another. If price holds, I'll order these WD drives.

 

Final buildup date closer and closer!  ;)

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There is a new green Hitachi drive that should be added to the list. Might be the best of the bunch. See thread in good deals forum.

 

I too am excited about the new Hitachi green drive, but I figure we should have at least one person actually test it with unRAID before adding it to the list.  As soon as there are positive results, then I'm happy to add it (or you can too, Mr. Moderator ;))

FWIW, I have 2 of these preclearing right now in an HP Microserver.  So far they look very good, not getting over 33C in the ODD bay (no direct cooling), and ranging from 120 MB/s to 60 MB/s.  They are significantly cheaper than the 7200 rpm Hitachis I had been buying, so they will probably become my new drive of choice.  Also, they're very quiet.

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Thanks Raj that is good to hear.

I have 2 just precleared and 1 preclearing right now. didn't want to asign to array untill clear what to do.

 

also found this http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5357

not sure if it also aplies to unraid

not sure if running wdidle3 would void the waranty there seem to be conflicting reports.

 

among the solutions is the advice to run wdidle3, comming from WD ithink it save to asume it would not void the waranty

  3. Set Idle3 to max time (effectively turns off load/unload power saving feature thus will use more power) per below link.

 

Most customers, when made aware of the unnecessary activity caused by their systems, have modified their utility, operating systems, or applications to take advantage of WD's advanced power-saving mode. Other customers have requested a utility (See link below) to modify the behavior of the drive to wait longer before invoking Idle 3 mode. Although such a change eliminates significant power savings during periods of inactivity. This update is described in WD's Process Change Notice PCN 2579-701324-A02 (see attached PDF file).

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As of early January 2011 here's the breakdown on 2 TB drive recommendations for unRAID:

 

Not OK to use - avoid whenever possible:

 

2 TB Samsung F4 HD204UI (known to silently corrupt data, see this thread for more info)

 

 

I believe that since Samsung released a patch on 9th or 10th of December 2010 it should not be not recommended anymore, as that firmware bug can be easily fixed:

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/faqView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id=386

 

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Regarding the new Hitachi green drives (5K3000):

 

Has anyone completed all of the following?

 

1) Precleared at least 2 passes starting at sector 63 (the default option in preclear)

 

2) Used the drive in their array as a parity drive and successfully checked parity

 

3) Used the drive in their array as a data drive and successfully transferred 500 GB+ to and from the drive, all of which completed without errors (verified by CRC or MD5 checks)

 

I feel once a drive has successfully completed all of the above then it can be added to the recommended list.  It doesn't have to be one person who completes all three of these, but as long as collectively we can check each item off the list then that is good enough for me.  Also feel free to suggest other tests/criteria if you feel I've missed something.

 

Regarding the Samsung F4 drives:

 

For the record, I'm not going to add the Samsung F4 drives to the recommended list until both a new firmware version with a DIFFERENT version number is released AND all of the above three criteria have been met.  I certainly don't feel comfortable recommending the drives to anyone at the moment, as even after the firmware patch there's no easy way to tell if the drive is trustworthy or not.

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1) Precleared at least 2 passes starting at sector 63 (the default option in preclear)

Rajahal, that is not a true statement.

 

The default in newer versions of the preclear script is the value you've elected in the "Settings" screen in the unRAID management interface. In unRAID 4.7, the default is MBR-unaligned unless you change it.  In unRAID 5.0b4, the default is MBR-4k-aligned unless you change it.

 

The default can be overridden by use of the "-a" (lower case "a") option to force sector 63 as a starting point, or the "-A" (upper case "A") option to force sector 64 as a starting point.

 

Joe L.

 

 

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1) Precleared at least 2 passes starting at sector 63 (the default option in preclear)

Rajahal, that is not a true statement.

 

The default in newer versions of the preclear script is the value you've elected in the "Settings" screen in the unRAID management interface. In unRAID 4.7, the default is MBR-unaligned unless you change it.  In unRAID 5.0b4, the default is MBR-4k-aligned unless you change it.

 

The default can be overridden by use of the "-a" (lower case "a") option to force sector 63 as a starting point, or the "-A" (upper case "A") option to force sector 64 as a starting point.

 

Joe L.

 

 

 

Thanks Joe, I didn't know that.  I edited my post above.

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There have been tested 5 hard drives using different tests (mainly surface access times tests):

 

1. Samsung HD204UI in Verbatim 2 TB 3.0 USB enclosure.

2. Samsung SP1614N

3. WDC WD6400AAKS

4. WDC WD1600BEVS

5. Seagate ST320410A

 

The tests results are in 149 files of the screenshots of these tests, available to download in this thread:

http://forum.hddguru.com/surface-test-hdds-t18575.html

 

1. Generally Samsung drives (even the new 2TB Samsung HD204UI) seem to have considerably poorer quality of the surface comparing to the 3 years old (or so) Western Digital WDC WD6400AAKS.

 

2. I would like to see similar tests, in particular of other brands and models of 2 TB hard drives. Please upload your tests results in that thread (click the link above).

 

3. I wonder why in some hard drives slower access times can bee seen aligning in some diagonal patterns (in HD204UI) and why in some other drives (in WDC WD1600BEVS) a checkered pattern appears (only from the second half of the scan) which "shape" changes regularly depending on the part of the disk surface scanned, while in some other drives no such regular patterns are present?

 

4. Why is there such a difference in SMART status health notification between various software for Samsung SP1614N (it is red for most of the tests in HDD Health and everything OK in HD Tune)? There is also a significant difference in MHDD scan result and HDDScan result for SP1614N.

 

5. BTW, it took ca. 31 h to test Samsung HD204UI in Verbatim 2 TB 3.0 USB enclosure on USB 2.0 port.

 

 

 

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Samsung customer service is rather not what you would expect:

http://forum.hddguru.com/verbatim-usb-external-with-samsung-f4eg-hd204ui-t18455-20.html#p124618

I love how they say they could not get approval for a change in the firmware version number, BUT WENT AHEAD AND MADE AN APPARENTLY UN-APPROVED CHANGE TO THEIR PRODUCTION LINE FIRMWARE BEING INSTALLED/SHIPPED ON THE DRIVES.

 

Sorry.  I'll still keep away.  I don't trust their software management practices. 

 

Obviously the person responding to their help-line has no clue.  (Probably out-sourced)

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Regarding the new Hitachi green drives (5K3000):

 

Has anyone completed all of the following?

 

1) Precleared at least 2 passes starting at sector 63 (the default option in preclear)

Working on this now, I have 2 of these drives for a new customer build and it is working on pass 2 right now.  The numbers from the first pass look to be good.  I did the first pass at sector 63 but specifically forced it to 64 for the second pass.  Will probably leave it that way for the 3rd pass also.

 

2) Used the drive in their array as a parity drive and successfully checked parity

Once the preclear is done I will be assigning one as parity and one as disk1 I have 2 WD that will be disk2 and disk3.

 

3) Used the drive in their array as a data drive and successfully transferred 500 GB+ to and from the drive, all of which completed without errors (verified by CRC or MD5 checks)

500 GB+ will be a little tought to get to with the prelcears I still have to do but I should be able to transfer half that amount and check to make sure everything works correctly.

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Working on this now, I have 2 of these drives for a new customer build and it is working on pass 2 right now.  The numbers from the first pass look to be good.  I did the first pass at sector 63 but specifically forced it to 64 for the second pass.  Will probably leave it that way for the 3rd pass also.

 

I thought these drives are not advanced format?  Why would you use sector 64?

 

500 GB+ will be a little tought to get to with the prelcears I still have to do but I should be able to transfer half that amount and check to make sure everything works correctly.

 

Meh, good enough.  The 500 GB number is fairly arbitrary, I just wanted something large enough to test out a significant portion of the drive. 1/8th of the drive should be enough.

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