What Speed Is Your Parity Drive?

[spinbot]

I've been discussing in an alternate thread my reservations with getting a Green drive for my Parity drive, however some users have stated that it really isn't an issue.    With that in mind, I thought it would be interesting to see what speed of drives most users have for their parity.

 

Presently, I am running a 1.5TB Seagate 7200RPM drive as my parity, but want to enter the 2TB world.

[bigdog66]

I doubt many people building new boxes are using 7200 drives anymore....just my opinion from poking around here a lot being a noobie and all...lol

 

because what speed increase you could get back from using a 7200 drive for parity is removed unless your data drive your writing to is also a 7200 drive

 

im sure there are quite a few still around just because they are old vets and when they built thier box green drives didn't exist and why replace a good running drive

 

I would bet most newer boxes if they even have a 7200 drive in it that it is the cache drive

[eroz]

I agree with bigdog.  I currently have 7 drives in my array.  Parity is a WD20EADS - 5400rpm. 4 Data drives are also WD20EADS, 1 Data drive is a 2TB Seagate 5900rpm.  Only my cache is a 7200rpm drive.

[prostuff1]

My current production server is a mix of older and newer 7200RPM drives.  I don't currently have any green drives in my array, though some newer green drives are probably faster then the older 7200RPM drives I am running.

 

With all that being said, I still recommend the Hitachi 2TB 7200RPM drive as a parity drive and cache drive when I build servers for customers.  I leave the final choice up to them as the Hitachi 7200RPM drives tend to be $20-$30 more expensive then a 2TB green drive.

 

It may not be necessary but it is a habit I have gotten into for my builds.

[SSD]

I like a 7200 rpm parity and data for frequently written disks. But most of my disks are green.

 

A benefit of the faster drives IMO is that after they've been replaced with something larger that they are fast enough  to upgrade drives in my various workstations. The 5400s are not as versatile.

[aiden]

I use only 7200 rpm drives.  I'm not concerned with the overall power consumption (which isn't that much higher), and I keep my drives temps in the low 30s at all times, so the positive of speed outweighs those negatives for me.

[Rob_Esc]

I use only 7200 rpm drives.  I'm not concerned with the overall power consumption (which isn't that much higher), and I keep my drives temps in the low 30s at all times, so the positive of speed outweighs those negatives for me.

 

This

[spinbot]

Is part of the decision for those that go "Green" the simple fact that the Green drives are cheaper?

 

I recall reading something negative about a feature of the WD Green drives and how they park themselves excessively which could be a concern over time as the mechanical parts are getting extra, unnecessary wear and tare.    Is that fact or fiction or would you say its factual in that is does park more often, but un-proven that it causes harm to the drive ?  Is it even an issue when my UnRaid is set to spin the drives down after 15 minutes of idle ?

 

Also, thanks for everyone who's voted......it's interesting to see how our brilliant minds vary! 

[joe90]

I use only 7200 rpm drives.  I'm not concerned with the overall power consumption (which isn't that much higher), and I keep my drives temps in the low 30s at all times, so the positive of speed outweighs those negatives for me.

 

This

 

same here!

[Rajahal]

Is part of the decision for those that go "Green" the simple fact that the Green drives are cheaper?

 

For me, absolutely.  I think your usage patterns of the server should factor in heavily as well.  I seed torrents from my server 24/7, so at any given time about half of my drives will be spun up.  Green drives make a big difference in power consumption, heat, etc. in this scenario.  Others who prefer 7200 rpm drives likely have some speed/performance requirements that I don't have.  My philosophy is that if it is fast enough to stream HD stuff to my HTPC, then it is fast enough for me.

 

I recall reading something negative about a feature of the WD Green drives and how they park themselves excessively which could be a concern over time as the mechanical parts are getting extra, unnecessary wear and tare.    Is that fact or fiction or would you say its factual in that is does park more often, but un-proven that it causes harm to the drive ?   Is it even an issue when my UnRaid is set to spin the drives down after 15 minutes of idle ?

 

Of the probably 15 - 20 2 TB WD EARS that have passed through my hands and burn-in processes, I have yet to run into this problem.  However, I also have read about it on these forums.  If I ran into it, I would just consider the drive defective and RMA it.  By the way, of those 2 TB WD EARS drives, I've only every had one that arrived DOA and had to be RMA'd.

 

I only recommend 7200rpm parity drives to clients when they have a specific need that would actually justify it.  So far I haven't met one who does.

 

My personal server currently has a 5900 rpm drives (Seagate LP) as a parity drive, however, I chose that based on price more than anything else ($60 on Black Friday).  While theoretically it should be faster, in practice I haven't noticed any performance increase from the 2 TB WD EARS (5400 rpm) that I was previously using as a parity drive (and my data drives are a mixture of 5400 rpm, 5900 rpm, and 7200 rpm).  I also often use a cache drive which of course negates the issue anyway.