January 20, 201115 yr I am curious for opinions of which drives I should swap out. I refresh my drives on a ongoing basis. Typically this is when the pricing sweet spot kicks in so this now 2TB EARS drives are a great price. Long story short i have to swap out 4-8 drives choosing between a mixture of: WDC_WD10EADS WDC_WD10EARS WDC_WD15EADS SAMSUNG_HD103UJ The SAMSUNG is a no brainier as i no longer like then. But two other factors I am considering are AGE and SPEED. Power isnt a factor really based on the remaining drives being high efficiency. So I need to come up with sort sort of semi scientific method of benchmarking all the drives, looking at their age and any other important SMART stats and decide. I will write this up as a guide when I am done so I am keen to make it elegant and understandable. Any suggestions?
January 20, 201115 yr I hate swapping out a disk for a larger disk if I am only getting 50% of the space. I just swapping out the last of my 750g for 2t which gave me almost 2x more space per drive and didn't feel so painful. I have a bunch of 1t drives and am planning to keep them until the 3t drives come out (maybe even 4t). You might consider waiting until 3t drives are supported and replacing just 1 or 2 drives, and then upsizing the remainder once 3t hit their pricing sweet spot. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with for replacement criteria. I think if any drives showing reallocated / pending sectors, those would be the first to go. After that, it would be age / power on hours.
January 20, 201115 yr I think if any drives showing reallocated / pending sectors, those would be the first to go. After that, it would be age / power on hours. This is my criteria. Also, I would use age > 3 years. In addition, a decision may be based on where I may reallocate a drive. If I build a system that could use a specific drive for an application. I.E. EADS on an XP machine or USB case.
January 20, 201115 yr I think if any drives showing reallocated / pending sectors, those would be the first to go. After that, it would be age / power on hours. I would replace any with re-allocated/pending sectors, then smallest, then by age. A drive that is running well is more likely to stay running well. Replacing the smallest first gains you the most available space. As long as you are replacing smallest on a regular basis, the specific age really does not matter to me. All that said, it is impossible for many of us to follow ANY swap-out regimen with older servers. On my older server most of the drives are IDE, the largest IDE are 750Gig. (A 750Gig IDE drive is very expensive to replace) The parity drive and 1 data drive are 1TB SATA. All on a PCI based MB. I do not even want to upgrade the two SATA drives, as it would just extend the time for a parity check. It is why I built a completely new server. The new C2SEE MB does not even have an IDE connector. I plan on swapping out servers, not drives. Joe L.
January 20, 201115 yr The others have said pretty much exactly what I was going to say but I figured I would through my 2 cents in as well. I have 2 500GB and 2 750GB drives in my array still. the 500GB drives are ones are the oldest I have in my array but have given my ZERO trouble since they were put into service. When the time comes and I run out of drive slots I will probably pull them and re-purpose them, but I am actually not going to touch them until that time comes.
January 20, 201115 yr NAS - What is your true goal here - to increase space or to increase reliability? If the goal is to increase space, I think the comments you've gotten are spot on. If the goal is to increase reliability - it might be a fools errand. The most reliable drives tend to be the ones that have worked well and continue to work well. The more interesting question is what size should you move to. You really need to look at the cost per add'l gig of storage, not cost per gig of storage. 1.5T -> 2T (assuming cost is $80) means you are spending $80 for 500G = 16 cents per gig 1.5T -> 3T (assuming cost is $200) means you are spending $200 for 1.5T = 13 cents per gig 1T -> 2T (assuming cost of $80) means you are spending $80 for 1T = 8 cents per gig 1T -> 3T (assuming cost of $200) means you are spending $200 for 2T = 10 cents per gig By the numbers, the 1T to 2T seems best option. But I might opt for the 3T, esp if the prices drop between now and time I made the purchase. Might be moot point if the space need is urgent as 3T not currently supported.
January 20, 201115 yr Author My primary goal is to increase space. I just don't have the time to build a new server and drives are so cheap now, and replacing them so little effort, thats the route i tend to go. A nice by product is that my drives are constantly being renewed meaning none ever get too old. That may not be as good a thing as it could be because as pointed out good drives tend just to keep working. I like Joes summary of "re-allocated/pending sectors, then smallest, then by age." So in pesudo code/algorithm If 196 Reallocated_Event_Count > 0 then Retire 197 Current_Pending_Sector Count > 0 then Retire Sort remaining by age and size ... actually we not far away from being able to do an actual automatic list... first though i need some a simple speed test. Can anyone suggest one?
January 20, 201115 yr When we say performance are we talking speed? If speed is an option I wouldn't even consider it. I run all Green right now and honestly its running perfectly "for my needs". I'd go with Joe L suggestion of sectors and then consider age as the backup plan.
January 20, 201115 yr Author You make a fine point but it assumes that all SATA ports operate the same. But then again if its a port problem then its going to effect the new drives as well. So, your spot on good point. Nice one.... i will need to look at that separately unrelated to this.
January 20, 201115 yr first though i need some a simple speed test. Can anyone suggest one? See http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=10352.0
January 27, 201115 yr Since this thread appears to be mods only I guess I had better post here too My storage needs grow at such a rate that I have yet to have a disk reach old age before I wanted to upgrade it to a larger one anyway, so age doesn't factor into my replacement strategy at all. What's important to me is: Problematic - if any disk is problematic, away it goes Not Green - I'm replacing all my 7200rpm disks first (only 2 left!) Small - goes without saying The next two on my list to replace are a SAMSUNG_HD103 (1 TB 7200 rpm) and a ST31500341AS (Seagate 1.5 TB 7200 rpm). I haven't had any issues with them, but they are 7200rpm and thus waste power in my system. The Seagate runs pretty hot too - it is the only disk that ever breaks 40 C in my system. My smallest data disk is currently 1 TB. I plan on hanging onto my 1 TB green drives until I absolutely have to replace them. By then I expect to replace them with 4+ TB drives. I'm also considering replacing my 500 GB 7200rpm cache drive with a 2 TB WD Green so that I can have a warm spare handy. Haven't quite convinced myself yet...
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