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Forum Discussion
NAS Not all drives are equal - choosing the right drive for you
One of the most important decisions you will make when purchasing a NAS is the decision as to which drives to purchase to put in it. Indeed depending on which NAS model and which drives you buy you can spend more (or almost as much) on disks as you spend on the NAS itself. It is vital that you get this decision right.
We have a hard disk compatibility list for you to choose drives from: http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/20641
Whether the drive has Rotational Vibration Safeguard, the warranty length and the price of the drive can give an initial indication as to the quality of the drive.
Particularly in desktop models with large numbers of drive bays and in rackmount models, Rotational Vibration Safeguard is important. Indeed in the 12-bay models it is essential.
Drives pitched at consumers tend to have shorter warranties. Drives targeted at business users tend to have longer warranties and be designed to handle heavy 24x7 use.
If the NAS is used for primary storage then considering backup storage as well is important. What drives will you use in e.g. a backup NAS?
Budget and capacity requirements are important considerations. Should you go with lower capacity enterprise drives or higher capacity drives targeted at consumers?
Drive choice is very much a personal choice. I would recommend that when you do narrow it down to a handful of options that you may wish to purchase that you do a search for them e.g. using Google and take a look at reviews for the drives to see how other users have found them. Some drives have lower failure rates than others.
If you need help with selecting the right drive for you please ask and the community will be happy to assist.
Do you have any tips for drive selection or an experience you'd like to share or do you have a question about choosing drives for your NAS? Please comment below.
21 Replies
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Backblaze definitely is looking for the least expensive drives.cpu8088 wrote: u may notice that backblaze used a lot of desktop and low end drives. also those drives were operating at around 35 degree c in an air conditioned room
in real world hd housed in a nas may operate around 40 degree c or higher.
so their reviews cannot be taken as the norm.
I agree their environment might make comparisons with ReadyNAS misleading. For instance, they are running 45 drives in each of their storage pods - a very different setup than a home NAS.StephenB wrote:
Backblaze definitely is looking for the least expensive drives.cpu8088 wrote: u may notice that backblaze used a lot of desktop and low end drives. also those drives were operating at around 35 degree c in an air conditioned room
in real world hd housed in a nas may operate around 40 degree c or higher.
so their reviews cannot be taken as the norm.
I agree their environment might make comparisons with ReadyNAS misleading. For instance, they are running 45 drives in each of their storage pods - a very different setup than a home NAS.
Logic?
Backblaze has got quantitative data. If a drive survives there, it will most likely survive in any home nas setup.
And btw, if your nas drives reaches 40 C and above, get a better fan pronto.
And drives that fail there might be fine in a home setup.eton wrote: Backblaze has got quantitative data. If a drive survives there, it will most likely survive in any home nas setup.
Of course replacing the fan will void your warranty. BTW, mine run cooler than that.eton wrote: And btw, if your nas drives reaches 40 C and above, get a better fan pronto. eton wrote: And btw, if your nas drives reaches 40 C and above, get a better fan pronto.
Without knowing the drive's general operating temperature range, number of drives in NAS or ambient temperature, this advice becomes less reliable.
e.g.: My Pro 6 with 6 x Hitachi 4TB DeskStar 7200rpm, happily running without issue for 3 years with drive temps between 42-48 degrees C: in ambient temps ranging from 15 degrees to 40 degrees. System Fan was generally sitting at no more than 1293 rpm.
The issue for me was more to do with the ambient temperature becoming too hot in my room during hot summer months with the extra heat output. Switching to Seagate 5900rpm 4TB NAS drives dropped the drive temps to 33-37 degrees C.- 5x00 rpm drives will run cooler than 7x00 rpm drives
as long as the temp not over 46 degree c should be ok. good drives can withstand to 55 degree c. - There's an interesting study focused particularly on drive temps and failure rates here: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~gurumurthi/ ... mtos13.pdf
Figure 5 shows that drive failure rate climbs steadily as the average drive temperature rises. The figure suggests that the ideal drive temperature range is ~27-33C."""The figure suggests that the ideal drive temperature range is ~27-33C."""
yea with ambient room temp at 30 C can u tell me which readynas can maintain hd temp at 27-33C? i mean without air conditioner running.
cpu8088 wrote:
"""The figure suggests that the ideal drive temperature range is ~27-33C."""
yea with ambient room temp at 30 C can u tell me which readynas can maintain hd temp at 27-33C? i mean without air conditioner running.
As I'm sure you know, the readynas internal temp will always be ambient or higher.
Figure 5 in the link shows the impact of higher temps on disk failure rates as measured in the study. You can dismiss that data, or act on it - your choice.
Personally I've chosen WDC Reds partly because they are low in power consumption, and therefore run cooler. Most of my NAS are in my basement - not air conditioned, but usually cool even in summer. One is in my home office- in the summer the room air conditioner there is set to 30C when I am not working there. Disk spindown is also enabled.
Overall, disk temps might sometimes creep into the mid-30s, but generally they stay below 33C.
FWIW, I do wish Netgear would provide some knobs in the fan control, allowing people with power-hungry drives to run the fans more aggressively.
I have the ReadyNASRND2000, NASDuo, with 2x1TB Seagate Drives running RAID1. So it is an older NAS but still functioning well. I am at capacity would like to replace the 1TB drives with 2x3TB drives but the compatabibility chart only shows 2TB drives as "compatiable". In addition several of the drives are older drives in the list as tested. Do you all know if it really matters or should any reliable 3TB drive should work?
Thanks
Jeff
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