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WD20EARS just added on the official HCL - mistake and issues
The official HCL has (quietly !) been updated for Sparc based machines with a 2TB WD desktop class drive: the WD20EARS (http://www.readynas.com/?page_id=82). This is in principle good news as the WD20EADS which might have been a candidate (if not discontinued in a near future) seems to have a lot a quality and compatibility issues.
But ... :
1) The HCL mentions the exact version to be used: WD20EARS-00R6B0. Googling the reference does not provide any answer (but the WD20EADS-00R6B0 which is well known). AFAIK, the current available version of the drive is the WD20EARS-00S8B1.
There should be an error in the HCL or the new entry is useless !
2) No restriction appears on the RAIDiator version to be used meaning by the way that the new 4K sector size, which implementation starts in high capacity drives such as the EARS, is fully supported since the beginning. It's amazing as other vendors have delivered updated firmwares for that specific purpose (and keep partitions aligned or performance may degrade significantly).
Or will the 4K sector size be supported by RAIDiator 4.1.7 as current beta "adds support for WD drives that don’t support TLER" (= WD desktop drives) ?
And does this new entry in the offical HCL mean that LCC issues are now fully tackled by RAIDiator 4.1.7 (since the EARS has the same green features as the EADS and WDIDLE is not supported by WD on newer drives), even though some users report recent WD firmwares do not count any more Intellipark related LCC in the Smart infos ?
Please Jedis clarify and thanks to still supporting early (Infrant ...) adopters !
Regards.
But ... :
1) The HCL mentions the exact version to be used: WD20EARS-00R6B0. Googling the reference does not provide any answer (but the WD20EADS-00R6B0 which is well known). AFAIK, the current available version of the drive is the WD20EARS-00S8B1.
There should be an error in the HCL or the new entry is useless !
2) No restriction appears on the RAIDiator version to be used meaning by the way that the new 4K sector size, which implementation starts in high capacity drives such as the EARS, is fully supported since the beginning. It's amazing as other vendors have delivered updated firmwares for that specific purpose (and keep partitions aligned or performance may degrade significantly).
Or will the 4K sector size be supported by RAIDiator 4.1.7 as current beta "adds support for WD drives that don’t support TLER" (= WD desktop drives) ?
And does this new entry in the offical HCL mean that LCC issues are now fully tackled by RAIDiator 4.1.7 (since the EARS has the same green features as the EADS and WDIDLE is not supported by WD on newer drives), even though some users report recent WD firmwares do not count any more Intellipark related LCC in the Smart infos ?
Please Jedis clarify and thanks to still supporting early (Infrant ...) adopters !
Regards.
124 Replies
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- My preference would be to return the disks and get something else, but that's just my personal preference.
- Oh I forgot to say, I have the the ReadyNAS NV and 4.1.6 firmware. And I got the -00S8B1 model.
I don't really want to fiddle with downgrading firmware on the drive, and installing beta firmwares on the NV. The whole reason I bought the NV is so that I didn't have to deal with this stuff. I could've built my own RAID but I wanted a "works out of the box" solution.
Maybe if the final 4.1.7 is coming out soon, that will fix it. But the only info I have now is the drive is "dead". However the readynas dashboard was able to pull the model number from the drive, so I don't know how dead it is.
I'm upgrading from 250GB drives if that makes a difference. - Using the 4.1.7 beta I got the -00S8B1 to work in my Duo however the LCC count climbs steadily which in the long run is a bad thing. It seems the drive will work but will likely fail sooner than you might expect.
I really need a 2x2TB solution for my Duo. Not sure what options exist given the limited HCL info and the fact there isn't even a way to know what "suffix" of WD20EARS you're going to get when you order them. WD and Netgear should work something out rather than burning customers. I was hoping to find upgrading to a different ReadyNAS model would solve this problem but that doesn't seem to be the case based on this forum. Synology claims support but I'm not 100% certain that means the LCC issue doesn't exist in their NAS. - Alright, sounds like I have to eat this $20 restocking fee.
Any recommendations for 3 1TB drives? I probably didn't need that much space anyway. I realize now I need 3 drives to replace the 3 I have now, and 3 2TB was a little much.
I would like to get them locally in San Francisco (centralcomputers.com if anyone is familiar with it). - I *did* choose drives on the HCL :)
I am thinking of getting the 1.5TB x 3 seagates as those are available locally. Though it has a darn firmware qualification too.
So probably after this experience I should play it safe and get 1TB drives -- less bleeding edge. andy.c wrote: Oh I forgot to say, I have the the ReadyNAS NV and 4.1.6 firmware. And I got the -00S8B1 model.
Btw, I am running the same setup as you; 4.1.6 with the same exact HDDs.
Since it was a brand new RND4210 that I bought, I yanked out the 2x1TBs and started with 1x20EARS. I updated to 4.1.6 first and it wouldn't let me add a share (maybe because the drive was NTFS? and I also couldn't find a erase option). Then did a factory reset; held reset for 30 secs and it came up as X-RAID. When I added the second 20EARS it also had an issue so I did another factory reset and it popped up fine.
When I finally added the third drive it came up and resynced A-OK. I am copying data from my old Buffalo 2TB NAS right now. I guess I will keep my data on that Buffalo for at least a couple of months since there is a lot of talk about these new drives. I will also post back my results when I add my final 20EARS. I'm just praying I won't have to factory reset it again with all 4 drives intact.- Damn, I can't afford to do a factory reset... don't have anywhere to back it up. Yeah I know that's not good, but just having the RAID is better than what I had before.
So it looks like the drives are going back. - If you insert used disks you should make sure they only have one partition and hot-add (add while NAS is on). Hot-adding should work in most cases for used or new disks that are compatible. If necessary you can low-level format used disks using vendor tools (I think) before adding them.
- I returned the WD20EARS and got the 1TB Seagate ST31000528AS drive instead. Took me about 1 minute to swap out the first one and verify that it's syncing, as compared with racking my brain over the WD20EARS and all these version combinations.
How about taking the WD20EARS *off* of the HCL? It seems like the HCL is the worst of both worlds. I would expect a small list to be very conservative and reliable. Or a large list would allow you to get better deals, at the expense of some reliability. But the list is both small and unreliable :? Cost me a 15% restocking fee.
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