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ReadyNAS 204 - Seagate 8TB Archive Drives Keep Failing
I have had nothing but problems using my ReadyNAS 204 and 4x Seagate 8TB Archive Drives. I would have no problem with a drive failure taking two weeks to re-initialize as long as it was truely a dri...
Thanks for the feedback everyone. The original issue was the failing drives. My answer was the firmware update to v6.7.4. I was just about to spend a ton of money only because I could not keep the drives from failing over and over. I use the NAS simply for storing videos and almost, if never, need to delete any files, just add to them. The Raid stripe is all the redundancy that I require and has proven reliable despite over 10 drive failures since last Xmas.
As long as the drives remain as stable as they have for the last week, even after moving new videos to it each day, I am perfectly happy with the performance of the 8TB Seagate archive drives in my ReadyNAS 204. Hopefully they won't mess anything up that fixed this problem in subsequent firmware updates (crossed fingers).
I consider this thread closed. If the drives become unstable in the future, or I need to upgrade, I will definately get NAS ready drives.
Again,
Thanks,
There's a reason why they are called ARCHIVE drives!!! They are not a normal HDD. They use what is called SMR, in its simplest terms, is a method of overlaying data tracks, much like shingles on a roof, to increase data storage density. One of the greatest aspects of SMR technology is its low cost per gigabyte
Have you had to replace a shingle on your house? It's not as simple as when you're laying new shingles onto your house. So writing onto one, not a big deal, you write and it's laying data over the top of theolder dara, layers like a Shingle. What happens where you delete something and then try to write between the layer's? It's not a fast process. Here's more on how SMR works
http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/shingled-magnetic-recoding-smr-101-basics,2-933.html#fragment-1
By the way, I have a couple of these 8TB Seagate Archive drives. I use them for what they are designed for Archive. I backup my NAS using them. Which is exacly what they are designed for. They are not a way to get mass storage on your PC or NAS for cheap. You'll have nothing but issues, which what do you know, you are having nothing but problems. There's nothing wrong with the drives other then you're trying to use them in a NAS. Something they were never deisgned to do. Go get some WD 8TB RED drives!!! Those you can use in a NAS and will work great. Of course they're more money. If you don't to keep having the issues you're having go buy the NAS drives designed for use in a NAS. Maybe you start out with just 2 of them, and later add a 3rd and then later add the 4th. I don't know if you actually need all that storage at once?
I know it was temping to use them. I just got a second one, I got it in a external Seagate case as it's like $30 cheaper then getting just a bare drive!!! But again, you can't use a SMR type HDD in a NAS or even as a main PC HDD. Those drives are perfectly fine. Use them to Backup your NAS.
Well, I was about to knuckle under and accept defeat, but ... Ever since I upgraded to v6.7.4 of the OS and after the new rebuild that only took 2 days instead of two weeks, I am happy to say that the NAS has been stable for the longest period since I bought it last Xmas. I have transferred over 1TB of data to it this weekend, which in the past, had nearly instantly triggered a drive failure. I don't want to jinx myself, but if it remains stable, then the problem was the firmware all along, wouldn't you say? I am not saying the firmware was buggy, but maybe improvements were made to accomidate slower reacting drives like my archive drives. Either way, I am going to keep my fingers crossed, and hope for the best,
1TB transfer in a weekend? I can copy to and from my NAS over the Gigabit Network pretty quickly where I'm Maxed. Transfering around 6TB overnight of my Network. So a couple days to restore about 12TB of Data.
Archive drives are not designed for a NAS. They lack some of the features a NAS drive supports, You're asking for Data loss. It's your Data, good luck with that. You may be OK now, as copying files onto it now all at once is like installing a new roof onto your house. The problems will crop up trying to patch that roof as you delete files and copy new stuff onto it. Something you don't normally do when using them as a Archive drive.
I highly doubt Netgear did anything to 6.7.4 of the OS to fix the issues you were having with these drives. Again, good luck.
JBDragon1 wrote:
1TB transfer in a weekend? I can copy to and from my NAS over the Gigabit Network pretty quickly where I'm Maxed. Transfering around 6TB overnight of my Network. So a couple days to restore about 12TB of Data.
The transfer only took a short while, I did not say that it took the whole weekend to transfer 1TB. As far as the rebuild, I already said, I have no problem with rebuild times taking much longer than a normal drive, however, nothing that I read anywhere said the drives would consistantly fail if new data was written to the Raid stripe.
JBDragon1 wrote:
Archive drives are not designed for a NAS. They lack some of the features a NAS drive supports, You're asking for Data loss. It's your Data, good luck with that. You may be OK now, as copying files onto it now all at once is like installing a new roof onto your house. The problems will crop up trying to patch that roof as you delete files and copy new stuff onto it. Something you don't normally do when using them as a Archive drive.
I totally understand that the Archive drives were never deisgned for use in a NAS. The question is, can they? I have no issues with the rebuild times taking much longer than normal, as long as the NAS device doesn't incorrectly mark the drive as failed simply because of a lagged response time.
JBDragon1 wrote:
I highly doubt Netgear did anything to 6.7.4 of the OS to fix the issues you were having with these drives. Again, good luck.
If you read the release notes, you will see that v6.7.4 fixed an issue formatting drives over 2 TB. My observation is that after this fix, the drives are now finally stable, and rebuild times have been shortened 80%.
I think the main point everyone is trying to make is;
please make sure you keep good back ups so you don't lose data in the future if drives start failing again.
if the drives continue to work well enough for you, awesome.
Just be prepared for the worst if they become unstable again after a period of being used.
btw, thank you for testing out those drives and sharing your experience with them, it may help others decide if they wish to use them, or avoid them, depending their own risk level.
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