Seagate NAS drives including ST4000VN000 - now on HCL

[vandermerwe]

There is only one thread on the entire forum about this drive.
Has anyone installed these drives?
There is a paucity of 4 Tb drives on the HCL.

Edit: now whole series is on HCL
Hopefully good alternative to Wd red drives

[vandermerwe]

These drives, the Seagate NAS drives have been added to the official HCL for all of the new Readynas units.
Quite an important event I think as these give users an alternative to the red drives, hopefully a good one.
They have not been added to the legacy units HCL, however I'm not sure if these lists will ever be updated.

Good news as I have already bought 2.

[StephenB]

It is nice to see Seagate in the game for home NAS.

Hopefully the legacy HCL will also be updated, as the NAS drives are likely better choices than many of the desktop drives on the HCL. I certainly don't like being forced to choose a worse drive in order to get Netgear support.

[GLJ1]

StephenB wrote:
It is nice to see Seagate in the game for home NAS. Hopefully the legacy HCL will also be updated, as the NAS drives are likely better choices than many of the desktop drives on the HCL. I certainly don't like being forced to choose a worse drive in order to get Netgear support.

Still no sign of the Seagate NAS drives on the HCL. At least for the units I own.
What's the best way of contacting Netgear and trying to get them to add some of these drives to the list? or is it a total waste of time?
I realise that there are a lot of different drives out there, but you'd think that they would at least try and add these NAS specific models! especially as there are still things like the RNDP6000 available brand new out there (I know ... I've just gone and bought another one an hour ago and I'd really like to stick some of the new Seagates NAS drives in it!) so its still a little debatable if they are 'legacy' even!!

[vandermerwe]

I don't think they'll test these drives on all the legacy devices unfortunately.

[GLJ1]

vandermerwe wrote:
I don't think they'll test these drives on all the legacy devices unfortunately.

Well, its understandable that they might not want to do all the older stuff, but there are some models like the NV+ V2 , Duo V2 and Pro6 that are still available as brand new. Surely its not unreasonable to expect that these would be included?
Especially as (in the Uk at least) there only seems to be TWO consumer/prosumer lines of dedicated NAS drives commonly available - WD Red and the Seagate NAS range. Surely it wouldn't hurt to get just these TWO lines included ??

What are firms like Synology and Qnap doing with these new NAS specific drives? how far back do they test?

Note - I just looked at the synology site for compatibility with the 3TB seagate NAS version ST3000VN000. This is the list - but I'm not familiar with how old this range is. Can anyone comment?
Applied Models :
14-series: DS114, DS214, DS214+, DS214play, DS214se, DS414, RS214, RS2414+, RS2414RP+, RS3614xs+, RS814, RX1214, RX1214RP
13-series: DS1513+, DS1813+, DS213, DS213+, DS213air, DS213j, DS2413+, DS413, DS413j, DS713+, DX213, DX513, RS10613xs+, RS3413xs+, RX1213sas
12-series: DS112, DS112+, DS112j, DS1512+, DS1812+, DS212, DS212+, DS212j, DS3612xs, DS412+, DS712+, RS212, RS2212+, RS2212RP+, RS3412RPxs, RS3412xs, RS812, RS812+, RS812RP+
11-series: DS111, DS1511+, DS211, DS211+, DS211j, DS2411+, DS3611xs, DS411, DS411+, DS411+II, DS411j, DX1211, RS2211+, RS2211RP+, RS3411RPxs, RS3411xs, RS411, RX1211, RX1211RP
10-series: DS1010+, DS110+, DS110j, DS210+, DS210j, DS410, DS410j, DS710+, DX510, RS810+, RS810RP+, RX410
9-series: DS109, DS109+, DS209, DS209+, DS209+II, DS409, DS409+, DS509+, DX5, RS409, RS409+, RS409RP+, RX4

[xeltros]

A quick search on google shows a review on the DS109 written in may 2009. So I would say beginning of 2009 or late 2008 for this model.
I don't think that Netgear will update the HCL for older devices, but they may be a little more flexible on support, but that's depending on who you have on the other end of the line.

The problem with desktop HDD, is that the manufacturer can deny support since they have specific products for NAS (meaning they do not certify desktop models in NAS), but if the NAS doesn't list NAS HDD in the HCL they can deny support too. So I believe that if there is no NAS certified HDD in the desired capacity in the HCL, you can ask Netgear to add one or provide support with the disk you chose since either way you're stuck with warranties. At least it would be normal, but that would be forcing their hand and I don't think they would appreciate it very much.

[StephenB]

WDC red drives are on the HCL for the nv+ v2. So xeltros' hypothetical wouldn't apply.

I agree that the outdated HCLs on the legacy products creates huge challenges for Netgear customers. If Netgear want's to stop testing, that's fine I guess. However, they shouldn't deny support, since its unreasonable for customers to try and track down long-obsolete drives as replacements. And Netgear itself is apparently shipping some NAS with drives that aren't on the HCL.

[xeltros]

If red are on the list, this would indeed not apply.
I believe disks are pretty much the same nowadays, at least the core features are similar. it would make more sense to state minimal requirements and recommend drives rather that deny support. I believe there are only a few drives manufacturers out there (three ?) since they are buying each other, I think they use pretty much the same hardware for all their disks to do some scale savings (I'm not sur of the word, but I meant do savings by producing in greater amounts). The only thing that is interesting for Netgear is the controller, if two disks have identical controllers then test one and the other will also be compatible. They should be able to grab tech specs from the manufacturers and check that.

[StephenB]

Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba are the three that are left. Though HGST appears to be operating somewhat independently from the rest of WDC.

Of course the SSD is the most interesting tech trend with 1 TB drives becoming available this year. And although the RNxxx line explicitly supports SSD drives, there are none on the compatibility list for the RN1xx, and only one SSD on the list for the others. And that one is only 250 GB.

With traditional drives, PMR is the current dominant recording technology - though Seagate apparently is shipping a variant (SMR) in some drives. Getting to higher storage densities will require shifting to something new, there is a summary of some of the possibilities here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomcoughlin ... sk-drives/ So there are some technology differences between drives, that that will probably increase over the next 5 years as some of these new approaches get commercialized.

But I agree that the recording technology, number of platters, etc. doesn't really matter to the NAS. The controller response to bad sectors, head parking times, amount of vibration, tolerance to vibration, and peak power use are the main things that do matter.