Opinion : NAS HDD - Seagate NAS or WD RED (2 Viewers)

[CyberSimian]

Now. Who know the procedure for testing disk?

For disks that I buy for use with Windows, my usual practice is to perform a long format before using them for the first time. A long format causes Windows to read and write every sector on the disk. When I did this with a 3TB disk, it took approximately 2 days.

If I subsequently need to reformat, I then do a quick format (unless I have reason to believe that the disk has developed a problem). A quick format merely re-initialises the file allocation table and other file-system structures, and so takes only a few minutes (even for a 3TB disk).

However, I did not do that for the disks that I installed in my NAS. The Synology operating system has some facility to "validate" a disk before it is used for the first time. I don't know quite what it does (it may be the same as a Windows long format). I chose the option to perform this validation when I setup my NAS, and the four 6TB disks took about 2 days to validate.

"Validate" is not the term that Synology use for this disk testing, but I cannot remember what they call it. There is also something called "data scrubbing"; I don't know whether that is the same as the initial validation, or something different. Your DS1512+ probably has the same facilities as my DS1515+.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[azzuro]

Whaoo. 2 days.
I must connect it to my ups. Before start the test.

Who have ups on his nas?
. And what is the manufacturer ?

 

[Luca Brasi]

I know the you have made your decision and I think it was the right move to prefer the WD Reds over the Seagates. I did the same after losing two Seagates recently. Accessing hard drives reliability and making the right choice is pretty hard cause you will find a myriad of opinions and experiences here. I guess finding proper statistics is the key - of course with all its downsides and new question marks...
One pretty good looking source is this
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/
If I'd known this I would never have gone with the Seagate ST3000DM001 in the first place and will look out for HGST the next time.

 

[CyberSimian]

Who have ups on his nas? And what is the manufacturer?

I am fortunate in that where I live in the UK we almost never have power cuts. By this I mean that several years can elapse between power cuts.

Also, I power on my NAS only when I am using it; I don't leave it powered on 24/7. So the probability of a power cut whilst the NAS is writing to the disks is reduced greatly.

On the other hand, I have been following the Synology fora since I purchased my DS1515+, and it seems that a power cut whilst the NAS is writing to the disks can result in all sorts of chaos and difficulty in recovering. The only way that you can be 100% sure that you could recover is to have a completely separate backup of everything on the NAS. You might not need this backup, because the NAS might be able to recover with no loss of data. But in the worst case you might lose all of the data on the NAS.

So, I have not yet made a decision about buying a UPS. I will be interested to hear what others have to say.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[CyberSimian]

If I'd known this I would never have gone with the Seagate ST3000DM001 in the first place and will look out for HGST the next time.

I don't know whether you have a Synology NAS, but from posts in the Synology fora in recent weeks it seems that there is some incompatibility between certain HGST disks and Synology NASes, resulting in very low reading and/or writing speeds. This may be something to consider when the time comes to buy more disks (hopefully Synology will have fixed the problem by then).

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[azzuro]

@CyberSimian :
For UPS, only few manufacturer are good, with the support out of box of yhe UPS you buy.

APC and EATON.
and about technology :
OFF - Line : less cheaper, but not garanty micro-cut.
Line Intéractive : for the same price than off line, less power socket.

 

[azzuro]

Hey,
Disks received, are in test one/one with WD Data Lifeguard.
on extended test.
10hours / disk
, so the week for testing.

PS : the newly 4TB has Nasware 3.0 instead of 2.0

 

[azzuro]

Disk installed. Running since one week now. Not issue yet.
90-100 mo/s with only 1 lan port.

 

[CyberSimian]

90-100 mo/s with only 1 lan port.

With my setup, I use powerline networking adapters that are rated at 600Mbits/sec. These are connected to gigabit sockets on the HTPC and the NAS, and I use cat 5e connecting cables. Sadly, the quality of my domestic powerlines results in speeds that are only a little above 100Mbits/sec.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[azzuro]

gigabit is limited to 120 mo/s , right ?