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HDDs for DrivePool


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I'm assembling a computer this weekend.  I was originally going to build 2 computers, 1 home machine, and 1 server.  Budget restraints have brought me down to just one machine, and I'm going to run DrivePool and have the pool be a share for several devices in the house.

 

I currently have:

 

4TB Seagate NAS Drive (ST4000VN000, never used)

2TB WD Green (2 years old)

1TB WD Green (5 years old)

1TB WD Green (5 years old)

 

All the drives are still working with no errors, but I was going take out the two 1TB drives and add another 4TB drive since they are at the 5 year mark.  I was never able to use the 4TB seagate because my old machine wouldn't recognize the drive so I can't speak on it's reliability.  Are there any drives that work better with DrivePool?

 

I'm going to be duplicating most things, but reliability is important.  I've looked in to enterprise drives but some reviews say they aren't desktop drives and shouldn't be used as such.  This isn't technically a NAS even though other devices will be accessing the pool.  The machine will be on 24x7.

 

Should I go cheap with a green drive, a nas drive, or enterprise drive?

 

Thanks.

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For StableBit DrivePool, we recommend NAS drives.

 

As for the Enterprise drives, they're usually meant for RAIDs, or high performance applications. 

For the most part, the premium that you pay for them isn't worth it.

 

NAS drives are designed to get very good speeds, and to be fairly power efficient at the same time. No sacrificing, like with the Green drives.

 

 

As for the 4TB, that's unusual that it wouldn't recognize the drive. 

Though, I have 4-5 of those, and they have been fairly reliable for me.

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Thanks for the reply.  Yes is an old machine (socket 939 amd nforce ultra-d).  I had the 4TB plugged in to an external dock but the start/stop count was getting crazy after about a week (in the thousands), I don't think it knew how to function in a dock so I unplugged it and exchanged it, wasn't sure if the drive was the problem or the dock.

 

When the new one came in I plugged it in internally.  I was able to format it and the system recognized it and I used it for a few days, but upon first reboot the system would not start.  When I finally unplugged that drive the machine started as normal.

 

I think I'll get a WD Red drive then.  I started looking at enterprise because of the warranty and because they are supposed to be more reliable, but the Green's have even treated me fine.  I'm most worried about a drive just dying and not sending any SMART errors first.

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External docks can unfortunately cause that behavior. It's an issue with the USB stuff. (frequent disconnects).

 

As for the new drive .... well failing and causing the system to stop booting.... that can happen with new drives. "Infant mortality" is the term used.

However, if it works fine on another system, then the drive controller may have issues with the drive.

 

As for warranty, IIRC, the WD Reds have three year warranties. 

 

And to be honest, given the price difference (twice the price or more), you'd be better off buying one drive now, and one in 2.9 years. More cost effective, in the long run. 

Especially as a number of storage hosts (such as backblaze) have indicated that the failure rate is not significantly different for enterprise drives.

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My server build

 

Amd phenom 2 945 Deneb at 3.0gnz (AM3)

Gskill 4 x4gb ddr 1600 ddr 3 ram

Current os drive WD Black 1 TB sata 6gb/s

data drive one 1TB wd green drivea

I have a total of 6 sata 3  6gb/s ports

 

my Question is should I upgrade to WD red or SSD for the OS?   Im currently testing windows 10

This machine is running 24/7 as a home media server  (music, Movies, files etc)

 

Data will be on the WD red and or the green drive

 

Any advise would be apreciated

 

 

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Well, the WD Black is a good drive for the OS. 

 

However, I really do like running a SSD as the system drive. It's very, very fast, and it increases the systems overall responsiveness a lot. And it runs at lower power than most HDDs. 

So it may be very worth upgrading to SSD drives. 

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THanks Christopher

 

my black drive is about 5 years old and I was debating a 2.5 inch 1TB red or a ssd. im liking the crucial M500 series for ssd but was afraid of all I read about the issues with writes and deletes.

ive heard how this wears the drive down fast.

 

Also the machine is going to basically sit and serve my drive pool which I'm planning on getting 3+TB red drives. so im not sure the performance boost is worth it for the os drive. im looking to

also use windows 10 as my server os once It launches.

also is 16gb ram enough or should I max the board out to 32gb? I will be using up to 512mb for the onboard video card.

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That is definitely getting on the old side. Though, if it's working fine, then you may be good still.

 

 

As for the SSD, it's definitely worth using. I'm not sure about the M500 series as I don't have one, but I've been using the M550 and have written to it a LOT. It performs very well still. 

Though, the Samsung 840 Pro SSDs are worth a good look at as well.

 

And it's absolutely worth using the SSD. It makes the entire system more responsive, IMO. 

 

Also, unless you're doing a lot, 8GBs should be more than plenty. I'm doing transcoding, web hosting, and HyperV, and I usually only use about 16GBs. So that's "heavy usage" for the most part. So if you already have the 16GBs, that should definitely be plenty.

 

If you haven't bought it yet, then make sure you get a kit that lets up upgrade to the 32GBs, just in case you find that you do need/want to upgrade later.

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It depends on your usage.

 

But yeah, it should be safe.  I have an OCZ Vertex 4 that I've been using for almost 2 years. it reports about 1TB written and read from the disk, and only about 3% warn. I leave the server running 24/7, and have a large number of apps installed to it. 

 

And most modern SSDs have a very long life.

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ive decided on the Samsung 850 pro 128 gb ssd for my os drive .

next ? is what is a feeder drive and do I need one ? ill be running primarily wd red drives for the stablebit data pool/scanner

also what os is best win 7 pro, win 8.1 pro or wait for win 10 pro? love the win 10 preview...

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Glad to hear it. The samsung drives are definitely nice. 

 

"feeder drives" are for the "SSD Optimizer" balancer, which writes to the feeder drives first and then moves the data off of them. For most people, this isn't necessary, as you can get the ~100MB/s write speed from the WD Red drives normally. And gigabit network speeds maxes out at 125MB/s (not counting overhead or other devices accessign the network, etc). 

So unless you absolutely need the speed, then you don't need the feeder drives.

 

However, if you do need them, then any really fast drive (such as SSDs or 10k RPM drives) would work. You'd want as many feeder drives as you have duplication set to (2x normally, so 2 drives).

 

 

As for the best OS, that's a really subjective question. 

If you have an UEFI system, then I'd recommend WIndows 8.1 Pro. It's not too expensive, supports UEFI and does a great job. 

 

However, DrivePool and Scanner do appear to work fine on the Windows 10 Preview, so if you really want to use that... But we haven't officially tested it yet

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hey Cristopher

im considering soon down the road getting a new motherboard and cpu. im thinking of going intel this time.

 

as its been a few years since I had my last intel desktop cpu  (socket 478 3.2ghz Prescott) im at a lossfor what cpu to get

for my system for server duty. im planning on using onboard graphics due to being remote in through my laptop.

but do I get an i3 i5 i7 and also dual or quad core. I will definitely get the ssd. im also partial to MSI motherboards.

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Ryo,

 

I am a big fan of Intel, especially as I've been burned by AMD CPUs, literally in some cases (well, not me, but my last AMD CPU had a scorch mark on the metal tin  covering it.....)

 

As for the system, this really depends on what you want to do with the system:

  • If you're only going to be using this for file storage, then an Intel Celeron or even an Atom system may be more than plenty (in fact, some of the Atom systems are VERY nice, I use the D2550, a quad core CPU, for my router).
  • If you're going to be using it for some CPU intensive stuff, or just want it to be very responsive, then I'd recommend a Core i3.
  • If you're going to be doing a LOT of CPU intensive stuff, or even hosting VMs, then I'd recommend an Intel Xeon E3 1245v3 CPU (haswell).  It will cost similar to a Core i7, but better features. Namely, "Intel vPro" or Intel AMT. Which does require motherboard support as well. 
    (as for why vPro/AMT is awesome:http://www.howtogeek.com/56538/how-to-remotely-control-your-pc-even-when-it-crashes/

As for motherboard, MSI is a very good manufacturer. However, you metnion remove management. In this case, you may want to look for a board that supports Intel vPro/AMT, or IPMI. These are "out of band management" features, that allow you full access to the system remotely, but as if you were "sitting" at the system. Meaning you can enter the BIOS, see BSODs, and even mount ISOs over the network. 

 

I'm sorry if this gives you more to look at, but it may be worth it in the long run.

But to re-emphasize about the CPUs: which CPU you want depends highly on what you want to do with the system.

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thanks for the info. I found a usb 3.0 card that has the 19 pin connector for my case so im gonna stick with the phenom 2 3.0ghz deneb for now. may consider going to 32 gb ram because im taking my dedicated graphics card out. I don't need that in a server  the onboard card is fine for system setup and updates. So I will have 4 usb 3.0 ports  (2 on front and 2 on back of motherboard)

 

im hoping to get another year out of this board.

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hey drashna I got my new case.

 

Fractal design

 

FD-CA-NODE-804-BL

 

Now im debating a new power supply so I have enough powr for my system and the max of 13 drive

 

going for 1 slim dvd writer

 

1 Samsung 850 series 128gb ssd

1 wd red 2.5 inch

 

 

I have 1 ,  1TB green

also have 1 1TB black drive

 

currently I have a 650 watt power supply but it only has 2 sata power connectors

your advise is appreciatd

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That's a nice case. Though, sadly, it does not have any hot swap bays, nor slots for a backplane. But I'm just picky. :)

 

As for the power supply, depending on the motherboard, CPU and gfx card, that should be plenty of power. To be honest, my server only uses about 150Ws average, as reported by my UPS. 

However, investing in an 80+ certified power supply is never a bad idea.  But this is really up to you, as you should be fine with the 650W PSU.

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I have the 650 watt but my problem is all my older and newer drives are sata 3. in the end ill be running 1 dvd writer , 1 ssd, and 11 wd red drives.

 

my current config is ...

 

msi 880gma-e45 motherboard with amd phenom 2 945 deneb core running at 3.0ghz quad core (95 watt)

4 x 4 gb ram (total 16gb)

onboard video currently set to 32mb shared vid ram

wd black 1TB as os drive

wd green 1TB as data drive

 

I have a few questions about the power supplys,

1 what do I need bronze gold or platinum grade supply

2 should I get a supply with 14 sata power connectors or get less and use splitters

 

im thinking of a 1000watt or better supply as im sure I will need a newer board and cpu within 2 years. possibly intel for that upgrade.

once I start getting new hdd they will all be wd red except for the ssd Samsung 850pro drive. (should I get 128 or 256 ssd)

thanks for the advise.

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There should be no problem using splitters. In fact, given the number of drives, you'll probably have to do this regardless. Just make sure they're at least decent quality, though.

 

As for your system, as I said, the 650W should be plenty. You can find plenty of power calculators out there (including at newegg), and you shouldn't even be close to maxing out that PSU.

 

But if you do get an 80+, then I'd recommend the platinum. the "Color" is the rating of efficiency. Bronze -> Silver -> Gold -> Platinum.  From lowest to greatest efficiency.  And a kW power supply should be MORE than plenty. In fact, that's what I have for my rackmount server, and I'm using less than 200Ws (according to my UPS), with 13 drives, and a SSD (and a haswell Xeon, comparable to a Core i7)

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im looking at a 750watt seasonic that's gold rated. gonna go intel once I can find a board that's windows 10 ready. probably gonna get a cheap celleron to start so I don't break the bank. the upgrade to a xeon haswell if board supports.

my current poer supply is 650 watt but only has 2 sata power connectos and with the case fan controller and 2 hdd im already on my 1st splitter plus its not modular. (o the ratsnest) lol

 

my wife loves my current server config. me and her we both accessing th wd green drive at same time with no lag.

is intel gonna use ddr 3 for a while or is the ddr 4 gonna take over everything.

I love my laptops I7 but for the server im liking the xeon

 

is a celleron enogh to start with to stream music / moves from the drivepool?

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My first WHS 2011 build was with a Celeron G630 (or G530, not sure anymore). It did client backups, server backups, access to shares, ran Rosetta@Home and streamed using Serviio. Never a hickup. Not sure how it would have handled two video streams and I'm not sure Serviio ever had to do transcoding (which can be CPU intensive I am told). I just upgraded to an i7-3770 for fun, really.

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Seasonic is a good brand (or at least I've seen a lot of good reviews). 

 

As for Windows 10, if it's Windows 8 compatible, it should run Windows 10 just fine. Mostly, get an UEFI board. :)

 

As for the board, make sure it supports both the Xeon and Celeron processor. You may need to get a workstation or server board to do so. If so, I recommend ASRock Rack (their support is fantastic, well, the Taiwan office is), or SuperMicro. They're good server/workstation companies.

 

 

As for streaming, depends on what you're using. But it may not be enough. I'd recommend a lower end Haswell Core i3, or a higher end Pentium haswell. 



Also, my last upgrade, I bought a SuperMicro board, and a Xeon E3 1245v3. A friend bought a Core i7 4770K for a gaming machine. My CPU actually turned out be a bit more powerful, for slightly less (like $20). If you do go Xeon, that processor is a very good choice. 

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are there any requirements for the 6 TB red drives or are the supported by all motherboards?

That's a tricky question.

Some do, some don't. It depends on the chipset in question.  However, most boards made in the last couple of years definitely should.

 

However, the documentation may mention that, or even send the manufacturer a question about it (which is a good idea, as it gauges the quality of their support system).

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