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[Question] Quietest 16-18TB hard drive for NAS (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Looking to upgrade my NAS hard drives. Currently have two 4TB WD Red Plus hard drives but I wanted to get some large capacity drives. Was looking into getting 16 or 18TB drives. My current drives are basically whisper quiet and have been running great since 2019 but I feel like it's time to upgrade the capacity.

The NAS is currently on a desk beside my computer. I don't have any cabinets to place it in and would prefer not to connect to it through Wi-Fi. Hence why I'd like for the drives to be as quiet as possible.

I was considering getting a Seagate Exos or Ironwolf (and buying used for the great price) but I've read users online saying they regret buying those models because of their noise. I was also looking at the WD Red Pro but WD's own website only rates them at 3.6/5 with most of the negative complaints about dead on arrival drives. Additionally 25% of all reviews are 1 star; both of which don't fill me with much confidence.

TLDR: What's a quiet and reliable hard drive recommendation for a NAS?

Would it be better just to go with the WD Red Plus at a lower capacity?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Do you have the Ultrastar models that were made by WD? Or the ones before they were acquired by WD?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Pretty sure they are all WD-era Ultrastars now.

Only gotcha I ever found with them (and some shucked WD reds several years ago I think) is to disable the 3.3v pin. Plenty of different methods for that, but I just snipped it out of the power cable. Lots of posts online explaining it, it’s not an ultrastar specific deal.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I had not heard of that. Thanks for the tip. Does it make them quieter?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Nah, nothing to do with noise.

As far as I’m aware it’s a feature to control power to the disk. Look it up to confirm if you’re interested, but I think power delivered on that pin keeps the hdd off. Cutting the power (or snipping the power cable in my case) causes it to function normally. Plenty of people have bought these drives and assumed they are dead (including me!) when plugged into a regular PSU, which just supplies the power. I assume enterprise servers allow you to turn the 3.3v pin on and off. I suspect it’s more useful in datacenters etc to restart problematic drives & run diagnostics etc remotely before having to go and actually find the thing in the server/rack/aisle of racks/warehouse of racks etc.

Someone here will know more than me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

Oh I see. I hadn't thought that would be a problem but it makes some sense that home servers would differ from actual professional grade ones thus making the drives very different.