I got myself some N300 Toshiba NAS drives.
this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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Going seagate is a great way to save cash and lose data
So then save cash, set up a raid array, and get multiple proper backups running. You need to do steps 2 & 3 regardless.
And then have them all fail within week of each other, under a couple months. They're garbage, get something decent like a Toshiba or something
I have been burned by WD Red on SMR drives, so I will just say Fuck You WD. That is all.
Look, there's 2 things here:
- NAS - meaning storage
and
- NAS - meaning a virtualisation / container server that's doing lots of fairly random disk access
Which are you wanting?
For the first, just consider capacity (you'll fill it) and noise (spinning away all night)
For the 2nd, really really consider SSDs as they're silent and fast.
RAID1 is just a convenience factor, so whatever you do, don't get too caught up in the drive mechanics as you'll have a full backup (right?) and can restore your data at a moment's notice.
Honestly, honestly, just go for something large & quiet and you'll be fine.
And yes, SSD for the OS
Who says NAS to mean anything other than Network-Attached Storage?!?
"When I say left, I kinda mean right half the time almost."
I agree, the acronym NAS does indeed mean that.
But would you call a Hypervisor a NAS?
When I say NAS, I mean NAS. Bulk storage remotely accessible on the network.
When someone starts talking about all their VMs/Containers, I understand that to mean something else... I'd prefer to use a generic term like “server” instead.
So it will be the latter, as it will run nextcloud, a couple websites i have, a pihole and possible game servers when the need comes again. For the websites i plan on using the mass storage as a backup to the sites' data, so the actual running files will stay on the ssd running the os, currently considering proxmox actually.
for nextcloud i am not sure, since i use it to sync, and 'backup' (i know its not meant as a backup program), so it would need lots of random r/w, but it cant fit on the os ssd as that would get too large, currently only have a 250gb ssd on hand for the os.
Id love to get ssds instead of mass storage hdds, but theyre simply 3 times as expensive for the same storage which is out of budget for me.
I picked Toshiba drives personally. However, I know of a bunch of WD reds running for years with no issues.
I think since the nas cases aren't insolated for sound, your going to hear them moving that head around..
Have you considered an ssd populated nas? It does cost more however :(
So I've wanted to try Toshiba drives (for both typical use and nas) but it seems impossible to source them. Their official website is a nightmare and I think (?) I've seen them on Amazon but nowhere else. And I couldn't find warranty details either. They seem to be very business/corp and totally oblivious to the consumer/prosumer side.
Where did you get your drives? I'm stateside, if that matters.
I got them on Amazon, the only place I could find them as well. However, I didn't search as hard as you I think.
Yes, its fine to have your OS on a separate SSD and use your HDD as data storage.
Its also important to maintain your drives. Be sure to have SMART alerts, and do spinrite or badblocks occasionally to let the drive firmware remove bad sectors from use.
One of each. There is a small chance that drives made in the same factory will fail at exactly the same time for the same reason when used in RAID 1. While this probably won't happen (if it does it would be in the first month and you will hear about others with the same failures), why risk it. Besides you want hard drive makers to stay in business - all hard drives will crash in the future, the only question is when.
I didn't take my advice for a RAID I built years ago. I just placed the order (one hour ago) to replace a WD red with a Seagate. God only knows when the next drive will fail. I've overall been fine, but I only have one disk redundancy in my zfs system until Thursday.
That actually sounds really smart, but can that cause issues with the raid controller, since the drives will act slightly differently?
I have that exact same setup but with 4 TB disks on zfs in mirrored mode. Have not noticed any performance issues in my home lab setup mainly being used for immich and media serving. I had purposely chosen disks of different brands specifically for this reason. My vote goes to this setup.
ZFS, btrfs, and other software RAID solutions can use mixed drives w/o much issue as long as you make sure that the capacities match or that you set the array up with the smallest disk size in mind.
Do not use hardware raid controllers. They provide no meaningful performance benefit over software raid and make data recovery much more difficultm(if not impossible) in the event of hardware failure.
Not to advertise but that's one of the reasons I haven't moved from synology. They have some special sauce version of raid that allows different drives and sizes without any fuss. I'm mostly attached to the UI but it's nice to know for when one drive dies, I don't have to match it or anything.
What happens if the NAS dies though? What does recovery look like?
Is it possible to recover the data from the drives without Synology's OS? If so what is that process and how difficult is it to do correctly?
I know that with ZFS, recovery is independent of vendor OS and/or hardware, so if the hardware dies you can just throw the drives into any COTS system with enough ports, but I'm genuinely unsure if that is the case for Synology or not.
If the nas dies but the drives are fine, I just grab a new (synology) nas and stick the drives in. The OS will see that it's in a new model, and start the process of migration (anything that needs changing, enabling, or disabling vs the prior unit, hardware and software capabilities, etc). It's super easy; I've done it myself when I upgraded units a few years ago. If the drives die I have local and remote backups.
I believe it is possible to extract data with a standard Linux system, though it's been several years since I looked into it. I don't run raid on my usual machines (well, I have a wd black pcie card with 2x nvme drives running in raid0 on a hw raid chip onboard, but the system is oblivious and thus so am I), so I'd have to do research again if such a situation occurred. I'm not planning on moving away from syno so currently the hypothetical would end up just buying a new unit and being done with it.
Not tried those drives in particular, but got 4 Seagate's exos (can't recall if they are 16 or 18tb ea), very happy with them. A bit loud but they are also 7200 spin. Can get them on a real good offer sometimes
"A bit loud" is understating it, those drives rip and tear (we use exos X18 drives). I pity the person trying to sleep next to those.
They are good though, while we had one (of 5) fail within the first week but that was quickly resolved.
Yes I need to do something about picking a location for them in the house. Loft sounds great, but it gets hot in summer. Downstairs would be nice and chilly but you don't want to hear this... So much to think about
Anecdotal plug, I have had the best luck with Toshiba drives. In my current NAS I am using seagate 12tb recert ironwolf drives but that only has a month of uptime so far.
Before those I ran Toshiba 4tb NAS drives, and before that Toshiba 2tb red drives for 8years with no issues and 100% uptime in a drivepool windows setup. My last couple of backup drives were 6th WD drives and I am 2 for 2 on premature drive failures with those.
I also refuse to run WD online type devices since the mybooklive/mycloud security issues that resulted in significant data loss and WD refused to patch it. Instead they gave pile a $50 credit for a new drive
@Know_not_Scotty_does same experience with toshiba, have been using a 3tb drive for the past 10 years and its still going strong!
WD is a shit company doing shit things, so Seagate. They are less shit, for now.
Can you elaborate?
Western Digital, among other things, has been selling SMR drives using CMR SKUs. So if you're building something and wanted specific performance, and selected some WD drives based on what the SKU says, you might end up with SMR drives, which are not nearly as performnt. It was a bate and switch tactic and they never really acknowledged it except for making the "red pro" line of drives, which are CMR. Regular "red" drives are SMR now.
Ehh, this practice has stopped - they now label their drives properly on their website/tech specs. I was one of the affected users when I went to raid1 for my 10tb disk (bought ~6mo apart, second drive affected) and I was fucking pissed, as I've read mixing CMR and SMR in raid is a recipe for disaster. I straight up told the CS rep that 'you send me a CMR drive and take the SMR, or I will join the class action lawsuit and never be a WD customer again'. I received a CMR model next day, and they received their SMR drive back.
They pissed me off, but they did the correct response and resolution. I have continued to buy WD since the incident.
So one time is your maximum for a company blatantly misdirecting you? Or maybe you'll still be a customer if they do something like that again?
One-time, where I risk losing 8TB of data that, at the time, I did not have a complete backup of: abso-fucking-lutely. That they handled my situation with speed and without any further bullshit is why I remain a customer.
I have a list of companies that I will not do business with, because of their fuckups, because of shady business tactics, etc. For example, I haven't bought anything from Nvidia in... 18 years? iRobot, in 7. Haven't given Hilton any funds willingly in almost 3. Intel, 19 years...
I don't purchase any SanDisk products so 🤷♂️
Sandisk belongs to WD, so you kind of do.
I know it's a sub-brand, but as I don't own any products by them...
It's like "do you use windows at work? lol you are an Xbox lover" like ???
But sandisk never had these problems until they were a WD brand.
I see. That's good to know, thanks.
My methodology is to look at BackBlaze, throw out any data with less than 100k hours, and pick the drive with the lowest AFR (annualized failure rate).
It's maybe $50-$100 between the cheapest and best enterprise drive and I'm not buying 1,000 drives so I do not care about price.
How often do you get new drives? I've been through 2 drives that store all my data since the last 15 or so years. I'm wanting to get a nas together now though but I've no server experience.
Around every 6 years.
You're not going to be looking at them. If one is quieter, get that one.
Also, be prepared to buy a replacement when, not if, one of them fails. It might be years from now, but it'll happen.
Go with the drive with the best money/TB rate that meets your criterias. I would consider everything above ironwolf or red plus fitting for NAS use. Data center drives are in my experience often cheaper than NAS drives. (wd ultrastar or seagate exos or toshiba enterprise capacity)
Look for the warranty. Some times another drive for just a couple of bucks gives you a way longer warranty.
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