Hello ! I have a custom build NAS currently using 4x6TB hard drives in RAID10. I am looking for a capacity upgrade. My main focus are low power consumption and low noise (the NAS is in my living room / home office).
I can’t seem to find any 5400RPM HDD over 8TB in capacity anywhere. Is there any model with 10, 12 or more TB in existence ? If not, what could be the reasons ?
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It’s a niche of the hard drive market. It persists in “surveillance” HDDs but that’s because they’re optimized for endurance, and low noise is just a side effect.
Not too many people are putting a NAS in their living room.
Thanks, I will look for surveillance types of disks.
Living room is my only option.
Don’t do it, is my suggestion. Surveillance disks are optimized for continuous writing performance and not read performance. They mght be SMR version also which can play havoc in a NAS with lots of writes, as it can’t just rewrite one portion without relaying out the shingled overlayed tracks adjacent.
Toshiba has some SMR “Surveillance” models but WD and Seagate afaik are all CMR. It’s pretty dumb to have SMR surveillance drives, the main goal of a surveillance drive is to be able to write the data very fast no matter what.
Normally they’re just regular HDDs with tweaked firmware to make it a bit more lenient towards transient errors so as to not miss out on writing a block due to being overcautious. I’ve never seen any evidence that they’re otherwise optimized for writing over reading. I would have no problem using a surveillance (CMR) drive in a NAS.
The SMR does make sense for surveillance, because it is a constant stream layed down, it is not random write access changing a block in files of various places. This show has talked about their usage. The tolerance on dropping bits to keep going with the stream would worry me in data sensitive applications
There are spec sheets, but I have tested myself, brand new Purple Drive out of package and run disk bench marking read/write testing. Writing was steady, read rate was under performing compared to Blacks or Reds.
Surveillance video is not verbatim sensitive, it’s better to get the video on there with bits missing than not at all.
under performing compared to Blacks or Reds.
Isn’t it more like those are overperformers?
LOL. I mean depends on the baseline number, so yeah, you would be correct. But the concern would be as you mentioned the Purple drives don’t care (as much) about data loss. Fine for video if you lose a pixel, but bad for mission critical data.
If you go for WD red plus 12TB drives, they are helium filled and less noisy even than the 8TB air versions.
I have one and it is silent when not tracking, but all hard drives have some seeking noise. Mostly because it is irregular so human ears pick it up more than white fan or spinning noise.
Best idea for absolute noise reduction in the same room is getting a good closed case, reinforcing with some foam panels with a direct air path that you can direct through a cupboard cutout for example.
What you are looking for is high capacity SSDs in this situation, but that is pricey.
Thank you ! I see there are a few models. I must check were I can source them from at a good price in Europe.
Is 5640 RPM acceptable? WD reds are all about 5400rpm and are basically the gold standard for NAS HDDs.
You can shuck them out of WD easy store drives sold at best buy. They’re white label drives from WD, but they’re all based on the red/red pro drives.
I suppose 5640 RPM wouldn’t make much of a difference compared to 5400, although I’ve never came across such hard disk. I will keep an eye on external drive options, thanks.
Just know that higher RPM doesn’t necessarily mean higher noise. In my experience Helium filled drives can be pretty quiet, and basically all really high capacity drives are helium filled.
I have an arm of shucked WD drives and while I can hear them from time to time, they’re not bad. Also your case makes a huge difference. Make sure the drives are on rubber isolators, and what they’re mounted on can’t vibrate to make any noise. The only noise I hear from these drives is when they first spin up after being idled.
According to 2.5admins shucked drives are not as good as the red/pro. They are the drives that didn’t meet the requirement for QA; so they go to external plug in drives, that the seller hopes the user doesn’t use them to the same rigourous performance of a true server daily requirement
I’m pretty sure that’s only a theory and not something that’s ever actually been confirmed. That said people on /r/datahoarder have raved about those drives for 5+ years at this point, and so far all 6 of my drives have been going strong after 6 years of constant abuse.
I can only relay what two server drive experts have explained. 2 of the guys in this podcast make their career on drive setup and performance.
Also, remember when Seagate and WD tried to downplay SMR vs CMR disks in their NAS lineup but end users had their servers kicking out the SMRs from the pool? Sometimes in shucking you might get an SMR drive which sucks.
Anecdotal, but mine (a 4TB one) is running fine (knocks on wood) for 5+ years now. It’s in my server and doesn’t spin down. Low power usage as well. Very happy with it…
If you can’t find the drives you want maybe reviewing/testing acoustic Management might be something to help reduce noise.
Modern drives don’t have acoustic settings anymore.
oof, I have to upgrade one of my drives then, since those options are showing in the drive config. But yeah, my newer drive has this option greyed out. Only performance vs power saving is and adjustable slider on the new ones. Interesting thing is google says that article was from September 2023, so it is quite out of date then.
I’ve went through many drives and found WD Reds to be most quiet and perform pretty well. I have it in the same room as 3 other people doing work.
My Helium 7200 drives run cooler and quieter than my old 5400’s.
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