[SOLVED] Hard drive with min. 12-13TB and write speed of min. 350MB/s

Sep 17, 2019
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Hello everyone,

I am currently looking for a hard drive with the following specifications:

- Storage of at least 12-13TB of data.

- Continuous write speed of min. 350MB/s for numerous hours.

I have looked at the Micron 9300 SSD Pro/Max Series, but are wondering if there are any alternatives to this?
It does not matter if it is SSD or HDD - but can HDD even reach those Write Speeds?

Any suggestions are very much appreciated!
Thank you for your time.
 
Solution
HDDs will always drop speed when they are getting full, for example at 100% empty you will have lets say 350 mb/s at 70% emty you will have 300 mb/s, at 50% empty will have around 200-220 mb/s and 10-20% empty it can reach even 100 mb/s. This is due to number of sectors traveled over the head, at the edge of the disk you will have much more sectors traveling in the same time interval while at the center of the disk you will have less sectors traveling in the same time interval, this is due to lower area near the center compared with the higher area near the edge. If you want consistent speed over 350 mb/s either raid 0 multiple HDDs or go by SSD route which is much much more expensive.
Using raid 0 i think about 4 disks should be enough...
HDDs will always drop speed when they are getting full, for example at 100% empty you will have lets say 350 mb/s at 70% emty you will have 300 mb/s, at 50% empty will have around 200-220 mb/s and 10-20% empty it can reach even 100 mb/s. This is due to number of sectors traveled over the head, at the edge of the disk you will have much more sectors traveling in the same time interval while at the center of the disk you will have less sectors traveling in the same time interval, this is due to lower area near the center compared with the higher area near the edge. If you want consistent speed over 350 mb/s either raid 0 multiple HDDs or go by SSD route which is much much more expensive.
Using raid 0 i think about 4 disks should be enough to achieve what you want, bad part is that if any of the 4 drives fails, you lose data from all the drives. There would be the option that you use 8 disks in raid 10, 4 of them are for writing and the other 4 are for back-up, and if any drive fails the back-up drive can take its place and you dont lose anything but you must replace the failed drive asap.

If you go on SSD route, you can use Samsung QVO series, are the cheapest but for your continuous writings i think the best would be some mechanical HDDs, with good airflow through them.
 
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Solution
Sep 17, 2019
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Thanks for the explanation and ideas. It is however necessary for me to only have 1 hard drive with the listed specifications. As far as I can see the Samsung QVO series have a maximum storage capacity of 4TB.

The cheapest single hard drive I have been able to find is so far still the Micron 9300 12.8 TB - Max verison.
 
Thanks for the explanation and ideas. It is however necessary for me to only have 1 hard drive with the listed specifications. As far as I can see the Samsung QVO series have a maximum storage capacity of 4TB.

The cheapest single hard drive I have been able to find is so far still the Micron 9300 12.8 TB - Max verison.
Then in this case yes, your only decent option is from micron, as you said the max series has a lot more writes expectancy, so pro is not an option, only max. Be careful, this is thicker then usual ssd, it is 15mm not 7mm. I dont know if this is or not a problem for you.
 
I've not seen a spinning drive get above 200-240 MB/sec on sustained sequential reads...

Meaning, throughput will be much lower throughput when used as a normal storage drive....

If you wish SSD-like transfer numbers...you'll be wanting an SSD...or a RAID of multiple disks... or both.

Given a decent RAID controller, a RAID 5 (considered risky with today's greater than 2 TB drives) or RAID 6 of at least 6 drives of 4 TB each will better the improve read throughput, and, although sacrificing 2 drives' capacity for data parity/protection against drive failure for up to 2 drives, leaving approx 16 TB effective space.......
 
With even 4 TB consumer SSDs at $800-$850 each, certainly a RAID 6 of 6-8 spinning drives would likely be the most cost effective...

If network attached storage, you'd need 10 Gbps connectivity to get more than ~114 MB/sec to from storage anyway.

If your mainboard has the typical 6 SATA ports, the onboard RAID capabilities with most mainboards would allow a RAID 5 with four each 4 TB SSDs....albeit at a cost of ~$3300-3400 (As a typical 6- 8 bay NAS empty will cost $1200-$1400, costs will be similar, and, quad SSDs will at least eliminate the need for 10 GbE networking)