Ironwolf Pro vs WD Red Pro for Raid 0?

[A Furry Peanut]

I'm currently looking at their 2-6 tb models, preferably their 2tb but apparently their speed increases along with their capacities which is why I'm also considering 4-6 tb. I was wondering if anyone had any insight on these two line ups for a duo raid 0 setup. 

 

[derekullo]

4 - 6 terabyte will indeed be faster than a 2 - 6 terabyte configuration.

But in either of those 2 cases, if any one drive decides to fail the entire array is lost.

The 2 - 6 terabyte configuration is technically safer due to less drives that could fail, but still highly vulnerable to losing data.

If speed is what you are after than I would recommend an all ssd or a custom zfs build.


At the extreme would be an all ssd build using 3 - 4 Terabyte Samsung 850 Evo's at a price of $1500 each or $4500 total.

On the much cheaper and safer side, using a custom zfs build would be 4 - 6 terabyte drives in a raid 10 type configuration, giving 12 terabytes of space as well.
A solid state can be added as a read or write cache if additional speed is needed.
This option has the potential to scale to higher speeds and capacities then the all flash build.
It can also withstand the loss of 2 hard drives as long as they are in different mirrors.

What is the intended use of this storage?

Simple backup, simultaneous use by 10+ users?

 

[A Furry Peanut]

I accidentally downvoted your post how do I undo that (if that matters haha)
Also I think you misunderstood what I meant with 2-6 tb, I meant either two 2tb in raid 0, or two 4tb, or two 6 tb and so on.
I'm using this raid set up as a media storage device to edit off of.
And in case anyone was wondering, yes I do plan on backing these up and im aware of the risks in raid 0.

 

[derekullo]

Alright so to get things straight.

You plan on using 2 hard drives to act as a temporary media storage device so that you can edit video / audio which would then be copied over to a less disaster prone device?

 

[A Furry Peanut]

Yes, I have two other storage devices where the footage will be backed up onto

 

[derekullo]

Two 4 terabyte drives would give you about 7.2 terabytes of usable space and about 280 megabytes a second of read and write (140 MB/s x 2) before interface restrictions.

Attaching hard drives directly to the computer's sata ports is always preferred, but when unable to do so we are left with 4 main options;

Thunderbolt
Esata
USB 3.0 (Never use USB 2.0, default to Gigabit if nothing else is available.)
Gigabit Ethernet

#1
Thunderbolt 3 is "limited" to 40 gigabits per second or roughly 5 gigabytes a second of bandwidth.
If your computer has a thunderbolt connection, do buy a NAS or DAS that has a thunderbolt connection.

#2
Esata stands for external sata and has similar restrictions, 6 gigabits of bandwidth.

#2
USB 3.0 is limited to 5 gigabits per second. USB 3.1 is limited to 10 gigabits per second.
5 gigabits is roughly 625 megabytes per second which is well above your maximum speed from the drives of 280 megabytes a second.

#3
Gigabit Ethernet allows you do assign a NAS an IP address and all hard drives connected to it become accessible over that network by any computer.
(you can set restrictions)
Gigabit Ethernet is limited to 125 megabytes a second or roughly half your available speed.
This may still be a valid option unless you plan on working on 10+ gigabyte projects.
10 gigabit Ethernet exists but 2 hard drives aren't enough to take advantage of that bandwidth.

Not knowing your existing setup the following device should work well with whatever size hard drives you intend on purchasing, assuming you have a USB 3.0 port. (The site does mention a 20 terabyte maximum, so 2 10 terabyte drives would be the largest supported)

StarTech S352BU33RER 3.5" Black SATA III USB 3.0 / eSATA Dual-Bay Trayless 3.5” SATA III Hard Drive Enclosure with UASP
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=9SIA24G28M4381