Max. Capacity in RAID1 for Zyxel NSA-220 Plus

[ser7ach]

Hello Community,

I will be purchasing two hard drives and using them in RAID1 with my Zyxel NSA-220 plus NAS. Here it says the maximum storage capacity support for the device is 4 TBs.
So, does that mean:

a) I can fit a couple of 4 TB drives in it and use them in RAID1(the usable capacity is 4 TB in total)

-or-

b) Still the largest drives can be the 2 TB ones as in the case of RAID0 or JBOD.

Just one more thing:

I know there's a lot going on about WD Red or Black for NAS. I had actually convinced myself on WD Red drives as they are built specifically for NAS but then I've seen people commending the Black drives for their performance. Reliability is of first priority in my case but still I'd be glad having your consideration before purchasing the drives.

Thank you..

 

[Emerald]

the Black drives have TLER disabled and are therefore not recommended for RAID.

if you looking to use Black drives you should opt for the Blank RE4 drive which are made for RAID

according to their website it is 2x 2TB drives; however, the last update is from 2010. 3TB and 4TB drives were not available at that time. Contact customer support and see if they have more info

 

[ser7ach]

Thank you Emerald.

In fact trying to contact Zyxel was what I did first, however they have a poor customer support as I've seen. The guy I talked to here in Zyxel Turkey spoke of RAID as a mystery He doesn't even know how it works. Zyxel Global on the other hand seems to have issues with their web support system as the queries cannot be sent. So it looks like I'm on my own with this capacity issue.

However, with you pointing out the RE4 drives, things turn out to seem more clear to me now. I actually thought the RED drives are perfect for the job in RAID and wasn't bothered with any other drives but it seems with RE4s having TLER as well, plus spinning at 7200 rpm rather than 5400, they are even better. I mean the only drawback is that they are more expensive In fact I cannot understand why the RED drives are announced as the most RAID environment friendly drives(or are they?) Am I missing something? If not I am really going to opt for the 2 TB RE4s.

And the largest RE4s are 2 TB so the capacity issue with my NAS will be solved as well

One more thing. I've seen that some of these RE4s are stated being for enterprise while the product code being the same for all(WD2003FYYS). I mean is there an enterprise RE4 2 TB and a non-enterprise RE4 2 TB?

 

[Emerald]

RE and RE4 drives where designed for Enterprise RAID where high access time is necessary.

REDs are test only in NAS environments where the slowest link is the NIC and therefore the 5400 rpm is enough and it creates less heat

 

[ser7ach]

So, with the gigabit interface of my NAS device RE4s will perform better than REDs right?
And you mean there is no such thing as non-enterprise RE4 right, there is only one model?
Heat and noise is not much of a concern to me by the way, the box has a very good and silent fan and I'm keeping it away from where I work anyways.