Question NAS HDD's Worth the Extra Money?

[THRobinson]

Annoying... asked a question and now it's vanished. Not sure if a glitch or mod deleted?

Anyways... short quick version...

Drives like the WD Red NAS drives, are they worth it? I just bought a WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra NAS system, and looks like one of my 3TB drives is bad. I was looking to replace it or possibly upgrade with 4TB, and debated a NAS drive, but, it's just used for a media server so, streaming videos only. Is it worth the extra $40-60CAD per drive to get the NAS? Or would a 5400rpm Seagate BarraCuda for much less work just as well?

I see a lot of posts saying how the NAS drives are better for a NAS setup, but they never indicate the environment/usage. 1-2 computers streaming video, is different than a small office with 8-10 people read/write files all day.

 

[Barty1884]

Looks like your old(er) thread has not migrated over yet - I see it:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3883649/ex2-ultra-jbod-setup.html

As for the drives, it really depends on the scope of your NAS. As a home media server, I wouldn't splurge on the "NAS" tier drives, personally. A decent sized office nightly backups, probably.... but not for a home media server that's not reading/writing constantly.

 

[THRobinson]

Weird... I checked my posted threads and such and just nothing. Figured glitch, or some sorta policy violation... oh checked the link you had and nope, not the right one. Other thread I posted a few hours before this one. Looks like it simply vanished.

Ya I figured NAS drives are probably better, but for certain situations.

I've always been a Seagate BarraCuda user, though not loyal to it for any reason. Had luck with them and just kept buying them. When I buy, I'll probably grab whichever WD or Seagate is on sale at the time. And for a media server, 5400rpms is probably more than enough.

Any idea is a NAS with JBOD not RAID, will handle 2 different sized drives? I need a 3TB to replace what I have, but would rather a 4TB, then maybe next month replace the other with 4TB as well, then the externals.

 

[Barty1884]

No, still in existence, just not migrated over to the new forum as of yet.

I believe JBOB will handle mis-sized drives for a single volume, not independently though (AFAIK)

 

[THRobinson]

Ya, I clicked the link afterwards and wrong thread. The one I posted this morning vanished.

The JBOD I have now shows each 3TB as individual drives which is nice, especially for my backups. Just not sure if I mix a 4 and 3... is it one of those deals where the bigger newer drive will only show as big as the smaller drive or something. I know nothing about RAID and such, until a week ago, never heard of JBOD.

I find the WD site itself, not great so far for info. Had hoped for a quick accurate response on their forum for the mixed-sized question, but, nothing so far.

 

[THRobinson]

Found the WD Blue 4TB drives (WD40EZRZ) on sale for really cheap... so, despite wanting to do it in stages, I ended up buying 4x4TB drives, ended up saving $120CAD overall.

Decided to pair it up with an Orico 1106SS hotswappable drive bay for the PC. Figured direct SATA connection and gibabit ethernet may speed stuff up a bit, else I was up around 38mbps transferring 3TB per drive.

Upside too is, the 3TB drive that works still, I'll use as a PC backup drive in the drive bay and sell the 2TB external I had for that.

Sell 2x3TB externals, 1x2TB external... and no more ac adapters and usb cables. At least make back a bit of the money spent on the upgrades.