Need new drive for media server - Are larger drives more failure prone?

[ks-man]

I've been using my media server successfully with Flexraid (software raid) for the past 3-4 years without issue. It currently uses four 3tb WD Red drives (3 for data and 1 for parity). I only have about 700gb of the 9tb remaining so I'm going to soon add another hard drive to my pool. At this point I see there are 4tb, 6tb, and 8tb drives. The 4tb drive is just slightly higher in prices than the 3tb drives on Amazon and then there is a bit of a jump to 6tb and 8tb.

I thought I read somewhere a couple of years ago that once you start using higher capacity drives (above 2-3tb) the failure rate goes up significantly. Is this still true? Should I just add a 3tb drive and stay consistent? I can go up to 4tb drives for just a few bucks but I wouldn't want to do it if the reliability isn't as good. I also am considering paying for either a 6 or 8tb as the premium isn't that large compared to the added storage. I'm not sure how much more room my server has for drives so I might only be able to put in another 2 or 3 at most.

I realize that the largest drive will be the parity drive so I'll only gain 3tb regardless if I only buy one new hd however I might buy two or else I want to future proof so the next time I buy a new drive I'm starting to add more capacity assuming the reliability isn't different.

Thanks a lot!

 

[drtweak]

I am still afraid to use anything above 2TB for that same reason.

One of my clients, they specialize in security (Fire/Camera/etc) use Dell servers and dell power vaults. we would load them with either 4/6TB drives in a RAID 6 and have yet to hear about anything hard drive failure but they are enterprise grade SAS drives.

I know I have 8 hard drives, 6 of which are 2TB reds and upgrading the other 2 1TB will only give me an extra 2TB of space. I currently run RAID 0's with backups (Attached USB drive for only the REALLY important stuff, cloud backup crash plan, and backup drive that i run when i feel like it). so not afraid of stuff crashing, but im wondering if i should go bigger than 2TB now. Most reviews look good so I don't think I'll have an issue.

 

[boosted1g]

I have had 4tb drives in my Flexraid pool for the last couple of years now with no issue. Currently have 3x 4tb and 1x 3tb drive and going to need to add another 4tb this year.

Seagate seems to be hit or miss on reliability so I am going for WD, just not decided if I will get Blue or Red. Red does not really seem to give you much more (if any) reliability for the price. I do have 2 140mm fans in a fractial define R4 case blowing right on those drives

 

[drtweak]

yea since it is software RAID going red or blue won't matter. Someone like me, who uses hardware raid, benefits from the Reds being designed for hardware RAID applications.

 

[ks-man]

So it sounds like most people haven't yet adopted 6 and 8tb drives in their media servers? I might try one as a parity drive and see how things go. Worst case if the parity drive fails I can just replace it without too much of a headache. I'll probably have a good year or two before I use up the additional 3tb I would gain.