Question WD Black vs NAS grade drive for NAS ?

[ketrab]

So I've been running on beat up Seagates 3TB 64MB for over 5 years so its time for an upgrade. Looking at the 6TB variant for replacement.
I was looking at the NAS grade drives (CRM) i.e Red Plus or Toshiba N series they look fine but the price point is little bit more with only 3 years warranty. N300 looks appealing because its 256MB@7.2K NAS grade at $120.
On the other hand I've noticed on a good promo WD Black 6TB (CMR) with 128MB Cache for $99 with 5 year warranty. So looking at the $30-50 delta vs NAS grade ones.
Trying to understand if I'll be missing out on something if I would go with the BLACK which got doable the cache from the existing drives and comes with 5 year warranty.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Really it kind of depends on your behavior.

Do you use the NAS continuously or very frequently, throughout each and every day? Do you have automatic backup routines in place that require frequent access to the drive? Do you have software that needs ALWAYS on access to the drive?

Is your NAS always powered on or do you only power it on when you need to perform specific tasks?

This pretty clearly spells out the differences: https://blog.synology.com/xmas-wishlist-why-choose-nas-drives-over-desktop-drives-for-your-nas

But I've certainly used standard hard drives in my 9 bay QNAP without any issues however I do not leave my NAS box powered on at all times either. It's on a lot, but when I don't need it to be on, I power it off until the next time.

If you are somebody that uses the NAS VERY frequently or continuously throughout the day, you really DO want a purpose built NAS or Enterprise drive. Otherwise you can certainly use standard desktop drives, they just don't have the same feature set as an NAS or Enterprise drive does. On high usage systems that never power down or rarely do, a desktop drive is probably not going to last as long as an NAS or enterprise drive, but then again if your 3TB Seagate desktop drives lasted 5 years, and they were TERRIBLE drives with very high failure rates:

Dissecting 3TB Hard Drive Failure Rates

Beginning in January 2012, Backblaze deployed 4,829 Seagate 3TB hard drives, model ST3000DM001, into Backblaze Storage Pods. In our experience, 80% of the

www.backblaze.com

Then a WD black should easily last at least that long, in general.

Most often I see these NAS and Enterprise drives costing LESS than a WD black, so where are you from and how many drives are you looking to replace?

 

[ketrab]

Really it kind of depends on your behavior.

Do you use the NAS continuously or very frequently, throughout each and every day? Do you have automatic backup routines in place that require frequent access to the drive? Do you have software that needs ALWAYS on access to the drive?

Is your NAS always powered on or do you only power it on when you need to perform specific tasks?

This pretty clearly spells out the differences: https://blog.synology.com/xmas-wishlist-why-choose-nas-drives-over-desktop-drives-for-your-nas

But I've certainly used standard hard drives in my 9 bay QNAP without any issues however I do not leave my NAS box powered on at all times either. It's on a lot, but when I don't need it to be on, I power it off until the next time.

If you are somebody that uses the NAS VERY frequently or continuously throughout the day, you really DO want a purpose built NAS or Enterprise drive. Otherwise you can certainly use standard desktop drives, they just don't have the same feature set as an NAS or Enterprise drive does. On high usage systems that never power down or rarely do, a desktop drive is probably not going to last as long as an NAS or enterprise drive, but then again if your 3TB Seagate desktop drives lasted 5 years, and they were TERRIBLE drives with very high failure rates:

Dissecting 3TB Hard Drive Failure Rates

Beginning in January 2012, Backblaze deployed 4,829 Seagate 3TB hard drives, model ST3000DM001, into Backblaze Storage Pods. In our experience, 80% of the

www.backblaze.com

Then a WD black should easily last at least that long, in general.

Most often I see these NAS and Enterprise drives costing LESS than a WD black, so where are you from and how many drives are you looking to replace?

Thanks for reply.

So yes, NAS is 24/7 and a lot is going on. Those Seagates are enterprise grade 3TBs but with 64MB Cache.

Really, leaning more toward that Toshiba n300 since its got the 7.2 and 256 Cache. Other alternative I was thinking is Iron Wolf since they offer that Health Management tool with Synology which is a nice add on.

I appreciate your input!

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks for reply.

So yes, NAS is 24/7 and a lot is going on. Those Seagates are enterprise grade 3TBs but with 64MB Cache.

Really, leaning more toward that Toshiba n300 since its got the 7.2 and 256 Cache. Other alternative I was thinking is Iron Wolf since they offer that Health Management tool with Synology which is a nice add on.

I appreciate your input!

Any drive can die, at any time.

I had a 16TB Tosh Enterprise in my NAS. Died at 7 months 24/7.
Went from 0 bad sectors to over 14k in about a week.

Free warranty replacement of course, but still...

 

[Misgar]

I have one NAS with 6 x 4TB Toshiba N300s, another with 8 x 2TB SAS (Serial attached SCSI) drives on a P5Q with a 9550 and a 9211-8i. A third NAS uses 8 x 6TB ordinary SATA drives (not SMR for obvious reasons because I'm using TrueNAS Core RAID-Z2).

You could check the most recent BackBlaze statistics to see if your proposed purchase is on their list.
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q1-2023/

You might not notice any significant difference between 7,200, 5,900 and 5,400RPM drives, depending on your drive array topology and usage demands. Slower drives will probably run cooler.

Here is an extract from the SATA NAS Disk section of the TrueNAS Core hardware guide:

While consumer desktop SATA disks do not have the overall reliability issues they once had, they are still not designed or warrantied for continuous operation or use in RAID groups. Enterprise SATA disks address the always-on factor, vibration tolerance, and drive error handling required in storage systems.

https://www.truenas.com/docs/core/gettingstarted/corehardwareguide/

 

[Darkbreeze]

Thanks for reply.

So yes, NAS is 24/7 and a lot is going on. Those Seagates are enterprise grade 3TBs but with 64MB Cache.

Really, leaning more toward that Toshiba n300 since its got the 7.2 and 256 Cache. Other alternative I was thinking is Iron Wolf since they offer that Health Management tool with Synology which is a nice add on.

I appreciate your input!

I have THREE Iron wolf drives. I had ZERO before I won the NAS giveaway here. I got a 16TB Ironwolf Pro drive and a 256GB Iron Wolf SSD, and that was several years back, so all I can say is that those drives have been very reliable for at least five years now I believe, and I really trust them.

Not so much the older desktop 3TB drives, because those, were proven to have serious problems. I've seen zero evidence, even from the backblaze data, that shows it is even relevant for any of their products these days. Things for ALL storage companies, at least the major ones, have seriously changed since even five years ago.