Worth paying for WD Red

[mark_anderson_us]

Hi Guys

I'm moving from unRAID to FlexRaid and adding more drives (building new server). I'm wondering if it's with paying extra fro WD reds with flexraid. I know they make sense with traditional raid, but when SW raid is checking parity frequently, is it required?

Saw this comment on a Newegg review

"Cons: Not a con but a comment to the user who had the drives go on and offline. Do not and I repeat, do not use these in a software raid. Get a hardware raid card from either LSI, Intel or dell (then again they all use LSI chips). Software raid will cause issues as I have found out in one of my raid setups."

Regards

mark

[Brahim]

That comment is useless.

I won't comment on the merit of RED drives, but I just want to reinforce that you should get a fast 7200 RPM for the parity disk(s).

[mark_anderson_us]

That comment is useless.

I won't comment on the merit of RED drives, but I just want to reinforce that you should get a fast 7200 RPM for the parity disk(s).

Thanks for reply. Thought that was probably the case, but wanted to double check.

I'm surprised you have no comment on the Reds. As the author of FlexRaid, I'd have thought you were in the best position to comment on whether TLER (or equiv) is necessary/advisable with FlexRaid

While I'm on, why is the anti-span so stringent for registered users? Usually, this kind of stuff is normally for guest posters.

Regards

Mark

[Brahim]

There are users on this forum that have much better knowledge on specific topics than I do.
My knowledge of hardware is general and specific only to what relates to software implementation.
None of the FlexRAID products are affected by TLER (I figured that's generally understood). What is going to be useful to you are specific experiences rather than theories (specifically when mixed with specific HBAs).

The anti-span will go away after 5 posts.

[mark_anderson_us]

There are users on this forum that have much better knowledge on specific topics than I do.
My knowledge of hardware is general and specific only to what relates to software implementation.
None of the FlexRAID products are affected by TLER (I figured that's generally understood). What is going to be useful to you are specific experiences rather than theories (specifically when mixed with specific HBAs).

The anti-span will go away after 5 posts.

Thanks (that's one more post!)

[terrastrife]

Choice of disk is going to line up with your choice in controller cards, making sure you get compatible disks.

[mark_anderson_us]

Choice of disk is going to line up with your choice in controller cards, making sure you get compatible disks.

Naturally.

[terrastrife]

Naturally.

Reds are designed for 24/7 power on time, and to be stacked in dense enclosures where disk vibration causes a dramatic decrease in IO performance. There's also the longer warranty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDacjrSCeq4

[Brahim]

...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDacjrSCeq4

Major wow!
I never knew it took so little to cause impactful vibration.
Holy cow! 

The key thing however, is that the disks calibrate automatically for the disturbance or else none of the disks would work anywhere noisy.
So, constant turbulence is good but one that fluctuates is bad.

[mark_anderson_us]

Holy cow! 

indeed

[Dizzy49]

Now I am sold on the WD Red's, and looking at the Blacks!