Seagate NAS disks released (ST4000VN000)

Discuss and share your Seagate drive experience
chodaboy19
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Re: Seagate NAS disks released (ST4000VN000)

Post by chodaboy19 »

I agree that 7,200rpm is not the best choice for a NAS device. But competition in a good thing!

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forkless
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Re: Seagate NAS disks released (ST4000VN000)

Post by forkless »

For me the enterprise vs. desktop drives is a matter of simple economics. My considerations

- Regardless of enterprise or desktop, either RAID set will need a backup solution. The RAID in itself is no real backup.
- Either drives will have the same 3 year warranty these days (actually some of my older 'garbage' hdds came with 5 years)
- The initial investment is literally twice that of a desktop drive, which means after the warranty ends it still has to have a 50% failure rate for it to become economically unviable.

While in a proper enterprise environment I can appreciate the choice of TLER supported drives. In my home setup situation however getting the desktop drives was the most sensible choice (in mah mind).


PS. In the 5 years I had these garbage drives two out of the eight failed on me (within warranty), warranty ran out in the mean time but I still have 4 drives to go sooky lala before it will start hurting my wallet. I can hear some of you think, but your data is at risk! That's why we have proper backups ;)
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Re: Seagate NAS disks released (ST4000VN000)

Post by johnripper »

forkless wrote:(...)(in mah mind).(...)
Ya, thats the point, you should choose what you think will work best in your enviornment.
forkless wrote:(...)these garbage drives (...)
Never said that desktop drives are garbage. Some of them might be, even so some enterprise.

However a good choise of desktop drives in NAS can be used, if it fits your requirements do so. Its nother crabby about it. Okay there might be higher failure rate if using your using them in "productive" NAS (with running different services, like Twonky, VirusScan, Backup etc on it), but anyway thats RAID builed for. Just exchange them.

On my approach I am often slightly oversizing things in relation to the real needs. Worked out: still using some NAS that was bought about 8 years ago. No drive failed so far, and its still working smooth.
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forkless
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Re: Seagate NAS disks released (ST4000VN000)

Post by forkless »

When I use the term garbage (in a slightly sarcastic manner) drives I just reflect the "general consensus" that some people seem to have about certain types of desktop drives. It wasn't aimed any person in particular ;)

Personally I have completely different experiences with them. I guess I'm lucky. Or maybe I just have a different experience because I'm not quick to buy into some of the hysteria (which is inherent to the internet) that can arise on forums.

All in all, two b0rked drives in 5 years is not unreasonable, desktop or enterprise drive alike.
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Re: Seagate NAS disks released (ST4000VN000)

Post by eggberteh »

Just thought i would post my experience. As sometimes success stories don't make it onto places like this.

I have 5 Seagate ST4000VN000 in a Qnap TS-559 setup for RAID 5.

To be fair they have only been running a few weeks but they all worked on arrival & have so far been faultless and very quiet.

So far a happy camper.
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Re: Seagate NAS disks released (ST4000VN000)

Post by P3R »

eggberteh wrote:So far a happy camper.
Great! :D

Positive experiences regarding disk models are as valuable as negative reports to the community.

Please also report your experience after 3 months and 6 months of usage.
RAID have never ever been a replacement for backups. Without backups on a different system (preferably placed at another site), you will eventually lose data!

A non-RAID configuration (including RAID 0, which isn't really RAID) with a backup on a separate media protects your data far better than any RAID-volume without backup.

All data storage consists of both the primary storage and the backups. It's your money and your data, spend the storage budget wisely or pay with your data!
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Re: Seagate NAS disks released (ST4000VN000)

Post by Gaspode »

Can someone explain this 5 drive limit to me ? IE why don't these and the Seagates work in 8 Drive bays ? Seems odd the drive is even aware of the number of disks in the array ?
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Re: Seagate NAS disks released (ST4000VN000)

Post by schumaku »

WD limited Red to five, so Seagate limited to five, too...

It's a question of vibrations caused by the individual drives (linear and rotational), which might cause issues where more expensive drives are coming with mechanical and electronic/software countermeasures and correction systems.
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Re: Seagate NAS disks released (ST4000VN000)

Post by Briain »

Gaspode wrote:Can someone explain this 5 drive limit to me ? IE why don't these and the Seagates work in 8 Drive bays ? Seems odd the drive is even aware of the number of disks in the array ?
Hi

I'd expect not as it is most likely (IMHO) that it is a partially marketing ploy to get folks to buy enterprise grade disks for very large NAS units (which probably makes some sense as these will be used more like a data centre server would be used; lots of folks simultaneously accessing smaller files). There are a number of comments that I've read about enterprise disks like better bearings (bearings at both ends of the spindle where desktop grade disks only have one bearing) and lower vibration (so better when you have a lot of disks in a commercial server) but the last time I looked into all this (a few years ago) the manufacturers spec sheets tell you very little about the mechanical construction of the disks. I've also read about enterprise disks having firmware optimised for server use (again, going back to the the lots users accessing simultaneously requesting lots of small files scenario). Exactly where the WD Red sits with respect to some of these more esoteric issues is hard to say (though I think I somewhere read that they have two bearings on the platter spindle).

IMHO for home and light office use (where they'll spend a lot of time 'idle', so just experiencing the small vibration from the spinning platters) I'd be very tempted to just use 8 WD Red in an 8 bay NAS, but I'd instead use enterprise disks if the NAS was going to be hammered all day long by many users accessing it (so lots of vibration from the seeking activity), but that's just my personal opinion based more on my own assumptions (informed logical guessing) than from any hard facts that I have read from disk spec sheets! :)

Bri
TS-119, 1 X Seagate ~~ TS-219, 2 X Seagate (R1) ~~ TS-453A, 2 X 3 TB WD Red (R1) ~~ TS-659, 5 X 1 TB Hitachi Enterprise (R6)
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Re: Seagate NAS disks released (ST4000VN000)

Post by Gaspode »

Briain wrote:
Gaspode wrote:Can someone explain this 5 drive limit to me ? IE why don't these and the Seagates work in 8 Drive bays ? Seems odd the drive is even aware of the number of disks in the array ?
Hi

I'd expect not as it is most likely (IMHO) that it is a partially marketing ploy to get folks to buy enterprise grade disks for very large NAS units (which probably makes some sense as these will be used more like a data centre server would be used; lots of folks simultaneously accessing smaller files). There are a number of comments that I've read about enterprise disks like better bearings (bearings at both ends of the spindle where desktop grade disks only have one bearing) and lower vibration (so better when you have a lot of disks in a commercial server) but the last time I looked into all this (a few years ago) the manufacturers spec sheets tell you very little about the mechanical construction of the disks. I've also read about enterprise disks having firmware optimised for server use (again, going back to the the lots users accessing simultaneously requesting lots of small files scenario). Exactly where the WD Red sits with respect to some of these more esoteric issues is hard to say (though I think I somewhere read that they have two bearings on the platter spindle).

IMHO for home and light office use (where they'll spend a lot of time 'idle', so just experiencing the small vibration from the spinning platters) I'd be very tempted to just use 8 WD Red in an 8 bay NAS, but I'd instead use enterprise disks if the NAS was going to be hammered all day long by many users accessing it (so lots of vibration from the seeking activity), but that's just my personal opinion based more on hunches than spec sheets! :)

Bri
Thanks Brian
DO we know if anyone is actully using more than 5 ? LOL

Also - has anyone done a side by side comparison of the Seagates and The Red's ?

J
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Re: Seagate NAS disks released (ST4000VN000)

Post by Briain »

Gaspode wrote: DO we know if anyone is actully using more than 5 ? LOL
Likely not yet reported here as their 8 bay WD red equipped Qnap's have likely vibrated so much that they have burst into flames and burned their houses down! :lol:
Gaspode wrote: Also - has anyone done a side by side comparison of the Seagates and The Red's ?
I've not spotted any posts (here) from folks who have compared them. I do know the WD disks are now well respected as many have been now operating (in Qnaps) for a year - and I've personally built up a few Qnaps with them - and there haven't been streams of posts listing problems. The situation with Seagate is less clear as many folks have recently lost trust in Seagate products and will take some time (and convincing) for some folks to use them again. That said, WD were in a very similar position before they brought the Red series out, so who knows what the situation will be in a few months; it depends on how many folks buy them and then report back here. The Seagates are still quite new, but the problem is that you only tend to hear about bad issues, so if they are good, we will likely not read very much about them on this forum (so if that happens, will that lack of feedback mean that nobody is using them, or that they are extremely reliable).
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Re: Seagate NAS disks released (ST4000VN000)

Post by Gaspode »

Briain wrote:
Gaspode wrote: DO we know if anyone is actully using more than 5 ? LOL
Likely not as their 8 bay WD red equipped Qnap's have likely vibrated so much that they have burst into flames and burned their houses down! :D
Gaspode wrote: Also - has anyone done a side by side comparison of the Seagates and The Red's ?
I've not spotted any posts from folks who have compared them. I know the WD disks are now well respected as many have been now operating (in Qnaps) for a year, and there haven't been streams of posts listing problems. The situation with Seagate is less clear as many folks have recently lost trust in Seagate products and will take some time (and convincing) for some folks to use them again. That said, WD were in a very similar position before they brought the Red series out.
Thats interesting - I've been running 1.5 TB barracudas in my 5 and 8 bay Nas for at least 3 years with very few problems - I did have 2 drives fail in short succession on the 509 - but both were in the same bay, oddly after the second failure I moved the NAS off the floor standing speaker it was sitting on *ahem* and havn't had a problem in over a year. I have however how got three 3TB USB drives taking the slack from my full nas drives so I need to upgrade the space and move the data before the USB fail...
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Re: Seagate NAS disks released (ST4000VN000)

Post by Briain »

Gaspode wrote:
Thats interesting - I've been running 1.5 TB barracudas in my 5 and 8 bay Nas for at least 3 years with very few problems - I did have 2 drives fail in short succession on the 509 - but both were in the same bay, oddly after the second failure I moved the NAS off the floor standing speaker it was sitting on *ahem* and havn't had a problem in over a year. I have however how got three 3TB USB drives taking the slack from my full nas drives so I need to upgrade the space and move the data before the USB fail...
Hi

Well it's a tad more complex than that. I've got older desktop Seagates in a couple of NAS units (more below), but just after I bought the last ones, they changed the models and then a lot of problems posts started to appear on the forum.

Whilst I do use Samsung enterprise disks in my main TS-659 Qnap, I've old 500 GB Seagates enterprise disks in my PC and I've 2 x 2TB Seagate desktop grade disks (from a couple of years ago) in a Qnap TS-219P+ and another one in a TS-119P+ (as I say, before the 'problem range' appeared) and all these devices have performed perfectly. I've also got really old AS series desktop Seagates in an old ReadyNAS, and these have worked for many years without problems, but after reading of all the problems folks have been experiencing with their more recent desktop range, I'd take a lot of convincing to build my trust up again.

If I have to replace the desktop Seagates in my 219P+ in the near future, I'll certainly be fitting WD Red (based on personal experience and other forum users experiences being so good). The new Seagate NAS friendly disks might well be completely excellent, but I just don't know and I sure don't want to be the guinea pig, so I'll only ponder them after reading about lots of other happy new users and also after they have been in use for nearly a year (and even then, only if the WD Red disks were unavailable).

Caceat: As I've said several times, I must stress that these are only my personal views based on my positive experience with the WD Red; I've simply not tried the new Seagate NAS friendly disks and thus I have no opinion on them!

Bri :)
TS-119, 1 X Seagate ~~ TS-219, 2 X Seagate (R1) ~~ TS-453A, 2 X 3 TB WD Red (R1) ~~ TS-659, 5 X 1 TB Hitachi Enterprise (R6)
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Re: Seagate NAS disks released (ST4000VN000)

Post by tonibob-uk »

Hi All,

We all have had good and bad experiences with any of the HDD manufactures. I have been working in the field more than 20 years. Every manufactures has good and bad models, firmware issues etc.
My home NAS is not qnap it is Synology and I have been running on it Seagate Enterprise HDDs which I had sitting in my home from a old server. The drives are more than 5 years old and one of them died recently. The reason for that is not that the HDD is not good enough, but because in home environment you don't need enterprise HDDs. At my home I do shut down every night my NAS and back on next morning. This is the biggest killer of Enterprise HDDs. Don't buy any of those if you tend to use it as me. In my case I had some drives sitting around and used it. No big deal for me as I have more spare :D.
On the subject I have decided to shoot my self with those new NAS drives - ST3000VN000, actually the drives are not new, just different firmware to optimise them for the purpose. So far 3rd day running flawlessly :) . Very quiet, very good temperature, very fast at 5900 rpm for low grade HDDs, and I can say I am happy with them. For those of you wondering how many platters in 3TB, here you go 3TB - 4 platters by 1 TB, but only 3 in use.
At our offices we do use only Enterprise Grade HDDs, Samsung, Hitachi, Seagate, WD and can report that we don't have any issues with them. Our SAN has SAS drives running for 6 years 24/7. No issues at all. I believe the drives are Seagate Enterprise.
You can run without problems Desktop drives in your nas if you use it around 6-8 hours and shut it down.
The new NAS drives from WD and Seagate are good value for money in my opinion.
Using any brand has the risk of failure. The biggest risk when you buy are drive is the seller. If you get bad packaging then you will have faulty HDD.
If after one month your drive has no issues, then you are lucky one and will have it for long time.
We have WD Red for more than 1 year and no issues.
Personally I incline towards Seagate. I have spend 3 days to recover data from WD Green drives 3 years ago, I don't touch them any more. The drive failed 7 month after purchase.
Enough of my experience. Just work out how you are going to use the drives, if you have home NAS get your self NAS drives from either WD or Seagate, don't spend your money on Enterprise HDDs. With the money left over buy few big external drives and BAKCUP.
After all NAS is just a storage to stream your media and for day to day use. It is not a BACKUP solution, nor enterprise file storage.

Peter
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Re: Seagate NAS disks released (ST4000VN000)

Post by Bunce »

We've been running an 809U-RP for 4 years with 8 x WD RED (3TB) for the last year or so without issue in RAID-6, but its starting to show its age and we're running short on space.

We've just grabbed a 1279U-RP with 12 x ST4000VN000 (from different suppliers / batches) - so will post how it goes.

All clear on a full SMART test so far - will be interesting to see how long the RAID (10) build goes.
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