Additional storage on Dell T20

tom01 · 24 Jan 2017 at 23:12

Can anyone recommend a HDD to add for additional storage on the T20? I've maxed out the 1TB it was shipped with and am looking to add a 4TB drive in to the mix.

The trouble is I can't decided how important a factor RPM is in this context. As the WD Red drives are 5400 which from what I gather and have read online is fine for a NAS committed to the serving / backup of media however I will be putting this in to my T20 which will be running game servers, plex and home labs in multiple VM's so this exceeds the usual scope of a NAS really.

Should I go for the WD enterprise drives (Either Re or Se) which would offer the higher RPM and also an added benefit of an extra 2 years on warranty or go with the popular Reds? Theres about £50 in the difference in price between enterprise and reds.

Drives I've considered are:

WD Se 4TB 7200rpm - £197
http://www.storagereview.com/wd_se_hdd_review

WD Re 4TB 7200rpm - £197
https://www.wdc.com/products/busines...tml#WD4001FYYG

WD Red 4TB 5400rpm - £149.99
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-re...hd-408-wd.html

ov_sjo · 25 Jan 2017 at 12:11

It really won't make a noticeable difference.

Are you sure you wouldn't rather build a RAID array though with some fault tolerance? Do you have backups?

easyrider · 29 Jan 2017 at 15:12

Are you running the OS on an SSD ?

decto · 29 Jan 2017 at 16:39

You really need a decent SSD for multiple VM's as a single spinning disk is a real bottleneck.

I have my main VM's running from a sandisk X400 and while the storage for them points to spinning disks.

Remember the difference adding an SSD made to your PC? well now you are trying to run multiple PC's on the same old disk technology.

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tom01 · 3 Feb 2017 at 04:25

Well I've taken the plunge and ordered a 4TB WD Red, time will see how I get on!

Yes OS is all currently running off the HDD that shipped with the unit. That's a 7200rpm 1TB. To be honest I've had circa 10 VMs span up at once and it handled it pretty well and since I've upgraded the RAM from the 4GB it shipped with to 32GB I've noticed a phenomenal difference in performance.

However, I agree it would make sense to put the VM's on SSD. I'm also looking in to running the Hyper Visor (ESXi) on USB - Although can't get my head around that one just yet? :confused:

TechMinerUK · 3 Feb 2017 at 15:20

tom01 said:
Well I've taken the plunge and ordered a 4TB WD Red, time will see how I get on!
Yes OS is all currently running off the HDD that shipped with the unit. That's a 7200rpm 1TB. To be honest I've had circa 10 VMs span up at once and it handled it pretty well and since I've upgraded the RAM from the 4GB it shipped with to 32GB I've noticed a phenomenal difference in performance.
However, I agree it would make sense to put the VM's on SSD. I'm also looking in to running the Hyper Visor (ESXi) on USB - Although can't get my head around that one just yet?

You'd be better getting a SATA DOM instead of a USB, bit more reliable and certainly better suited (I know theirs not many writes but still)