WD Red 6TB vs Archive Nearline 8TB

MG42Maniac

MG42Maniac

MG42Maniac

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Hi Guys,

I've currently got a Plex server that is about to run out of HDD space. I've got 11TB currently made up of 2 x 2TB, 1 x 3TB and 1 x 4TB. I'm also running a 250GB 850 Evo as a boot drive. I'm using JBOD and I don't back any of the media up as I've got a 200MB internet connection so can just download again.

I've got 6 SATA connections on my motherboard (Gigabyte Z87-D3HP) so I've got one spare. I want to get the biggest drive possible and then when that is full up, probably at some point in 2017/18 replace one or both of the 2TB drives with whatever is available then.

I've narrowed down my choices to the 6TB Red or the Archive 8TB. Both seem to have pros and cons so I'm not really sure which one to get. My use case would be as follows:


  • Immediately write 3.3TB of Data to it.
  • Have data read from it most days.
  • Have data written to it once or twice a week in bulk transfers.
  • Be powered on 24/7 but will spin down when idle.
  • Not going to be part of RAID.
  • Not backed up.


My order of priorities for the drive are:
1. Reliability
2. Speed
3. Power Consumption
4. Heat/Noise

I'm leaning towards the Red due to the lower failure rates but the extra 2TB of the Nearline Archive is hard to ignore and I think I fit the use case for it.

What would you guys recommend?
 
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Archive drives use shingle technology, which is appallingly slow to re-write to. The first write is fine, but subsequent writes to the same sector are dramatically slower. They were intended for a very specific use (write-once, read many), and in my opinion should be avoided for general purpose use.
 
On the contrary, the archive drive would be perfect for you and is made for exactly your kind of use

Only written to a few times a week, and the read speeds from it are absolutely fine

Uses around 6 watts idle, whereas the Red uses around 4, but not enough to worry about

I have a couple of the archive drives, and they work brilliantly for backing up my media, and for price per TB, can't be beaten
 
Check benchmarks. Check people's direct experience with shingle drives (plenty on this forum alone).

"Archive" is not for any definition of archive in a home setting.
 
My question though is why would you benchmark a drive that is basically used only for reading from? You only write to it rarely, so who cares how slow it is?

Chances are you leave files copying to it overnight, and you're spending most of the time reading from the drive

The reviews i've read say that the write speeds are poor, especially on multiple small files, but for backing up movies and media who cares?

It's had good reviews from what i've seen

I've got 10 of the 6TB reds, and they are really good, but for a single drive solution to backup movies / home videos, i would choose the Seagate


Admittedly no one knows how reliable these SMR drives are yet, so i could be eating my words in 18 months but its a chance ill take


Conclusion from Storagereview.com

"The Seagate Archive HDD 8TB is a high capacity, energy efficient, and lower cost hard drive for active archive purposes. The drive comes with impressive burst results but lower sustained write results, which are to be expected in this class SMR drives. "

From Toms

PROS: Sequential write speed, Random read speed, Amazing price point.

CONS: Sequential read and random write performance, 3-year Warranty

From Tweaktown

"The Bottom Line: Seagate's Archive HDD is a solid, reliable solution for those that want the means of backing up years worth of data into a single drive. In addition, the power management and low initial cost coupled with the performance of the drive make it one of the best all-around drives on the market."


Anyone who is daft enough to run these drives in any kind of parity RAID array or ZFS will obviously be disappointed!
 
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My standard answer to these threads..

Buy a Synology and fill it with 6TB Red drives.

Yes, it's ~£180-200 per drive and ~£250-350 for the Synology, but damn they work well.

Those Seagate drives are designed to be connected up once a week or so, written to, then disconnected. Not to be left on 24/7.
 
bledd. said:
Those Seagate drives are designed to be connected up once a week or so, written to, then disconnected. Not to be left on 24/7.
Click to expand...



"The Archive drive is actually meant for 24×7 utilization, unlike the most common 3Tb Desktop model in low cost servers"

"the Archive HDD is rated for 24×7 180TB/Year "

http://blog.pulsedmedia.com/2015/03/follow-up-on-seagate-archive-8tb-hdd-benchmark/

Whilst i do agree that a Synology NAS is indeed decent, it wasn't nice when the Cryptolocker virus hit and locked everyone out of their data and i certainly wouldn't trust one with my most precious data (movies etc i would)

If you're a bit more tech savvy, you could build yourself a relatively cheap FreeNAS server easily enough. If not, go with the Synology

Good luck whatever you choose!
 
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somewhatdamaged said:
"The Archive drive is actually meant for 24×7 utilization, unlike the most common 3Tb Desktop model in low cost servers"

"the Archive HDD is rated for 24×7 180TB/Year "

http://blog.pulsedmedia.com/2015/03/follow-up-on-seagate-archive-8tb-hdd-benchmark/

Whilst i do agree that a Synology NAS is indeed decent, it wasn't nice when the Cryptolocker virus hit and locked everyone out of their data and i certainly wouldn't trust one with my most precious data (movies etc i would)

If you're a bit more tech savvy, you could build yourself a relatively cheap FreeNAS server easily enough. If not, go with the Synology

Good luck whatever you choose!
Click to expand...

Locked everyone? really? every single user hit by cryptolocker?
 
I was being a tad facetious, but my point is, a LOT of people trusted Synology with their data and look what happened - many people lost thousands of pictures or videos that were precious to them. Many people also have zero backups too.
 
somewhatdamaged said:
I was being a tad facetious, but my point is, a LOT of people trusted Synology with their data and look what happened - many people lost thousands of pictures or videos that were precious to them. Many people also have zero backups too.
Click to expand...

You would be a fool not to back up precious data anyway, kind of their fault really.
 
somewhatdamaged said:
I was being a tad facetious, but my point is, a LOT of people trusted Synology with their data and look what happened - many people lost thousands of pictures or videos that were precious to them. Many people also have zero backups too.
Click to expand...

I'm not jumping in to defend them, but this was non updated systems only wasn't it?

More fool anyone who doesn't keep a backup.
 
somewhatdamaged said:
Whilst i do agree that a Synology NAS is indeed decent, it wasn't nice when the Cryptolocker virus hit and locked everyone out of their data and i certainly wouldn't trust one with my most precious data (movies etc i would)
Click to expand...

Enabling remote management on anything is very risky.
 
Cheers for the input guys, I've picked up a 6TB Red. Should arrive tomorrow.

The reason I am not running a Synology NAS is because they lack the power to transcode media so I've got a PC stuffed full of disks with every power saving feature enabled. When I need the power the i5 4670K will boost up to 4GHz.
 
After many bad personal experiences, I have an inherent distrust to modern Seagate drives... so would avoid them like the plague.

On the other hand, I've yet to have a single WD Red drive fail and I have many many more of them.

I think the WD Red 6TB will last you a longer time than the Seagate Archive drive.

Also, as some others have mentioned - the archive drive is not meant for your type of usage - whereas the WD Red is designed for what you want...


Edit: Oops, just saw your last post... good choice :)
 
bledd. said:
I'm not jumping in to defend them, but this was non updated systems only wasn't it?

More fool anyone who doesn't keep a backup.
Click to expand...

Synology have a policy of product obsolescence after x years irrespective of the products capability, once that happens you have no official update option which is why I wouldn't choose them. I do agree they make a decent product, just a shame they insist on making perfectly good hardware unsupported.
 
Avalon said:
Synology have a policy of product obsolescence after x years irrespective of the products capability, once that happens you have no official update option which is why I wouldn't choose them. I do agree they make a decent product, just a shame they insist on making perfectly good hardware unsupported.
Click to expand...

The 2010 models are on the latest DSM version..
 
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