WD20EARS :: Can x2 of these be used for Raid 1

Evoss · 10 Sep 2011 at 00:30

Hey all,

Cannot get a definitive answer for this, many say you cant, many say you can. So I have come to you

x2 WD20EARS in a Synology DS211+ Raid 1

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-327-WD

Cheers,

Evoss

Surveyor · 10 Sep 2011 at 00:46

What are the reasons you've been given you can't use them in RAID 1?

I've used all manner of drives in RAID arrays in the past and I'm not aware of anything that would prevent them from working in RAID 1.

FYI isn't this (WD20EARX) supposed to be an improved version of the WD20EARS?

The Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen 2TB is a faster drive, and £9 cheaper, though some feel they're a little noisier.

Evoss · 10 Sep 2011 at 00:51

Apparently TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery) is not enabled and is using the 4kb drive sector.

Evoss · 10 Sep 2011 at 01:13

Hmm apparently it only effected on Win systems, since Synology is using a Linux distribution, I might be ok.

Surveyor · 10 Sep 2011 at 01:16

Some information:

Support for WD desktop drives in a RAID 0 or RAID 1 configuration

Difference between Desktop edition and RAID (Enterprise) edition drives

Googling around it would seem that a lot of consumer drives don't support TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery), CCTL (Command Completion Time Limit) or similar features, yet people seem to successfully use them in RAID arrays all the time.

Evoss · 10 Sep 2011 at 03:11

Thanks for the input Surveyor, so you would think I would be ok sticking these in a Synology RAID 1

Surveyor · 10 Sep 2011 at 03:14

I would think you're as safe with them as any other consumer grade disks.

Irrelevant if you already have the disks but did you note my comments about the WD20EARX and Samsung F4?

Evoss · 10 Sep 2011 at 03:18

Surveyor said:
I would think you're as safe with them as any other consumer grade disks.

Irrelevant if you already have the disks but did you note my comments about the WD20EARX and Samsung F4?

Well if the EARX models are the same price and the new model I may aswell go for them.

Ive had the Samsung F4s and despite saying they are EcoGreen, I found them quite loud in quiet environment, mainly due to the access noise

Are the caviar greens quieter do you know?

Thanks

Evoss · 10 Sep 2011 at 03:27

Hmmm, looking here: http://www.synology.com/support/hd.php?lang=enu&bays_id=2&product_id=66#3.5

Synology don't state they want to support WD drives.

So out of:

Hitachi
Maxtor
Samsung

What is the best to go for?

Surveyor · 10 Sep 2011 at 08:56

You'll have to explain that one to me.

If I click on your link the WD20EARS and WD20EARX are listed under compatible drives.

If I read it correctly all the drives on that list are compatible apart from a few listed at the bottom.

The only reason I say the WD20EARX is an improved version is this thread.

memyselfandi · 10 Sep 2011 at 15:07

I have used WD20EARS in Raid 1 but for them to do so stably I had to stop the drives from spinning down automatically after 8 seconds which they were doing by default.

There is a dos util on WD's site that lets you do this (if you Google around there are several tutorials on creating a bootable FreeDOS USB stick so you can boot and run the util (I think I used info off the Netgear ReadyNAS forum)