rscheffler
Online
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
|
rscheffler wrote:
The cheaper HDDs are likely SMR (shingled magnetic recording). If you're not familiar with SMR, search SMR vs. CMR or PMR. SMR can run into significant write slowdowns if there is a lot of rewriting and early in the SMR product cycle the drives were advertised as 'archive' drives, where you'd typically write once and then just read content, rather than frequently updating it. Not sure how Time Machine works but suspect there's probably a lot of re-writing happening. That's the 'problem' now when buying drives in an enclosure - you really don't know what exactly you're getting.
In your case, I'd look at non-base level bare HDDs, for example one option would be WD Red Plus and Pro models, which are advertised as CMR. Seagate and Toshiba also have CMR options. Another tell-tale sign is that 7200 rpm drives are probably CMR. Just put it in an enclosure or use it in a HDD dock or sled.
...Show more →
khurram1 wrote:
Thanks for the advice, just been reading up on CMR drives and enclosures. Leaning toward the WD Red pro 16tb, unsure on which enclosure to get - lot of mixed reviews.
One question I did have as that with CMR NAS drives like the WD Red Pro, did you have to keep the running 24/7?? I read one article that said there if you turn them on/off plug/unplug, it can degrade their life, since are supposed to be continuously spinning. Is that true It’s kind like of confusing, because most of the enclosure reviews i read, caution about overheating. Wouldn’t it be better to keep the drive/enclosure switched off to avoid overheating
...Show more →
Yeah, I've read comments that the NAS optimized drives are less tolerant of certain drive errors and 'give up trying' when something isn't working right and it bricks the drive as a precaution (because in theory its in a RAID array and will just get replaced). I've been buying the WD Red Plus and Pro for a while now, in part because I use a couple multi-bay enclosures, though both are only JBOD. In theory, with up to 5 drives running sometimes, there are some vibrations and the NAS optimized drives are designed to deal with this. Also, the Red Plus and equivalents from other brands are the entry point to 'guaranteed' CMR platters, though you have to be careful because I think the base Red models are SMR.
During the Amazon Prime Day sale Amazon had a pretty good price on the Red Pro 18TB but I was too slow... however B&H had it priced similar and I bought two. One was DOA. Sounded like it would spin up but no head seeking sounds, and Disk Utility didn't detect it. The drive failure alarm in one of my enclosures was trigged by it... It's the first problem I've had with Red drives. The other drive seems fine, so far.
Regarding enclosures: I haven't shopped around much. Maybe check OWC/Macsales. They have Canadian fulfillment now, IIRC. You can also buy some of their products from B&H with free shipping to Canada. Last Black Friday I bought a Sabrent 5-bay enclosure and quite like it. It's only USB-3 of some flavour, but I only use it with spinning drives, which are the bottleneck. Maybe check some their enclosures?
|
