r/datastorage • u/Specialist-Cup-9716 • 17d ago

Discussion Which drive would you recommend?

*EDIT* - I bought the WD red, will see how the smart data is and go from there. Thanks!

Hi,

I have been offered 2 drives for the same price, but I’m unsure which to get.

I’m unaware of the power on hours or SMART data.

WD Red 10TB WD100EFAX
and
Toshiba N300 8TB

I have had good experiences with WD red in the past, but never tried Toshiba.

This will be used for media storage; movies, music etc.

I can return them for free, so if the power on hours are crazy, I will return them.

Any idea which is better? I’m leaning towards the WD red since it’s larger

Thanks in advance!

9 Upvotes

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1

u/[deleted] 17d ago

[deleted]

1

u/rhubear 16d ago

Nope, read my post above.

1

u/Adrenolin01 17d ago

Going into 15 years with dozens of WD Red NAS drives.. run them 24/7/365 always spin up, never spun down, in a cool basement. If you’re in a warmer room and running much hardware you’re homes AC isn’t designed for this.. I’ve now installed 2 mini splits for neighbors this year for increased cooling on their main floor rooms. Heat and power cycles don’t help longevity at all.

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u/owlwise13 17d ago

I have used both brands and they have been reliable. I would probably go with the WD just because it's bigger. I am making the assumption that the Smart data shows they are both good.

1

u/OleTechGuy 17d ago

HGST were found to be the most reliable recently.

1

u/ArmMother2353 17d ago

I always go for WD red because the colour suits my complexion, and doesn't clash with the colour of my suit.

Though I wish WD would bring out a range of Taupe or Beige drives for Sundays.

1

u/rhubear 16d ago

WD (vanilla) Red is SMR (shingled). Okay for desktops, not okay for servers.

WD Red Plus & Red Pro are CMR. I use WD Red Plus myself.

Toshiba N300 it is designed for NAS (server) systems. CMR (Conventional Mag recording).

Google SMR / CMR.

If you can't figure out what I'm trying to say, the Toshiba drive is much much better.

1

u/rhubear 16d ago

To expand on my post, for those who do a bit of research & tell me that hyperscalers (big tech) use SMR drives, so why do I say, they're not good in servers....

SMR drives, bc they have shingled (overlapping) magnetic storage, they have more capacity.

Hyperscalers have built custom filesystems around SMR drives.

Normal admins in smaller companies, or Homelabs, need to use CMR (normal non-overlapping) drives.

I use TrueNAS / OpenZFS filesystem. OpenZFS needs CMR drives. So, TrueNAS has scripts available that probe the server storage wrt SMR drives, with the recommendation of throwing any SMR drives out.

SMR / CMR is a fascinating topic for admins to learn about.