Suitable hard drives for NAS?

Hmmm, seems like the Sammy's are the way to go wen it comes to RAID as well. Google 'WD Green and RAID' and it doesnt look too good - then again most people post when they have an issue so that may be biased.

Just reading through his, but looks like the Samsung F4's are the way I will go.....

Samsung Spinpoint F4EG Review (HD204UI) | StorageReview.com
For what it's worth, I'm currently running two QNAP 419P+ each with 4 x 2TB Samsung EcoGreen F4 HD204UI, both in RAID5 config. I've had absolutely no problems.
 
Blimey, the minefield continues...

Right, I won't hold anyone accountable... what would you use for a QNAP 219P+ in Raid 1 (2TB) to be used for mainly music streaming with the odd film, backing up contents of laptop & downloading BT for about 8 - 12 hrs a day (not downloading everyday). I may want to host a basic forum too?

I don't wanna spend more than £100 a drive.

Cheers...

Set-Up-Note: The Sammy's need a firmware update don't they? Would I need to attach these to an old PC or can this be done during NAS set-up?
 
Blimey, the minefield continues...

Right, I won't hold anyone accountable... what would you use for a QNAP 219P+ in Raid 1 (2TB) to be used for mainly music streaming with the odd film, backing up contents of laptop & downloading BT for about 8 - 12 hrs a day (not downloading everyday). I may want to host a basic forum too?

I don't wanna spend more than £100 a drive.

Cheers...

Set-Up-Note: The Sammy's need a firmware update don't they? Would I need to attach these to an old PC or can this be done during NAS set-up?

2TB Samsung EcoGreen F4 HD204UI

Or for maximising storage space (something I posted elsewhere!)

The 3TB Hitachi drives I got by buying two of these when they were £108 (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3tb-...ce=google+shopping&utm_medium=google+shopping) and taking the drives out. They still showed as two year warranty when I entered the drive serial numbers during registration. Easy to set out when you know how without damaging the USB housings.
 
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To update the firmware you need to first create a bootable USB drive. Use this site to create one:

How to format a USB memory key

Then, connect the HDD to an internal SATA port on a PC.
Boot off of the USB drive, and run the firmware updating tool downloaded from Samsung.
Once finished, do not reboot the PC, you need to actually switch the PC off completely.

I think Im going to go with 5 of these drives now ;)
 
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For what it's worth, I'm currently running two QNAP 419P+ each with 4 x 2TB Samsung EcoGreen F4 HD204UI, both in RAID5 config. I've had absolutely no problems.

I also have a 419P+ with four Samsung HD204UI in RAID5. No problems to report here either.
 
Just to update & tie up some loose ends, I bought 2 x 2TB Samsung HD204UI...

It's gonna be a ripping weekend!

Finally, I can get shot of my 1000's of unripped cd's

:thumbsup:
 
Where did you buy them from? Need to order 5 for my NAS in the next few days!
 
Hmmm, seems like the Sammy's are the way to go wen it comes to RAID as well. Google 'WD Green and RAID' and it doesnt look too good - then again most people post when they have an issue so that may be biased.

Just reading through his, but looks like the Samsung F4's are the way I will go.....

Samsung Spinpoint F4EG Review (HD204UI) | StorageReview.com


A literal copy and paste from another thread I just posted in and useful information nonetheless:

"The WD EARS drives that are advanced format, usually have IDLE3 timers set to silly times, which is where the issues seem to arise - disks set to park the head after 8 seconds I think.

I used WDIDLE3 to turn the head parking off completely and let the NAS box handle power-up and down cycles.

For reference, the head-parking helps WD label the drives as "Eco" due to lower power consumption when set up this way. "


I have 2x WD20EARS drives and with the timer off, they have been used in my NAS flawlessly since January. Most drives are likely to be fine, so long as you dig deep for information :)
 
Just to update & tie up some loose ends, I bought 2 x 2TB Samsung HD204UI...

It's gonna be a ripping weekend!

Finally, I can get shot of my 1000's of unripped cd's

:thumbsup:

How did you get on mate?
Did you need to apply the updated firmware, or are you drives manufactured after 1st Jan 2011??

Just placed my order for 5 of these drives - should be with me on Thursday! Will see how long it takes to create my RAID5 volume!
 
Just an update....

Received my 5 HD204UI hard drives today.
All have a manufacture date of March 2011 - so I guess I've been quite lucky and wont have to bother with firmware updates etc.
Just building my RAID5 array at the moment, which seems to be going well.......


EDIT: RAID array built fine - just moving all my data across now while Im cabled. Performance of drives seems very good. They are pretty quiet, and run pretty cool.
When I tried my 3TB WD drives, idle temp was around 33-35c.
With these Samsungs, idle temps are around 28-29c.
 
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How did you get on mate?
Did you need to apply the updated firmware, or are you drives manufactured after 1st Jan 2011??

Just placed my order for 5 of these drives - should be with me on Thursday! Will see how long it takes to create my RAID5 volume!

G'day... Yup - fitted the drives, then installed, updated QNAP with existing 3.3.6 firmware (on disk). Once it was up and running, I updated the firmware to latest version (3.4.2 Build 0331T).

Rebooted then created Raid1 - been perfect ever since... 2 x 2TB Samsung HD204UI drives also 28c whilst idle - date showed 2011/02 so no update required for me.

My QNAP 219P+ is great kit, plug and play, no hassle to set up & just crack-on with the media ripping.
 
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Didnt bother with my firmware - considering the manufacture date was Mar 2011, felt it was good enough - couldnt be bothered to update all 5 drives firmware!

Temps are at around 31c now after moving all my data onto it. Still pretty good!

All going good though. All my data is on the NAS now - just been testing it with my PS3 and can play all my movies and view photos etc just fine ;)
 

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