16TB (maybe other size) Hard Drive Recommendations

A

aliaskary77

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 18, 2006
Messages
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A while back, started losing Seagate hard drives, 3 in a week, on my media/backup server. Had 8 drives installed. Seagate was nice and replaced them all with a NAS version, the ST4000VN000 model, and they have been great. 2 were set as backups using snapraid.

They are now reaching the 7.5 year mark, and I am thinking to replace them before anything happens. (1 is showing 1 bad sector, nothing to worry about, but still thinking I should replace them before anything bigger happens)

Considering replacing with with 4 drives, either 12TB or 16TB, 1 as the backup in snapraid. (Maybe 5 total with 2 as backup.) Open to other sizes, but keeping budget in mind. Just want something I can hopefully rely on another 5 to 7 years.

I did look up https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q2-2023/ to see how drives are doing, but still not sure.

Any suggestions which drive to look for, size, brand, model? Had gone Newegg before, but probably will look at Amazon this time. Open to other online suggestions. North of the border so Microcenter not an option lol.

Edit: running these on LSI-9211-8i. Checking with the drive capacity support is. Oops. May need new card too. Motherboard is a ASRock Z87 Extreme4. Could fall back to direct connect if needed.
 
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Western Digital Red Plus if budget is a concern, Red Pro or Gold if you want to spend a little more for enterprise drive quality (look for deals on bundles, sometimes they're cheaper than consumer).

Don't buy regular WD Red drives (They're SMR).

I buy direct from WD. Proper packaging, no shenanigans.
 
If budget is a concern, and noise isn't, have you thought about getting refurbished enterprise drives?

I've used https://serverpartdeals.com/ for a set of eight 12TB Seagate Exos drives and have had no problems thus far. I'm likely only ever going to buy refurb enterprise drives now due to their low cost.

Other folks may chime in about their experiences with refurbished enterprise drive sellers (I was looking at goharddrive.com as they have a 5 year warranty).
 
I think my Fujitsu branded LSI card is the same as yours and I am running up to an 18TB WD Red Pro on it. the other drives are 12 and 14TB.
I prefer WD so that's what I recommend
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I have always been partial to Seagate, until the huge failure rate on the 2TB drives, or was it 4. I then tried HGST, but they are way more expensive too. I am now open to WD drive. I will look into the Red Plus/Pro/Golds now, maybe even the Exos as suggested.

I think I was running P17 IT firmware on the LSI. Might need to find something newer, P20 maybe. Will start with 4 or 5 drives now in case i need to fall back to onboard. There are 8 sata ports, can spare 5 for now. I can test them on the LSI and see how it goes. If they work, may be an option for more down the line.

Thanks everyone.
 
Will have to check what LSI card I actually have. Folder where firmware was saved references 9211-8i. On booting up, I am seeing references to SA2308-IT in the product identifier, and using CTRL-C, its showing SAS9207-8i with firmware version as 20. Will pull the card tomorrow to look for stickers or labelling. Been too long since I have looked at any of the parts closely.
 
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aliaskary77 said:
I have always been partial to Seagate, until the huge failure rate on the 2TB drives, or was it 4. I then tried HGST, but they are way more expensive too. I am now open to WD drive. I will look into the Red Plus/Pro/Golds now, maybe even the Exos as suggested.
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I switched to Hitachi years ago. Happy until they sold out to WD. Now I "have to" buy WD.

aliaskary77 said:
I think I was running P17 IT firmware on the LSI. Might need to find something newer, P20 maybe.
Click to expand...
Where do you find the firmware for this LSI card?
 
I use quite a few Toshibas and I'm happy with them. Not sure they have a 16 TB drive.
 
philb2 said:
Where do you find the firmware for this LSI card?
Click to expand...
I had to look again. It's a very weird way. You can't find a download or firmware section. Go to broadcom.com, and search for your model. E.g. I put in 9207-8i and got this: https://www.broadcom.com/site-search?q=9207-8i
The search results list some zip files, and they download directly instead of going to a page. Thankfully out of 4221 results, the one i need is 9th on the 1st page.


For 9211-8i, 6th one down for the P20 IR and IT firmware: https://www.broadcom.com/site-search?q=9211-8i
 
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