Avoid WD Red Drives for NAS applications (Any SMR Drives)

[SBD4]

I meant to post this when the story 1 st surfaced a while ago.

If you are intending purchase some hard drives to use in a NAS (or any RAID storage) then you'll want to be sure to avoid the new WD Red hard drives as WD(and other manufacturers) have changed the method they use to record data to the disk - from CMR/PMR (Conventional/Perpendicular Magnetic Recording) to SMR(Shingled Magnetic recording). They've done this in the interests of achieving a higher recording density to the detriment of performance.

In short, avoid SMR drives for use in RAID configurations...no matter who the manufacturer is.

This will tell you how to identify the drives(from Western Digital):
How to tell a difference between DM-SMR and non-SMR (CMR) drives (HDD) – compare – NAS Compares (https://nascompares.com/answer/how-to-tell-a-difference-between-dm-smr-and-non-smr-cmr-drives-hdd-compare/)

This article reports on testing done to demonstrate the issue:
Red Alert: WD Sued for Selling 'Inferior' SMR Hard Drives to NAS Customers - ExtremeTech (https://www.extremetech.com/computing/311182-red-alert-wd-sued-for-selling-inferior-smr-hard-drives-to-nas-customers)


This vid gives summary of the above testing:

https://youtu.be/xglsjj4G5Es

[p38arover]

I'll have to pull the Red drives out of my two NAS boxes to check them.

[Eevo]

ive been following this with interest for a few weeks. all my HDD's are WD red but I dont use them in a raid.

[Pedro_The_Swift]

old news...
I have 4 wd reds in my NAS and 3 wd blues in my main PC that are SMR,, (only way to tell is SN range)
has the world stopped turning? no.
am I ****ed at WD? You Betcha!
am I gunna do anything about it? nope.
and neither is WD..


and its not just WD either....

[AK83]

Interesting news.
I just checked my 4 Reds, all CMR types(as I'd expected).
Dunno when this new SMR tech came out, but as said in the videos, this issue is very specific to RAID, and really only the rebuilding component, and that it's slow.

I don't use RAID either, so even if I had too, I'd still get these SMR Reds anyhow, if desperately needed.

[SBD4]

Interesting news.
I just checked my 4 Reds, all CMR types(as I'd expected).
Dunno when this new SMR tech came out, but as said in the videos, this issue is very specific to RAID, and really only the rebuilding component, and that it's slow.

I don't use RAID either, so even if I had too, I'd still get these SMR Reds anyhow, if desperately needed.

SMR has been around for a while (2013) but hoo-ha surrounding this has come about because the likes of WD have started using SMR in drives that were previously CMR based without highlighting the change. WD Reds have been very popular for NAS applications because of their excellent performance vs cost and the sneaky change has meant that people have purchased a product not fit for purpose which they otherwise may not have.

In non raid situations this really is no issue and, as you say the issue is only evident during rebuild because of the inordinate amount of time it takes to do the rebuild. This presents two issues, a decent performance hit for a very extended period while rebuild takes place and increased risk of total data loss if another drive is lost during the rebuild.

I think the other thing for people to be aware of is that they should not mix CMR and SMR drives in RAID because of performance impacts (SMR drives do generally perform worse than their CMR counter parts). People may want to upgrade their NAS capacity or need to replace a drive will likely go ahead buy more drives of the same type blissfully unaware of the change in architecture and wonder why things are not working as well as they once did....not ideal. In fact, there have been instances where the RAID has refused to rebuild when an SMR drive has been introduced in to a CMR based array.

[SBD4]

old news...
Might be for you ..... but it will not be for others


I have 4 wd reds in my NAS and 3 wd blues in my main PC that are SMR,, (only way to tell is SN range)
has the world stopped turning? no.

Yeah, no biggie. It depends on the application. It's a risk assessment, for home applications not so much of an issue. For business critical applications it is a big deal.

(You'll note, I wrote "AVOID".... there was no suggestion of the end of the world pending[thumbsupbig])


(only way to tell is SN range)

Actually, it's the suffix in the part numbers.


.....and its not just WD either....

Yep.... as I stated. The big issue with WD is that they made the change in drives that are specifically marketed as NAS drives with out telling anyone....that is a huge deal. Other manufacturers like Seagate and Toshiba push SMR based drives to the desktop market.

[SBD4]

I'll have to pull the Red drives out of my two NAS boxes to check them.

I'm not sure when the change happened but it's likely that if your drives are older than say, a year, then they'll be fine. Check them none the less. Mine are five years old and are CMR...I have one that looks like it may need to be replaced and had I not known about this issue it would have bitten me on the backside big time.

[speleomike]

Hi all

I have also been following this since it was first reports of poor performance started to be published. At first no one quite knew what the problem was. In a NAS setup with RAID and where it's setup for high I/O random write it's a major problem. Some HPC sites were seeing raid units automatically removed from the raid cluster due to poor performance on garbage collection & rebuilds. Three manufacturers, WD, Seagate and Toshiba have all done this just recently and there is now lawsuits from companies that have been adversely affected by this.

In a home setup, even for steaming media, it's not at all a crucial issue. When you have purchased several hundred TB or more of disks not fit for purpose it is.

PS. Buying a NAS for use in high performance RAID and finding a SMR drive in it is like ordering your 3.0 litre V6 Disco and driving away in it with a 2.4 litre 4cyl under the bonnet. You ain't gonna be happy.

Mike

[rar110]

One of the WD reds in our NAS has failed. It’s about 5 years old but failed a while ago. Any recommendations on a replacement? Thanks.

[Pedro_The_Swift]

Anything from a major manufacturer NAS rated.
I'm sure the IT pro's will be along to recommend something.

Not that I would know--
but the only "problem" is with the speed these smr drives operate,, its a risk thing, if one drive fails the risk is a second will fail while the first is being resilvered(rebuilt)
and if that happens---- its Exit Stage Left for all the data.
so the faster the first is resilvered the safer the system.

This scenario can be somewhat mitigated by buying HDDs from different lots and suppliers

Perhaps Sean will help me and let us know if its CPU speed or disc speed thats the major player here... [tonguewink][biggrin]

[Eevo]

all my current storage drives are WD red.
in the past ive used seagate with no issues.
i usually buy on price/gb

[SBD4]

One of the WD reds in our NAS has failed. It’s about 5 years old but failed a while ago. Any recommendations on a replacement? Thanks.

I assume you have an off the shelf unit from one of the NAS manufacturers (if it's one you built yourself I'd be guessing that you'd know what you needed[thumbsupbig]).

If that's the case have a look on their website for a list of manufacturers and drives they support. In principle:



try to match drives as closely as possible to your existing ones - same model is the perfect solution.
if the model is no longer available match one with closest characteristics from the same manufacturer
do not use a drive with a smaller capacity than the smallest you have
if going larger, generally the NAS will not use additional capacity until all the other smaller drives are replaced with the same or lager capacity ==> wasting your money
Don't mix CMR and SMR drives keep it all one way or the other ==> your drives are all CMR (good)


In your case I would get a Western Digital Red PRO of the same capacity. These are CMR drives so will be the best match for your existing drives.

Let me know if you have any questions.

EDIT: Actually, you can still get the standard non pro reds with CMR, what size drives do you have?

[SBD4]

Perhaps Sean will help me and let us know if its CPU speed or disc speed thats the major player here... [tonguewink][biggrin]

In this case it's the disk drive itself - SMR drives have to do a lot of additional data writes when handling large data writes:

Shingled magnetic recording - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingled_magnetic_recording)


Shingled magnetic recording (SMR) is a magnetic storage data recording technology used in hard disk drives (HDDs) to increase storage density and overall per-drive storage capacity.[1] Conventional hard disk drives record data by writing non-overlapping magnetic tracks parallel to each other (perpendicular recording), while shingled recording writes new tracks that overlap part of the previously written magnetic track, leaving the previous track narrower and allowing for higher track density. Thus, the tracks partially overlap similar to roof shingles. This approach was selected because physical limitations prevent recording magnetic heads from having the same width as reading heads, leaving recording heads wider.[2][3][4]:7–9

The overlapping-tracks architecture complicates the writing process since writing to one track also overwrites an adjacent track. If adjacent tracks contain valid data, they must be rewritten as well. As a result, SMR drives are divided into many append-only (sequential) zones of overlapping tracks that need to be rewritten entirely when full, resembling flash blocks in solid state drives. Device-managed SMR devices hide this complexity by managing it in the firmware, presenting an interface like any other hard disk. Other SMR devices are host-managed and depend on the operating system to know how to handle the drive, and only write sequentially to certain regions of the drive. [4]:11 ff.[5] While SMR drives can use DRAM and Flash memory caches to improve writing performance, continuous writing of large amount of data is slower than with PMR drives.[6][7][8]

In any system, conventional HDDs (as apposed to SSDs) are always the slowest part of any system - rarely will it be the CPU (speaking of disk I/O operations).

[rar110]

I assume you have an off the shelf unit from one of the NAS manufacturers (if it's one you built yourself I'd be guessing that you'd know what you needed[thumbsupbig]).

If that's the case have a look on their website for a list of manufacturers and drives they support. In principle:



try to match drives as closely as possible to your existing ones - same model is the perfect solution.
if the model is no longer available match one with closest characteristics from the same manufacturer
do not use a drive with a smaller capacity than the smallest you have
if going larger, generally the NAS will not use additional capacity until all the other smaller drives are replaced with the same or lager capacity ==> wasting your money
Don't mix CMR and SMR drives keep it all one way or the other ==> your drives are all CMR (good)


In your case I would get a Western Digital Red PRO of the same capacity. These are CMR drives so will be the best match for your existing drives.

Let me know if you have any questions.

EDIT: Actually, you can still get the standard non pro reds with CMR, what size drives do you have?

Thanks, I have a synology dual nas. I think it’s a DS2??

I have 2TB drives.

[Eevo]

rarely will it be the CPU (speaking of disk I/O operations).

should be using the south bridge, not the north bridge and not touch the cpu at all.*

[SBD4]

Thanks, I have a synology dual nas. I think it’s a DS2??

I have 2TB drives.

Search for WD20EFRX you'll get plenty of options to buy. Buy 2 then you'll have a spare if the other old one throws in the towel later.

[SBD4]

should be using the south bridge, not the north bridge and not touch the cpu at all.*

Spot on Eevo![thumbsupbig]

For those who are following along:
Difference Between Northbridge and Southbridge - Pediaa.Com (https://pediaa.com/difference-between-northbridge-and-southbridge/#:~:text=The%20main%20difference%20between%20north bridge,directly%20connects%20to%20the%20CPU.&text=A%20motherboard%20consists%20of%20a%20chipset .)

[BradC]

Spot on Eevo![thumbsupbig]

For those who are following along:
Difference Between Northbridge and Southbridge - Pediaa.Com (https://pediaa.com/difference-between-northbridge-and-southbridge/#:~:text=The%20main%20difference%20between%20north bridge,directly%20connects%20to%20the%20CPU.&text=A%20motherboard%20consists%20of%20a%20chipset .)

2008 called. They’d like their chipset back.

The old Northbridge/southbridge went away years ago. Regardless, in any generic motherboard based RAID (softraid) the work is done by the CPU anyway (ie either BIOS/EFI drivers until os bring up and then fakeraid in the driver).

Right now avoid the 2-6TB WD EFAX. I just picked up some 8TB purples to try something different although I do have a “few” CMR reds.

[Eevo]

2008 called. They’d like their chipset back.


haha yes true. there is a reason i put an asterix at the end of my sentence. anyway, the principle is the same.

[SBD4]

2008 called. They’d like their chipset back.

The old Northbridge/southbridge went away years ago. Regardless, in any generic motherboard based RAID (softraid) the work is done by the CPU anyway (ie either BIOS/EFI drivers until os bring up and then fakeraid in the driver).

Right now avoid the 2-6TB WD EFAX. I just picked up some 8TB purples to try something different although I do have a “few” CMR reds.
As I recall southbridge originally went via northbridge to get to the cpu. Northbridge functions were absorbed into the CPU and the southbridge became known as "the chipset" connecting directly to the CPU via DMI (Direct Media Interface). So, slow I/O still handled by a separate chipset interfacing with the CPU vie the DMI (version 3 now I think).

Anyway my days of hardware expertise are long in the past. I just research it when I need it....that approach goes for pretty much anything actually. Helps to stop other other stuff I need to remember from pushed out the otherside[thumbsupbig].

[Eevo]

. Helps to stop other other stuff I need to remember from pushed out the otherside[thumbsupbig].

sounds like you need a storage upgrade.

[SBD4]

sounds like you need a storage upgrade.
Yeah....just please don't make it SMR.

[Eevo]

Yeah....just please don't make it SMR.


mine is write only memory.

[BradC]

mine is write only memory.

Sounds like Alan Bond and Carmen Lawrence.

[SBD4]

A bit of an update:


https://youtu.be/aztTf2gI55k

[PeterJ]

One of the WD reds in our NAS has failed. It’s about 5 years old but failed a while ago. Any recommendations on a replacement? Thanks.

Well, I certainly just dodged a bullet that I never knew was being fired. Had my NAS pull up a disk failure about a week ago, (mind you it had been "up" for well over 8.5 years by the hour count so can not complain too much I guess, they are WD drives) spent 5 days getting it back up and running. Ohhhhh the pain. Anyway, went to Synology site and found a drive from the approve hardware list, (this might be of use Compatibility List | Synology Inc. (https://www.synology.com/en-au/compatibility)) settled on Seagate 4TB Ironwolf drives, put 3 in then had a OMG moment when I saw this post. Fortunately they are PMR drives, so I guess Synology have got a clue, my point is go to the NAS manufacturer website and see what they reccommend.
My original setup was 2 x 3TB in JBOD, it was one of those things I never got round to doing properly :wallbash:, luckily I was able to recover everything, it was just a painfully slow process, that I sort of deserved for being so slack. Now have the 3 x 4TB drives set as SHR, bit the same as RAID 5.

Here is another area of this forum I don't look at enough................thanks to the OP

Peter

[Pedro_The_Swift]

Linus actually hints that WD may be accepting warranty claims,,

Hmmmm..

[BradC]

Linus actually hints that WD may be accepting warranty claims,,

Hmmmm..

they are. If you have an efax you can get it swapped for an efrx under warranty. Phone them up and make a claim.

[rar110]

Search for WD20EFRX you'll get plenty of options to buy. Buy 2 then you'll have a spare if the other old one throws in the towel later.

I finally got back to this. I have a DS213+ with two WD20EFRX, one of which as failed. So do you think buy same WD again?

[SBD4]

I finally got back to this. I have a DS213+ with two WD20EFRX, one of which as failed. So do you think buy same WD again?
There's nothing wrong with the products themselves... WDs problem was that they did not make buyers aware of the change they made to the product.

You wont have any issue buying the same brand / model...especially if you want to match your existing (working) drive. If you prefer to do a full replacement of all drives then no probs... just replace them both one at a time(dead one first) giving the system the chance to synch the data to the new drive before replacing the second one. Just make sure that you buy "CMR" drives and not "SMR".

Let me know if you have any questions....I'll try to answer them.

[rar110]

Thanks. Can I just reformat drive 1 (failed drive) to see if that fixes the problem and try to sync it again from D2?

[Eevo]

i decided to sort out all my hdd's. i have over 40tB of drives. :blink:
i need to buy a 10tB or larger as my 8tB s nearly full.:wacko:



1.5tB WD Green WD15EVDS-63V9B1 2010 x2
2tB Seagate Barracuda LP ST2000DL0001 2011 x2
3tB Hitachi H3D30003254S 2011 x2
2tB Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2012 firmware update avaliable
3tB WD Red WD30EFRX-68AX9N0 2013
3tB WD Red WD30EFRX-68AX9N0 2013 in use 2.25tB movies
4tB WD Red WD40EFRX-68WT0N0 2013 new movies to replace above
6tB WD Red WD60EFRX-68MYMN1 2015 in use 3.75tB games
8tB WD Red WD80EFZX-68UW8N0 2017 in use 8tB tvshows

[Pedro_The_Swift]

Upon advice from my learned collegues,, I have emailed UMART and asked about replacement...

will advise their response...

[Pedro_The_Swift]

i decided to sort out all my hdd's. i have over 40tB of drives. :blink:
i need to buy a 10tB or larger as my 8tB s nearly full.:wacko:



1.5tB WD Green WD15EVDS-63V9B1 2010 x2


How can you have a still working Green ?????????

[SBD4]

Thanks. Can I just reformat drive 1 (failed drive) to see if that fixes the problem and try to sync it again from D2?

It depends on the mode of failure. If the NAS sees it then you could give it a try using the tools on the NAS. If you are able to reformat, keep in mind that if it's failed once it may not be long until it goes out again.

You should be able to get a new one for $110-$140.

[Eevo]

How can you have a still working Green ?????????

i dont know. whats the problem with green?

edit: btw, the x2 means i have two of them. two working greens!

[Pedro_The_Swift]

it was told---
that they invented BLUE because so many greens died...

[Eevo]

soo many colours now days.

red
purple
blue
green
gold
black

[BradC]

How can you have a still working Green ?????????

I still have 8 of them. These ones pre-date the removal of SCT-ERC (TLER) so serve nicely in a RAID.
They are getting on in years now though, so they live in the backup box that doesn't get powered up that often (which is why the POH don't reflect the actual age).

The greens were a great drive provided you disable head parking and kept them spinning 24/7. Perfect for NAS use until WD decided to call them RED and make the greens cheaper.


/dev/sdc - WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0 - 2 years 152 days 20 hours 20 C
/dev/sdk - WDC WD20EARS-60MVWB0 - 5 years 1 days 21 hours 20 C
/dev/sdl - WDC WD20EARS-60MVWB0 - 6 years 281 days 21 hours 21 C
/dev/sdm - WDC WD20EARS-60MVWB0 - 6 years 281 days 21 hours 20 C
/dev/sde - WDC WD20EARS-60MVWB0 - 6 years 281 days 22 hours 20 C
/dev/sdh - WDC WD20EARS-60MVWB0 - 6 years 281 days 22 hours 20 C
/dev/sdi - WDC WD20EARS-60MVWB0 - 6 years 282 days 1 hours 20 C
/dev/sdj - WDC WD20EARS-60MVWB0 - 6 years 283 days 5 hours 21 C


I've a stack of Reds in service, but I've started to use Purples. Cheaper, and order of magnitude better NRE rate and come with all power saving disabled out of the box. What's not to like?

[Pedro_The_Swift]

It's all a bit hard to get these replaced.. UMART basically tried to fob me off to WD.. and either way its 4 separate returns, waiting for the replacement with my NAS inoperable, I'll probably end up buying a new drive and rotating thru the replacements,, anyone think of a better way?

[Pedro_The_Swift]

Why is power saving a bad thing ? I gather this is no spin-down ?

[Eevo]

just got myself a netgear ReadyNAS 1500 for $450
8tB :)


RAID Configuration


Configuration:
RAID Level X-RAID2, 4 disks



Status:
Recovery 67% complete, Time to finish 2 hr 24 min, Speed 70.3 MB/sec




RAID Disks:


https://192.168.1.162/images/Pix.gif


https://192.168.1.162/images/LED/OK.gif


Ch 1 : Seagate ST2000DL003-9VT166 [1863 GB]
https://192.168.1.162/images/Pix.gif



1858 GB allocated





https://192.168.1.162/images/LED/OK.gif


Ch 2 : Seagate ST2000DL003-9VT166 [1863 GB]
https://192.168.1.162/images/Pix.gif



1858 GB allocated





https://192.168.1.162/images/LED/OK.gif


Ch 3 : Seagate ST2000VN000-1H3164 [1863 GB]
https://192.168.1.162/images/Pix.gif



1858 GB allocated





https://192.168.1.162/images/LED/resync.gif


Ch 4 : Seagate ST2000VN000-1H3164 [1863 GB]
https://192.168.1.162/images/Pix.gif

[Pedro_The_Swift]

maybe 8tb's worth of drives.. storage capacity wont be anywhere near that... [smilebigeye]

[BradC]

It's all a bit hard to get these replaced.. UMART basically tried to fob me off to WD.. and either way its 4 separate returns, waiting for the replacement with my NAS inoperable, I'll probably end up buying a new drive and rotating thru the replacements,, anyone think of a better way?

Yep, call WD and *insist* on up-front replacements.

WD using SMR on REDs - Storage (https://whrl.pl/Rf5RCR)

[BradC]

Why is power saving a bad thing ? I gather this is no spin-down ?

Correct. Back in the mid 2000's I had a good conversation with a storage engineer at Maxtor. The result was "for best drive life keep them spinning and keep them warm". Where "warm" was over 25C and under ~45C. Below 20 and above 40 platter temperatures they have "trouble" writing to the platters.

When I worked out the additional power cost of keeping them spinning vs the cost of new drives, keeping them spinning was cheaper. For example, a drive costs me ~$15/yr in power. Cost of one drive is 20 years power for the drive, so the longer I keep the drive the more I'm ahead. Unless I run out of space, I'm generally replacing about every 6 years, but I absolutely replace before ~70,000 hours.

Having said that, my arrays live in a granny flat in a pair of chassis. One 15 bay and one 24 bay. Noise isn't an issue so they have decent cooling and a separate split A/C to make sure the environment doesn't exceed 30C.

One anecdotal data point for you. I'm sure there are people who have arrays with full power saving enabled and last just as long. A lot depends on usage patterns also.