8TB Seagate Expansion hard drives (STEB8000100)


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On June 11, 2017, I ordered two External USB 3 Seagate Expansion 8TB hard drives, model number STEB8000100 from Amazon.com for $179.99 each.

They arrived same-day, and I shucked them for the internal 5900 RPM SATA white-sticker Archive hard drives, model number ST8000AS0002.  (This model bare drive costs $213.98 at Amazon.)

On July 14, 2017, I ordered one more, same model number STEB8000100 from Amazon.com for $174.

It arrived today (July 16) and I shucked it to find an internal 7200 RPM SATA green-sticker Barracuda model number ST8000DM004 hard drive.  (This model bare drive costs (279.99 at Amazon, and much more at several other retailers.)

I'm putting together a 3-drive 16TB new unRAID with parity.  Should I make the 7200 RPM drive the parity drive?
It's interesting that Seagate apparently puts whatever drives they have on hand into these external drives, so you have no guarantee what's inside.  (So just BE AWARE of that if you buy externals to shuck for their internal drives.  While you can save money doing this, be aware that you've voided your warranty, but for under $175, I kind of view these things as nearly disposable.)

 

One other thing to note:  The archive drives have different screw mounting holes on the underside, separated by 3" front to back, while old drives and the Barracuda have the typical holes separated by only 1.75".  The archive drive screw holes do not line up with the mounting holes in the drive sleds in the old Antec Solo case I'm using.  I will have to find an alternative mounting system.  (I could use the suspension mount, but I prefer using the screws and the silicone grommets.)  Here's a Seagate dimensioned drawing showing the mounting hole spacing.  This spacing allows them to use slightly larger diameter platters to maximize data storage.
Kr79zc4h.jpg

Edited by Printingdude
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Interesting. It is not that unusual to hear of different drives in the externals, but I had not specifically heard of this happening with the Seagate Expansion drives. I did read that some early WD MyBook 8T externals contained HGST 8T Helium drives! That would be pretty sweet deal, warranty or not.

 

I'd tend to use the 7200 RPM drive as parity.

 

Some drives forgo the center screw position due to the number of platters inside and there not being room at the widest location for the screw hole. The front and rear screws are not affected. Since my cages (SuperMicro CSE-M35T) only use the front and back screws, I've not have any trouble. But if your cages expect that center screw hole, you'd obviously not be able to screw that one in. But you'd still be able to screw at least one screw into each side, and that may just be enough. There are also screw holes on the bottom of the drives that could possibly be used. YMMV

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7 hours ago, bjp999 said:

But you'd still be able to screw at least one screw into each side, and that may just be enough. There are also screw holes on the bottom of the drives that could possibly be used. YMMV

Yeah, it's actually the screw holes on the bottom of the drive that I'm referring to, although the middle side screw holes are also missing.  I was referring to the ones with the distance dimension on the left marked 2X 3.000±.010.  That's a 3" distance where most drives typically have the upper pair of screws (as viewed in the above diagram) a distance of 1.75" from the lower pair.  Here's the difference, highlighted:
gY6nA38h.jpg

Edited by Printingdude
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2 hours ago, bjp999 said:

One of the drive images has the connectors on the top and the other on the bottom. Visually it does appear one of the screw holes would align (or be very close). Is that not the case?

Okay, for the sake of clarity, I've edited the image to flip the drive on the right so the connectors are all on the bottom.
The salient point is that the distance between the holes on the bottom of the drive on the left are 3 inches apart, where the distance between the holes on the bottom of the drive on the right are 1.75 inches apart.
When you have a case that uses drive sleds like the Antec P180, P182, and Solo series, which come with mounting holes that mount to the bottom of the drive, and they're spaced 1.75 inches apart, you're going to need to work out a different solution if you intend to mount drives whose mounting holes are 3 inches apart.  Sample tray:
C3nuQw1h.jpg

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I modified one of the trays by drilling a new set of holes 3 inches behind the forwardmost pair.  The smaller hole that holds the grommet is 5/16" diameter, and the larger hole is 1/2" diameter.  I used a punch to set a dimple, started with a small hole, and used a drill press to first drill the 5/16" hole, then the 1/2" hole.  It works perfectly.  When I drill the second tray I'll use a stepped bit for the half-inch hole as the half-inch Ti-nitride bit liked to jam into the roughed hole before it went through completely.

As an aside, those grommets and shoulder-screws that Antec uses in these cases are ridiculously hard to find if you need more.  I had the shoulder screws in my parts bin, but I'm shy one grommet.  They're available on eBay in small quantities.  The trays (with grommets) are on eBay as well. 

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49 minutes ago, bjp999 said:

You should consider the hot-swap style cages that totally isolate your fat fingers from the cabling.

That's kind of my dream build is to have hot-swap cages.  This build is intended primarily to back up and take over for an existing v.4.5.6 unRaid with six 2TB drives for a 10TB unRaid system.  Those are in CoolerMaster 4-in-3 cages in a Centurion case, and those things are a total pain to install that way.  This new build will be just 3 drives for a 16TB unRaid system.  With just three drives I'm fine just mounting them in the provided bays in the old Antec Solo (original, not the Solo II) case that I'm re-purposing from an obsolete PC that I've retired.  The original Solo actually makes for a pretty good unRaid case with lots of drive bays up front.

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Follow-up question:  The motherboard I'm using in my new build is an MSI 760GMA-P34.

It has six SATA 3Gb/s ports and two SATA 6Gb/s ports.

 

Considering my new unRAID is 16TB in the form of two 8TB 5900 RPM archive data drives and one 8TB 7200 RPM parity drive, would it make the best sense to put the two data drives on the 6Gb/s ports and the parity drive on one of the 3Gb/s ports?  (Presuming the data drives hold mostly movies and photos and music?)  Or is it better to put the parity drive on a 6Gb/s port?  Advice welcome.

 

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