Which 2 TB drive should I buy?


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I've had 100% success with WD EADS, 7 of 7 have been perfect.

 

Recently started buying EARS drives, and not so good :(. Bought 4 EARS drives and 2 of them failed pre-clear... Got them from 2 different sources, 1 month apart...

 

That said, I will buy another EARS drive when the time comes. Guess I'm an optimist :).

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I bought (6) WD 2TB EARS drives in December 2010, (4) from Amazon and (2) from Best Buy. All were built between May 2010 and Nov 2010. All went through preclear with no errors that I know of and still working great. I made sure to put the jumpers on all of them before installation. My unRAID server is on 24/7.

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Sorry for the probably dumb question but where do you get the jumpers?  Do they possibly come with the drives?

 

No, there is no jumper with the drive. Either you get them from an old motherboard or any old device (some old drives have two jumpers on them) - or you go and buy some, here at my local computer retailer some 10 pcs. are $.50.

 

 

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Sorry for the probably dumb question but where do you get the jumpers?  Do they possibly come with the drives?

 

I bought a bag of them at Frys Electronics

LOL - You make it sound like you're planning to build a server farm.  I got a few (~10) for free from my local PC shop.

That does sound kind of funny.... The bag I bought had 10

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Is this the Hitachi 2TB some of you guys have raved about:

http://www.amazon.com/Hitachi-Deskstar-3-5-Inch-Internal-0S02861/dp/B003S6ID20/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295564755&sr=8-1

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145298

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145298R (Open box, going for $94 right now)

 

I need a few drives to get started.  I have 2 TB Samsung F3 HD203WI to get me started right now.

 

Does the Samsung HD204UI still suck?  It's only $80 and seems to have good reviews:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152245

 

Also, here are links to the WD 2TB EARS for good measure

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Intellipower-Desktop-WD20EARS/dp/B002ZCXK0I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295564393&sr=8-1

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136514

 

(none of these are affiliate links, I just thought they might be helpful.)

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Does the Samsung HD204UI still suck?  It's only $80 and seems to have good reviews:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152245

 

Yes. They still suck. They absolutely need a firmware update that you have no way of knowing if it was successfully flashed or not or if the drive has the new firmware already applied. Without the firmware update, you can suffer from silent data corruption. See the warning in my signature for the details. Also, from reading a few posts in the unRAID 4.7 beta testing thread, even during an advanced preclear the Samsung drives are significantly slower than the EARs. I don't know if any issue was found to be the cause other than just being a lesser drive.

 

For the same price or even cheaper than that, the Seagate 2TB with firmware update or WD 2TB drives seem to be the best around. I think the last deal is sold out, but you could save $10 by getting either the Seagate or WD over the Samsung and avoid the entire silent data corruption issue and slower performance issues.

 

One WD20EARS drive took 30:15:50 to clear, the second WD20EARS drive took 32:32:37 to clear.

 

One Samsung HD204UI drive took 47:43:26 to clear, the second Samsung HD204UI drive took 48:39:30 to clear.

 

No problems found in preclearing.

 

The two Samsungs took an average of 54.4 percent more time to preclear than the two WD drives.

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Does the Samsung HD204UI still suck?  It's only $80 and seems to have good reviews:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152245

Yes. They still suck. They absolutely need a firmware update that you have no way of knowing if it was successfully flashed or not or if the drive has the new firmware already applied. Without the firmware update, you can suffer from silent data corruption. See the warning in my signature for the details. Also, from reading a few posts in the unRAID 4.7 beta testing thread, even during an advanced preclear the Samsung drives are significantly slower than the EARs. I don't know if any issue was found to be the cause other than just being a lesser drive.

One WD20EARS drive took 30:15:50 to clear, the second WD20EARS drive took 32:32:37 to clear.

 

One Samsung HD204UI drive took 47:43:26 to clear, the second Samsung HD204UI drive took 48:39:30 to clear.

 

No problems found in preclearing.

 

The two Samsungs took an average of 54.4 percent more time to preclear than the two WD drives.

 

I guess that is very system specific as I have precleared my 2 Samsung HD204UI in 23h30m using the advanced preclear. I have been using them both in my 4.7 setup with no problems whatsover. Maybe I got lucky?

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I've been sitting here considering biting on the new 2TB Hitachi 5K3000 HDS5C3020ALA632. Just out on Newegg for $80 AC until 2/7. 512 byte sectors so no issues with older Unraid builds.

 

Anyway, I will probably pass until the marketplace burns in enough of these drives to identify all the issues. It's amazing how an issue was identified post-launch with virtually every 2TB consumer drive released to market so far.

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If I buy new  WD 2TB EARS drives:

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Intellipower-Desktop-WD20EARS/dp/B002ZCXK0I/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1296619298&sr=1-1

 

or

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136514

 

WITHOUT a jumper and version 4.6.1 of unRAID, am I going to be fine?

 

(Also, would you guys suggest running unRAID 4.6.1 these days or going for unRAID 5.0beta3?)

 

 

 

 

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If I buy new  WD 2TB EARS drives:

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Intellipower-Desktop-WD20EARS/dp/B002ZCXK0I/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1296619298&sr=1-1

 

or

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136514

 

WITHOUT a jumper and version 4.6.1 of unRAID, am I going to be fine?

 

(Also, would you guys suggest running unRAID 4.6.1 these days or going for unRAID 5.0beta3?)

 

 

 

 

 

Do not use 5.0b3 on a production server.  It has some nice new features but it is to immature to use reliably.

 

I wouls suggest using the 4.7 version of unRAID.

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If I buy new  WD 2TB EARS drives:

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Intellipower-Desktop-WD20EARS/dp/B002ZCXK0I/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1296619298&sr=1-1

 

or

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136514

 

WITHOUT a jumper and version 4.6.1 of unRAID, am I going to be fine?

 

(Also, would you guys suggest running unRAID 4.6.1 these days or going for unRAID 5.0beta3?)

 

 

 

 

 

4.7 does not need a jumper. 4.6.1 does need a jumper. You should use 4.7

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If I buy new  WD 2TB EARS drives:

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Intellipower-Desktop-WD20EARS/dp/B002ZCXK0I/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1296619298&sr=1-1

 

or

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136514

 

WITHOUT a jumper and version 4.6.1 of unRAID, am I going to be fine?

 

(Also, would you guys suggest running unRAID 4.6.1 these days or going for unRAID 5.0beta3?)

 

 

 

 

 

4.7 does not need a jumper. 4.6.1 does need a jumper. You should use 4.7

Neither version "needs" a jumper,  There never was a version 4.6.1.  It was named 4.7 because of the changes to accommodate the 4k-aligned sectors.

 

Your statement was somewhat correct on version 4.6. The jumper will help performance on small files IF the partition is not 4k-aligned.  4.6 may not get as good performance with small files ( < 4k ) as in 4.7 but many people have used the drive without a jumper in version prior to 4.7 with no effect on their watching of movies, or playing music.  In other words, the bottleneck is more often elsewhere, not the partition alignment.

 

If you use 4.7, and If you set the MBR 4k-aligned option in the settings, then you'll get the best performance from the drive if you set it up from the start for a 4k-aligned partition, but... it is not "needed" to use the drive.

 

All that said, if setting up a new array, use 4.7.  It has other bug fixes you do want to eliminate kernel-oops preset in the 4.6 series.

 

Joe L.

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There is a new green Hitachi drive that should be added to the list. Might be the best of the bunch. See thread in good deals forum.

 

I too am excited about the new Hitachi green drive, but I figure we should have at least one person actually test it with unRAID before adding it to the list.  As soon as there are positive results, then I'm happy to add it (or you can too, Mr. Moderator ;))

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There is a new green Hitachi drive that should be added to the list. Might be the best of the bunch. See thread in good deals forum.

 

I too am excited about the new Hitachi green drive, but I figure we should have at least one person actually test it with unRAID before adding it to the list.  As soon as there are positive results, then I'm happy to add it (or you can too, Mr. Moderator ;))

 

Was using my cell phone which has a limited browser.  But the OP was from you, and I wouldn't want to edit your post.  One of the JBUM rules.  ;)

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I've been sitting here considering biting on the new 2TB Hitachi 5K3000 HDS5C3020ALA632. Just out on Newegg for $80 AC until 2/7. 512 byte sectors so no issues with older Unraid builds.

 

Anyway, I will probably pass until the marketplace burns in enough of these drives to identify all the issues. It's amazing how an issue was identified post-launch with virtually every 2TB consumer drive released to market so far.

 

I considered this drive also, but the CoolSpin stuff really throws me off. Usually that tells me it is a bad performing drive and Hitachi doesn't want to advertise it that way.

 

 

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There is a new green Hitachi drive that should be added to the list. Might be the best of the bunch. See thread in good deals forum.

 

I too am excited about the new Hitachi green drive, but I figure we should have at least one person actually test it with unRAID before adding it to the list.  As soon as there are positive results, then I'm happy to add it (or you can too, Mr. Moderator ;))

 

I have 2 on the way courtesy of a customer willing to try them out as they were one sale.  Will see how it goes!

 

Let me know if there are any specific tests you want my to perform.

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Newegg is selling the WD 2TB EADS for $90 right now.

 

WD 2TB EADS - $90

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136344&Tpk=wd20eads

 

HITACHI Deskstar 5K3000 HDS5C3020ALA632 - $90 after Rebate

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145475&Tpk=HDS5C3020ALA632

 

Is there any reason not to go with the WD 2TB EADS that I linked to?  Is there something special about the Hitachi that I should wait for some reviews on it?

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