There are many myths in the IT field. “You can unsubscribe from spam”, “Two antiviruses are better than one”, “Server hard drives should only be branded”. When replacing and expanding the railway fleet, it is necessary to take into account many nuances and subtleties, and this has not done without its own prejudices. What are the hard drives for servers, how do they differ, what you need to pay attention to, and whether they should be with the logo of the server manufacturer - read about this under the cut.
If the disk is installed in the server, then it must meet strict requirements for:
- Reliability. Irrecoverable data loss can result in multimillion-dollar damages and reputational losses.
- Performance. Servers are a priori designed to handle multiple requests.
- response time. Users don't have to wait for the server disk to "wake up" and process their requests.
There are four main categories (excluding SSD, SAS SSD, PCI-e SSD) of hard drives:
- SATA (normal, "household" SATA) - spindle speed 5400 and 7200 rpm.
- SATA RAID Edition (SATA RE) - 7200 rpm spindle speed, support for RAID controller commands.
- SAS Near Line (SAS NL) - spindle speed 7200 rpm.
- SAS Enterprise - spindle speed 10,000 or 15,000 rpm.
SATA or SAS?
Initially SAS interface had higher bandwidth than SATA. But progress does not stand still, and the third generation of SATA III has a maximum throughput of 6 Gb / s, like the second generation of SAS. However, servers with a third generation SAS controller are already available on the market, with throughput up to 12 Gbps
To connect SAS disks, the server must be equipped with an appropriate controller. This provides backward compatibility interfaces: you can connect SATA drives to the SAS controller, but not vice versa.
Conclusion
When choosing hard drives, you must first start from the tasks that the server will perform:- If you don't need high speed access and reliability of data storage, and the number of disks will not exceed four, we recommend setting SATA drives RAID Edition. This is an option for inexpensive servers entry level serving a small number of users.
- If the server will serve databases, or the number of disks in the array will be 5 or more, then it is better to choose SAS NL. Most often, such disks are installed in servers operating in medium-sized companies: for accounting systems, CMS, corporate repositories, etc.
- And if you need maximum performance and / or reliability of data storage, for example, when processing financial transactions, then your choice is SAS Enterprise disks. These are media for highly loaded servers serving a large number of users, as well as for systems that work with the most important data.
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1. Embedded hard drives: Keep your data safe and secure with WD's award-winning enterprise hard drives.
2. RAID: Supports levels 1 and 5 for data protection and speed.
3. Daily backup: Automatic backup and restore software allows you to keep full backups for 25 days network devices. Set up once and don't worry about it again.
4. Redundant network connection: two Gigabit Ethernet ports operate in Adaptive Fault Tolerance (AFT) mode: if one of the Ethernet ports fails, the server will automatically switch to the other.
5.Additional crash protection: Optional software data recovery after a disaster provide a connection to the cloud service and allow you to store your data remotely.
WD Sentinel is compatible with various operating systems including , Windows Vista® and Windows 7. In addition, WD Sentinel supports Mac OS X® Leopard® and Snow Leopard® and allows you to share files between operating systems. Windows systems, Mac and Unix/Linux. This makes it possible to implement sharing files when working with clients, consultants and employees working in different offices, regardless of which one operating systems they use.
WD Guardian™ Services
1.WD Guardian Express: Offers a next day replacement service after you call and includes shipping.
2.WD Guardian Pro: Includes one year support agreement, express parts replacement service and priority access to technical support.
3.Guardian Extended Care: A service that extends a product's warranty from the standard three to five years.
AT this moment WD Guardian™ services are not available in all countries, with more detailed information you can find out about the possibility of using the services on the company's website or from a local representative.
In conjunction with the launch of the WD Sentinel DX4000, WD also introduced affiliate program for small and medium businesses SelectWD, which provides support for IT professionals and system integrators working with small and medium businesses. The SelectWD program provides its small business channel partners with the right tools, training, and support to successfully market and sell WD Sentinel DX4000 servers and WD Guardian support services.
Several times we have been asked by mail the question of which disks are better to use for network storage. We will look for an answer to this question in the framework of this article.
All world production hard drives now concentrated in the hands of 4 large companies: Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and Hitachi.
It remains to sort out their lines of disks, compare them with each other and draw conclusions which of them are suitable for use in home network storages and servers, and which are not.
Western Digital is an American company and the world's largest manufacturer of hard drives for this moment. Their product line includes models for almost all market segments.
For residents of Russia, Western Digital is interesting because it provides its own warranty service in the country. If the drive fails after the end of the store warranty, but it is still covered by the manufacturer's extended warranty, then in service center WD can exchange it for the same or newer model for free. It is the only hard drive manufacturer to provide this kind of support.
HGST (Hitachi)
HGST is a division of the Japanese financial and industrial group Hitachi, engaged in the production of hard drives.
In fact, HGST was bought by Western Digital Corporation a long time ago, but for some bureaucratic reasons, the complete takeover of this company did not happen.
Therefore, HGST continues to produce a line of hard drives under its own brand to this day.
Seagate
Seagate Technology is an American manufacturer of hard drives and Western Digital's main competitor in this area.
Like Western Digital, Seagate has products for all market segments. But with technical support for Russian buyers, everything is more modest here: in case of problems with Seagate drives, all warranty issues will have to be resolved through authorized distributors.
Toshiba
Toshiba is an old and influential Japanese corporation that manufactures technical solutions in various areas. The production of hard drives is one of the many areas of activity of this corporation.
Of all the "big four" manufacturers, Toshiba pays the least attention to the marketing promotion of its hard drives and does not seek to occupy the entire market.
Comparison table
| western digital | HGST | Seagate | Toshiba | |
| Universal disk | WD Blue | No | BarraCuda | P300 , E300 , DT01XXXXXX |
| Laptop drive | WD Blue Mobile, WD Black Mobile | Travelstar | BarraCuda 2.5″ , FireCuda 2.5″ | L200 |
| Hybrid Drive (SSHD) | WD Blue SSHD | No | FireCuda | No |
| Drive for NAS | WD Red | Deskstar NAS | iron wolf | N300 |
| Disk for video surveillance | WD Purple, WD Purple NV | No | SkyHawk, SkyHawk AI | No |
| Speed drive for gaming PCs and workstations | WD Black | Ultrastar C10K1800, Ultrastar 7K6000 | BarraCuda Pro | X300 |
| Corporate class (data centers, servers and data warehouses) | WD Gold, WD RE | Ultrastar HE, Ultrastar Hs14 | Exos X, Exos E | Toshiba Enterprise HDD |
| Drives for enterprise NAS | WD Red Pro | No | IronWolf Pro | No |
I decided not to paint each line separately - this would make the article too long and unreadable. Instead, he simply brought the current series of hard drives from all four manufacturers into one table, sorting them according to the declared field of application.
Which hard drives are the most reliable
Interesting statistics on the reliability of hard drives is provided by the Californian company Backblaze. This company provides services cloud storage for businesses and individuals, and therefore buys hard drives on a huge, downright industrial scale. For several years now, Backblaze's corporate blog has been publishing quarterly reports on the failures of the drives they use.
Here, for example, is their latest report for the 3rd quarter of 2017:
Here are the statistics for the last 4 years:
What conclusions can be drawn from this report?
- First, Seagate's 4TB drives have serious reliability issues. Moreover, more capacious drives from the same Seagate already have normal, within the average market, reliability and they can be taken. But when looking for 4 TB hard drives (and at the moment this is the optimal disk size in terms of price-to-capacity ratio), it is better to choose some other manufacturer.
- Secondly, again, the example of Seagate and its 8 TB drives shows that the reliability of enterprise-class hard drives is no different from home models. Despite the fact that drives for the corporate segment are more expensive, have a longer manufacturer's warranty and are designed for more intense workloads. So we don't overpay for Enterprise disks in the hope of some special quality - it doesn't exist.
- Thirdly, if you do not run into an initially problematic model (all the same Seagate for 4 TB as an example), then the chances of losing your data due to the failure of a particular instance hard drive are extremely small even with intensive commercial use. Even less for home use with relatively light loads. And almost zero, if you make backups from time to time.
Which drive to choose
My opinion is that almost any drive will do for use in a home server or NAS. The main thing is that it should be of sufficient volume. And low-speed, which has a bad effect on the response time (but we don’t need an instant response, the server is not work station and not a gaming PC), but positively on the silence of the work.
If you don’t want to torture yourself with a choice, then just take what the manufacturer himself positions as drives for NAS.
These are the WD Red, HGST DeskStar NAS, Seagate IronWolf, Toshiba N300 drive lines.
3.5″ or 2.5″
2.5″ CDs tend to be quieter and use less power.
Their advantages include a wider scope: 2.5″ drive can be used both in a full-fledged PC / NAS / server, and together with single-board computers, mini-PCs and laptops. But a 3.5″ disk cannot be used anywhere else except in a stationary PC.
Disadvantages of 2.5″ drives - b about higher price for the same disk capacity and lower maximum capacity of the line compared to 3.5″ counterparts.
Risk diversification
It makes sense to buy drives of the same capacity, but different manufacturers. Or one manufacturer, but from different batches. Or at least in different stores and on different days.
This allows you to protect yourself from the risk of simultaneous disk failure due to the fact that:
a) there was a factory defect in one particular batch produced in one shift.
b) the entire batch of disks delivered to the store was damaged during transportation or acceptance.
Time-tested models
Don't buy CDs latest models or the maximum volume currently available.
In addition to the fact that the latest models always cost much more than their price at the start, they have not yet passed the test of time. Almost always, products that have just entered the market (we are talking not only about disks) have some kind of “childhood illnesses” that will be identified and corrected in the next revisions.
So let enthusiasts run in fresh models, and for yourself it is better to choose things that have already passed the test of time.
Conclusion
This concludes the topic of choosing hard drives for home server or NAS.
The following articles in the series will talk about RAID, encryption and other things.
The latest WD My Cloud EX4 quad NAS server has much more capacity than the regular WD My Cloud, even with four.
In addition, unlike its predecessor, the new EX4 server has more features, such as support for various RAID configurations to protect data in the event of a hard drive failure. The server also has handy hard drive bays, as well as (this is the first time I've seen it) two power connectors designed to improve reliability.
During testing, WD My Cloud EX4 was used as an advanced home storage system and a personal cloud server. Although EX4 is not the fastest server, its performance is more than enough. I was especially pleased with the speed of reading.
On the downside, WD My Cloud EX4 lags quite far behind similarly configured servers such as the Synology DiskStation DS412+ or Asustor AS-604T in terms of performance and features. In addition, the My Cloud mobile software also needs to be improved.
To make up for these shortcomings, My Cloud EX4 offers ease of setup and ease of use, unlike the competition. MSRP for the EX4 is $380 (excluding hard drives), $800 for 8TB, $950 for 12TB, and $1150 for 16TB. Not bad!
If you need a good home NAS with RAID support, mobile cloud access and easy setup, then the WD My Cloud EX4 is a great choice.
Thanks to convenient bays, you can replace hard drives in a matter of seconds!
Design and features
Among all the servers I have reviewed, WD My Cloud EX4 has the most convenient mechanism for replacing hard drives. It is worth pulling the latch, and HDD comes out with ease, and by sliding the drive back and pressing the latch, the drive will be installed. No screws - everything is easy and simple. Thanks to this design, it is possible to replace the hard drive in just a couple of seconds.
WD My Cloud EX4 supports any 3.5" hard drive. Western Digital reports that the two-year warranty will still be valid even if hard drives from other manufacturers are used. But, as you may have guessed, Western Digital naturally recommends using WD Red hard drives that are designed specifically for NAS work.
When buying a diskless version of the server, you only have to take care of the choice of hard drives. In the rest of the kits, the drives are already installed and configured to work in a RAID 5 configuration, which offers good performance, capacity and high reliability. The server also supports RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 10 modes.
According to our calculations, switching from one RAID mode to another takes the EX4 only a few minutes. You can monitor the progress of the RAID array through the small display on the front panel, which also displays the name and IP address of the server.
There are only two on the back of the EX4 server: two USB 3.0 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, and the first thing I've ever seen, two power connectors. Only one adapter is included in the package, and the second one can be purchased separately. What is it for? Everything is very simple - if one of the adapters fails or someone accidentally pulls it out of the network, the server will continue to work from the second one. If you need to increase the capacity of the server, then using USB connectors 3.0 you can also connect external rigid disks.
Easy setup
If you bought a model without hard drives, then you need to install them yourself, as well as set up RAID. Being experienced user, it won't be a problem for you. And if you purchased a model with pre-installed hard drives, then you don't even need to know what RAID is - the installation process is very similar to that of WD My Cloud.
By default, the server has three shared folders: Public, SmartWare, and Time Machine Backup. I think you can understand from the names what is stored in them. Public - various files, such as documents, photos, videos, etc., that you want to make publicly available; SmartWare - backups from computers running Windows; and Time Machine Backup are Mac backups.
Once you turn on the server and connect it to home network, all shared folders will become available to all devices connected to the network. From a PC to Windows, you can immediately view the files and copy if necessary. Mac computers will immediately recognize My Cloud EX4 as a device that can be used for Time Machine backups. And finally, all DLNA-enabled media players, such as WD TV, will also immediately find the media content stored on the server and be able to open it.
One interesting possibility is mobile app My Cloud, which you can download (iOS and Android only) and be on your home network to set up a connection to your WD My Cloud EX4. After these steps, you will be able to connect to your server even through another wifi network or 3G. It is also possible to connect a remote device to the server, such as the computer of a friend who lives in another city or country. To do this, it is enough to create a certain unique access code and send it using e-mail.
The WD My cloud EX4 web interface is well structured and very easy to use
Useful software and web interface
WD My Cloud EX4 comes with the same kit software same as WD My Cloud. The programs require no introduction and are available for Mac and Windows, with the exception of WD SmartWare, which is only available for Windows. But it is understandable, since the server natively supports working with Time Machine backups.
To change server settings, for example, enable/disable some features, add new users, etc., you need to use the server's web interface. To get to it, you need to connect from a computer by entering an IP address or by clicking on the Dashboard icon that the WD installer creates.
The interface of EX4 is very similar to that of My Cloud: well organized and intuitive; allows you to easily change server settings.
Like its predecessor, WD My Cloud EX4 supports cloud access. Function given allows you to customize remote access for each account on the server through the WDMyCloud.com online service, and also create an access code for the remote device (mentioned above).
Third party apps supported
Using the WDMyCloud.com online service, you can set up a pseudo-VPN connection over the Internet. For example, when you are traveling away from home, in another country, from a computer connected to the Internet, you can log in to WDMyCloud.com through a browser using a pre-created account and just a couple of mouse clicks create network drive The associated with the shared folder on the server. This allows you to easily move files to and from the server as if you were in your home. local network. This decision looks like a VPN connection, but it's not. Please note that the speed of data exchange depends on both the speed of Internet access on the computer and the quality of the connection on the server side.
A mobile passcode is useful if you want a friend who lives in another city to share data with you via My Cloud. Just create for him account on the server and the access code. Then you need to pass this data to him. Ready! Now your friend can use My Cloud without having to be physically next to them.
WD My Cloud EX4 supports all sorts of ways Reserve copy
Good mobile app for backup, not so good for live streaming
WD My Cloud EX4 works with exactly the same application as the regular WD My Cloud. Since my review of WD My Cloud, the application has received one update, but its functionality has remained the same.
The app allows you to remotely access shared folders, as well as to the personal folders of the current user. You can quickly and easily upload files from the NAS to mobile device, as well as back up photos and videos. This feature will be to the liking of those users who like to take pictures and shoot videos on their smartphone. With small files like photos and documents, the backup process was fast. But when I wanted to backup enough big file, for example, a 30-second video recorded on an iPad, the process was quite lengthy. But this largely depends on the quality of communication between the device and the server. For obvious reasons, redundancy works better over Wi-Fi than over cellular network.
While the backup function worked well, media content playback from the server went out of hand badly. The application only supports manual browsing through folders - there is no search. Of course, if you want to play a video, it's not difficult, but it's worth turning to music and photos ... it's just hellish torment! You go down deeper and deeper through the directory tree, and ... there is NO way back, that is, the "back" button!
Media streaming also has limitations: you can only play files supported by your mobile device. And only the music is really reproduced by the "stream"; other content, be it videos or photos, must be fully buffered first. All this makes viewing even small photos quite long, and playing video over a cellular network is completely impossible.
The WD My Cloud mobile app has a lot of potential, but it needs a major overhaul.
Plenty of backup options and support for business functions
In addition to the features of a regular WD My Cloud, the EX4 also supports several important business features, including iSCSI and Active Directory. In addition to this, the server has an Application Center from which you can download and install applications that enhance functionality.
WD My Cloud EX4 offers a variety of backup methods: you can back up content within the server itself, between the server and connected USB drives, between a computer and a server, between two EX4 servers on a local network or over the Internet, and you can set up a backup in cloud services, such as Amazon S3 or ElephantDrive.
Performance Testing
WD My Cloud EX4 was tested in RAID 5 mode. The server showed good performance - 51 MB / s when writing and 90 MB / s when reading (via a Gigabit Ethernet connection). Compared to My Cloud, EX4 was slightly slower on writes, but significantly faster on reads. Compared to other similarly configured servers, the EX4's write speed was below average, while its read speed was above average.
Given the low cost, WD My Cloud EX4 showed good performance, which is more than enough for home use. The server can easily perform multiple resource-intensive tasks at once, such as backing up multiple computers and streaming HD video via DLNA at the same time.
Conclusion
WD My Cloud EX4 is a big step up from the first WD My Cloud; offers enhanced data protection, support third party applications, convenient hard drive bays and several business features. Performance, of course, is not so high, but this is offset by ease of use and low price. At just $380 for the non-HDD version, it's two-thirds less than its closest competitor, the Synology DS412+.
pros
- RAID Support
- Integration with Windows Server
- Not bad functionality
- Access from anywhere in the world
Minuses
- Low write speed
- Unfinished mobile app
WD My Cloud EX4 is certainly not the fastest NAS, but it combines ease of use and cloud technologies, which will be very useful for a modern home.
Trademark: western digital
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WD Cloud Pro PR4100 24 TB NAS (WDBKWB0240KBK) (Black)
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