First disk fault after ten years running

TrueNAS General
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I built this box back in 2015, for about $1,100. It has been running pretty much non-stop. I’m just now seeing a first fault on one of the 8 WD Green 3TB drives. So, if they’re going to start failing, I’m wondering whether to start replacing them one at a time with a larger size, and wondering if there’s a sweet spot these days for best value. 6TB, 8TB, 10TB? WD Red, Green, Blue? Another brand? My thinking is that after replacing some number of them, I’ll decide to pull the trigger on the rest and go for the larger pool.

My old NAS box

Built in 2015
TrueNAS-13.0-U6.7
MB: Supermicro X9SCM-F
CPU: Pentium G2020 SR10H
RAM: Crucial 8GBx2 DDR3 PC3-14900 Unbuffered ECC 1.5V 1024Meg x 72
PSU: Seasonic SSR-360GP
Case: Fractal Designs R4
Boot:
SKL Tech USB 3.0 to SATA III 2.5-inch HDD/SSD UASP adapter cable
Samsung MZ-7TE1280 PM851 2.5-inch 128GB SSD (SATA6.0Gbps)
(on internal MB USB port)
Storage:
8x WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB (RAIDZ2)
IO Crest 2-port SATA III PCIe x1 card (SY-PEX40039)
(6 drives are on MB SATA ports, 2 on PCIe card)

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I don’t have time to elaborate right now, but the short answer is to avoid any drive using SMR.
SMR is a bad fit for ZFS and will likely cause issues sooner rather than later.

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To reiterate, No SMR drives, be certain the drives you order are CMR.

As for a drive to select, yo will just need to determine what is on sale for the capacity you want. I would say to not order Seagate due to the crap going on with the supply chain and the dump of the very used drives into the supply chain, but that is not Seagate at fault. Any larger capacity drive could be problematic in that respect. Once you buy the drive, verify the warranty to cover your rear.

And let me ask you this, while it would be easier to just replace eight drives, would you consider lowering the drive count to 6 drives, maybe even 4 drives? If yes, maybe take a look at 6TB to 10TB drives and RAIDZ2 or Mirrors.

Right now you have about 18TB of storage. How much more do you desire for the next 5+ years? You could jump to 24TB using six 6TB drives, or 32TB using 8TB drives. Or better yet (in my opinion and strictly personal) is four 10TB drive in RAIDZ2 for about 20TB of storage. I like using fewer drives where it makes sense as it ussd less power, and can be more cost effective.

I personally do not like the super high capacity drives due to significantly longer Resilvering speeds. However if you are looking at 18+ TB drives, again just my personal opinion, I’d do it in a 3-way mirror. Maybe you can grab three 22TB drives, this means less power consumption, quieter operation, and it just may be more desirable. Resilver times are faster with mirrors as it is just a copy event as I understand it. But I have no idea how long a 22TB drive would take to copy if it were full, but I’m sure it would be a long time, hence a 3-Way mirror, you have lots of redundancy.

Just things to think about. Do your research on what drives you prefer. I like HGST and the Seagate Ironwolf drives right now, but I can’t think of any I would not like, except anything SMR or too expensive.

Also reevaluate your storage needs. maybe they are less now and a SSD option is a realistic option.

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Last time I checked prices, the sweet spot (€/TB) was at 18-20 TB…
Browse around and see what works for you, either for a future set of 8 drives (which you might buy one by one to upgrade the existing pool as you go), or a smaller set of much larger drives (less ports, less noise, less power… but then you have to buy all drives in one go to make a new pool).

I’d say preferably NAS or Enterprise lines, or failing that Surveillance (Purple), over white label or consumer drives. But ultimately whatever goes. And do not forget Seagate and Toshiba…

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Toshiba MG series are very good and usually cheaper than WD and Seagate. Currently the 20TB sata model costs 310€ where I live.

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