Using shucked 16TB drives for TrueNAS Mirror...?

TrueNAS General
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I haven’t bought a new 3.5" HDD in years, and of course capacities are bigger than ever now with different lines/qualities/purposes for the drives.

My setup:

  • New Terra Master F4-425 Plus (empty, replacing an ancient Synology NAS)

  • TrueNAS installed

  • Idea is starting with 2x drives in mirror with 2 free bays for future usage.

  • Storage is for 99% my own photography + videography, currently ~5TB

  • I am the only user of the NAS. If I had to guess, AVERAGE of ~2-4hrs/day?

  • I already employ the 3-2-1 backup strategy

Prices on HDDs have been increasing in line with the whole AI fiasco, so I’m torn between grabbing my drives ASAP and get everything set up, or waiting for a deal or something.

Well a deal on the 16TB Seagate external popped up (STKP16000400) and I grabbed 2. It was from Best Buy and it seems returns are only for unopened, which makes pre-shucking tricky. But looking online I’m seeing reports that all the larger capacities were Exos, but now maybe more Barracudas? I feel like if it’s NOT Barracuda, I have no worries with shucking - right?

If it is - I’m less sure… assuming it IS a Barracuda inside - keep or return?

  • The data sheet for the 16TB seems to show it’s CMR, which is good? (https://www.seagate.com/ca/en/products/hard-drives/barracuda-hard-drive/)… so I don’t think there’s any risk of getting SMR?

  • Workload rate limit of 120TB/year seems totally within my needs? At only 5TB and “slowly growing”, it’s not like I’m frequently creating and deleting 4K content or such.

  • Seems the power-on hours is maybe the largest concern? 2,400/yr is far below a NAS sitting online 24/7, even if not being accessed constantly?

  • Have also heard NAS drives are designed to fail a read whereas consumer keep trying? But I don’t know if this actually matters in my use case being the only user?

Ideally the TrueNAS ZFS platform helps keep the drive errors in check and corrects problems, but I also don’t want to have a drive that is just proactively failing because it’s doing what it’s not designed to do? Even if most of that time is just sitting there idle?

I got the drives on sale for CAD $280 each and outside of black friday/holiday sales I don’t even know if that sort of price/TB will pop up again - especially for a different/better “quality” drive?

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I think I would take the chance on the drive shucking. You said you do proper backup and you can just be prepared to replace with NAS drives in case of failure going forward. What is your increased cost for you to get NAS drives ?

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Well I don’t “need” 16TB - that’s what was on sale. Was considering 12+.

Looks like a current 12TB WD Red/IronWolf is approx $380 CAD. So $100 more for 4TB less.

But prices are so wonky right now with the AI stuff. So next week there might be an attractive sale, or prices may jump and set a new low bar.

Looks like RAM and video cards (more directly used for AI) have already had significant jumps. Mostly looks like HDDs have creeped up in price/become out of or low stock.

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As long as you are getting CMR type drives. That’s the big issue with ZFS

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Do not assume. Plug the USB drive to something and get the model number of what’s inside.

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I think the problem is more the package needs to be unopened to be returned.

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Do not assume. Plug the USB drive to something and get the model number of what’s inside.

I think the problem is more the package needs to be unopened to be returned.

Yes exactly this. IF it’s an Exos, then I’m basically golden. Got a good quality drive at a great price.

Otherwise, I think it basically has to be a Barracuda. And so, since I can’t open the packaging up to check, I’m wondering about best way to proceed ASSUMING it’s a barracuda… is it still worth it?

The price is still good, but I don’t know enough about how modern non-NAS drives perform in a 24/7 (but low usage) NAS environment.

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If, as it seems, the 16 TB Barracuda is the lower end of the hardware platform to which the 24+ TB HAMR Barracuda/Exos belong, it is golden.
Worst case, on the used market the open box product is worth at least as much as what you paid… These Black Friday deals are over, and may or may not come back next winter.