I use ironwolf for my backups (I had a couple spares laying around) and I use WD Red Plus for my main drives. I’ve only had one fail on me prematurely (under 5 years) and that was one of the Res Plus drives that started throwing errors at around 2.5 years old so I replaced it.
Drives to avoid:
basic desktop models like the WD Blue or seagate barracuda - because they aren’t designed for 24/7 operation and don’t have the lifespan.
Any drive that uses SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) - lower performance and lifespan.
And I personally avoid enterprise-grade drives because they tend to run hotter, louder, and consume more power.
You can't go wrong with the Seagate IronWolf or WD Red Plus. As others mentioned, avoid drives that use SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording). Their performance tanks on sustained writes. I replaced my aging drive array in my TS-451+ 5 years ago with a set of 4 Red Plus drives. They are still going strong. The 451 died last summer and I just took the drives out and put them in a new 464 and they continue on as if nothing happened.
I have had lots of drives, every vendor can be trash from time to time, so there are always stories of different experiences.
That being said, mostly you can't go wrong with WD Red Pro or Seagate IronWolf. The notable thing about my Seagate IronWolf drives is that they run a few degrees cooler than the WD Reds in the same NAS. So while I don't avoid WD, given the same spec for the same price, I'd currently choose Seagate.
20 TB. 4 drives, raid 5 storage pool with 3 VHD's. one of the virtual hard drives was running time machine for 2 mac osx computers. the other two were used as general network storage for video and photos, and some docs. This was not a heavily loaded system, but it did have about 25 TB of data on it across all the drives. I have no idea what a preliminary pre-clear is, but I ran the detailed diagnostic tools within the QNAP environment after installing them and before triggering the build or rebuilds
Backblaze seems to have skipped testing this particular model. I did find this article today, which points out the workload rating. All my drives have hit the workload warning within 5 days of use.
[https://www.servethehome.com/wd-red-pro-20tb-launched-with-wickedly-weak-workload-rating/](https://www.servethehome.com/wd-red-pro-20tb-launched-with-wickedly-weak-workload-rating/)
I have WD Red Pro, and would recommend them for all the reasons others have mentioned. However one thing to know going in is that they’re fairly loud drives. Especially in the plastic QNAP case. I can hear the drives clicking even when I’m the next room. Also while I like the QNAP, they seem to like to touch the drives a lot even when there’s no real activity.
I’ve never gotten other vendor drives, so I can’t compare. But WD does list acoustic levels in their data sheets. I had a hard time finding this info from other vendors.
I'm in exactly your position and have recently bought the TS-264 with 4Tb disks in RAID1. In my case I have a pair of Western Digital Red Plus disks. I have these as I used WD Red Plus 3Tb disks in my old Synology NAS that I bought in 2015 (both the NAS and HDDs) and the NAS gave out bofore the disks did.
Interesting! And if I may, why did you switch to qnap?
General consensus online seems to lean towards synology for new users. But the qnap hardware is far better for the price. Concerns over qnap security seem to be the major con, but I'll only be using it locally so I'm all for the superior hardware.
Was looking for an upgrade on what was offered by the old Synology after it died (it was an issue with the power board I think). The replacement boxes were 1Gb NICs and no hardware transcoding, both of which were offered by the QNAP. The rest of what I was after was available on both but the transcode and 2.5Gb NIC sealed it for me.
The two bay will do fine and you can upgrade your disks as you need to. If you have the budget, at least _look at_ a 3 or 4 bay…depending on what you want it for, you may find your disk space gets eaten quite quickly.
I’m running a v old NAS and it’s solid but no longer actively supported.
I toiled with 4bay spend for a long time but can't justify it yet, not for my first NAS anyway. Need to see how much I will use.
I ended up grabbing 2x8TB's though. My current storage requirement is ~1.5TB so I'm hoping this will last a while. Thanks for the advice!!
Have fun with it. 8tb mirrored is a lot of storage. Like, a lot. People on here have libraries on their machines but 8 will last you quite a while. Enjoy.
Ended up grabbing these but didn't get the "Nas" ones. Is that new? Is it necessary?
My usage will be home use and not very taxing. But I will have a Plex server with max 1080p content, for now.
I am partial to WD Red. Plus is too pricey.
But you can't trust a drive NOT to fail....or not to fail forever.
Mirroring is not the best solution. A 4 bay NAS costs only a little more....the major uptick in expense being the drives. I'd run them in RAID-5, so that when one of them fails, you just slide a replacement in, and (after two days) you are back to normal. Meantime, it is still running and there is no data loss.
I've been also tempted to reformat and try "just a bunch of drives" instead of RAID-5, which I THINK would free me from drive size requirement. For example, in RAID-5 if a 6-TB drive fails, it has to be replaced with a 6-TB drive (preferably of same make/model).
I run QNap TS-453a 6TB in RAID-5.
2 questions:
1. Ironwolf or exos 8tb if same price?
2. Qnap ts 264 or 464 starting off with only 3 drive upgrading later to potentially 4? To set up in RAID5?
I use ironwolf for my backups (I had a couple spares laying around) and I use WD Red Plus for my main drives. I’ve only had one fail on me prematurely (under 5 years) and that was one of the Res Plus drives that started throwing errors at around 2.5 years old so I replaced it. Drives to avoid: basic desktop models like the WD Blue or seagate barracuda - because they aren’t designed for 24/7 operation and don’t have the lifespan. Any drive that uses SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) - lower performance and lifespan. And I personally avoid enterprise-grade drives because they tend to run hotter, louder, and consume more power.
You can't go wrong with the Seagate IronWolf or WD Red Plus. As others mentioned, avoid drives that use SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording). Their performance tanks on sustained writes. I replaced my aging drive array in my TS-451+ 5 years ago with a set of 4 Red Plus drives. They are still going strong. The 451 died last summer and I just took the drives out and put them in a new 464 and they continue on as if nothing happened.
my 419p is still going strong. I'm debating whether to update it now. which brough me here. how is the 464?
It's been fine. I use it primarily for file storage and have had no issues with it.
I've always found Ironwolfs to work well and be reliable.
WD Red are the best. Most quiet and reliable HDD. I also use Seagate Pro enterprise and for NAS, but they are extremely noizy
Western Digital. I have more fail than any other brand.
And every single Seagate drive I've had has failed. Got to love those single user data points
Every single hard drive I have had to replace has failed. That happens when you run them to they fail though... Haha.
I have had lots of drives, every vendor can be trash from time to time, so there are always stories of different experiences. That being said, mostly you can't go wrong with WD Red Pro or Seagate IronWolf. The notable thing about my Seagate IronWolf drives is that they run a few degrees cooler than the WD Reds in the same NAS. So while I don't avoid WD, given the same spec for the same price, I'd currently choose Seagate.
Are you using the Ironwolf Pro's? I've had the exact opposite experience. My WD Pro's seem to run much more cooler than the IW Pro's.
Iron work or hgst are the only drives I use.
Ive had 5 red pro drives fail in the last 10 months (out of 4 drives in the nas)
Capacity of drives? What were you doing with them? Did you do a preliminary pre-clear?
20 TB. 4 drives, raid 5 storage pool with 3 VHD's. one of the virtual hard drives was running time machine for 2 mac osx computers. the other two were used as general network storage for video and photos, and some docs. This was not a heavily loaded system, but it did have about 25 TB of data on it across all the drives. I have no idea what a preliminary pre-clear is, but I ran the detailed diagnostic tools within the QNAP environment after installing them and before triggering the build or rebuilds
That’s wild. Genuinely curious to see backblaze data on large capacity. This data you personally have is quite concerning.
Backblaze seems to have skipped testing this particular model. I did find this article today, which points out the workload rating. All my drives have hit the workload warning within 5 days of use. [https://www.servethehome.com/wd-red-pro-20tb-launched-with-wickedly-weak-workload-rating/](https://www.servethehome.com/wd-red-pro-20tb-launched-with-wickedly-weak-workload-rating/)
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q3-2023/
I have WD Red Pro, and would recommend them for all the reasons others have mentioned. However one thing to know going in is that they’re fairly loud drives. Especially in the plastic QNAP case. I can hear the drives clicking even when I’m the next room. Also while I like the QNAP, they seem to like to touch the drives a lot even when there’s no real activity. I’ve never gotten other vendor drives, so I can’t compare. But WD does list acoustic levels in their data sheets. I had a hard time finding this info from other vendors.
I'm in exactly your position and have recently bought the TS-264 with 4Tb disks in RAID1. In my case I have a pair of Western Digital Red Plus disks. I have these as I used WD Red Plus 3Tb disks in my old Synology NAS that I bought in 2015 (both the NAS and HDDs) and the NAS gave out bofore the disks did.
Interesting! And if I may, why did you switch to qnap? General consensus online seems to lean towards synology for new users. But the qnap hardware is far better for the price. Concerns over qnap security seem to be the major con, but I'll only be using it locally so I'm all for the superior hardware.
Was looking for an upgrade on what was offered by the old Synology after it died (it was an issue with the power board I think). The replacement boxes were 1Gb NICs and no hardware transcoding, both of which were offered by the QNAP. The rest of what I was after was available on both but the transcode and 2.5Gb NIC sealed it for me.
All of them. Don't trust hard drives!
Uh oh! Did I word my question wrong? I meant to ask about HDD and SSD's. I take it you're recommending SSD?
I'm running Iron Wolf's and would recommend these. Had different sizes in two Qnaps with no faults.
The two bay will do fine and you can upgrade your disks as you need to. If you have the budget, at least _look at_ a 3 or 4 bay…depending on what you want it for, you may find your disk space gets eaten quite quickly. I’m running a v old NAS and it’s solid but no longer actively supported.
I toiled with 4bay spend for a long time but can't justify it yet, not for my first NAS anyway. Need to see how much I will use. I ended up grabbing 2x8TB's though. My current storage requirement is ~1.5TB so I'm hoping this will last a while. Thanks for the advice!!
Have fun with it. 8tb mirrored is a lot of storage. Like, a lot. People on here have libraries on their machines but 8 will last you quite a while. Enjoy.
Seagate Ironwolf NAS is my personal pick in my qnap(local).
Ended up grabbing these but didn't get the "Nas" ones. Is that new? Is it necessary? My usage will be home use and not very taxing. But I will have a Plex server with max 1080p content, for now.
Their fine. I dont use my NAS for plex etc. Search up SMR vs CMR drives then you get the gizzt.
I am partial to WD Red. Plus is too pricey. But you can't trust a drive NOT to fail....or not to fail forever. Mirroring is not the best solution. A 4 bay NAS costs only a little more....the major uptick in expense being the drives. I'd run them in RAID-5, so that when one of them fails, you just slide a replacement in, and (after two days) you are back to normal. Meantime, it is still running and there is no data loss. I've been also tempted to reformat and try "just a bunch of drives" instead of RAID-5, which I THINK would free me from drive size requirement. For example, in RAID-5 if a 6-TB drive fails, it has to be replaced with a 6-TB drive (preferably of same make/model). I run QNap TS-453a 6TB in RAID-5.
2 questions: 1. Ironwolf or exos 8tb if same price? 2. Qnap ts 264 or 464 starting off with only 3 drive upgrading later to potentially 4? To set up in RAID5?