6TB Seagate Exos SAS - $46

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bbqdt

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Sep 15, 2019
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It seems like a great price, but the extra power for the same capacity of larger drives over years seems to outweigh the immediate savings?
 
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kpfleming

Active Member
Dec 28, 2021
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Comparing the power requirements against my WD40EFRX drives, the 6TB Exos don't draw much more except under heavy load, and my system never really has them under heavy load.
 
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nabsltd

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Jan 26, 2022
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It seems like a great price, but the extra power for the same capacity of larger drives over years seems to outweigh the immediate savings?
For me, it's about the number of spindles, amount of total storage needed, and $/TB.

I have 48 empty 3.5" bays, but have no need for 480TB raw (10TB drives). For the 6x I purchased for $240, I get 24TB usable (4x data, 1x parity, 1x spare), or $10/TB. I could have grabbed 5x 10TB drives to give me 30TB usable (3x data, 1x parity, 1x spare), but that would have cost me $700, or $23/TB.

If these 6x work out OK (no errors, easy format, etc.), then I'll grab another 12 or so, and end up with 72TB usable for only $20 more than the 5x 10TB drives.
 

UhClem

just another Bozo on the bus
Jun 26, 2012
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It seems like a great price, but the extra power for the same capacity of larger drives over years seems to outweigh the immediate savings?
In addition ["But wait, there's more!"], larger (newer) drives are typically more power efficient, just on a drive-to-drive comparison.

HGST 4TB SAS (HUS724040ALS640): Idle 7.6w, SeqRead 9.0w
HGST 10TB SAS (HUH721010AL4200): Idle 5.9w, SeqRead 7.5w

When we quantify, to highlight your point: same capacity of larger drives
(I.e., 40 TB storage - 10x 4TB vs. 4x 10TB)
Idle 76w vs 24w ; SeqRead 90w vs 30w

That's US$50+ per year!

Hitachi_7K4_SAS-Power_Usage.jpgHitachi_7K10_SAS-Power_Usage.jpg
 

FlorianZ

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Dec 10, 2019
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... larger (newer) drives are typically more power efficient, just on a drive-to-drive comparison.
I think this makes sense for newer drives, but in the same product series, smaller drives are typically more efficient than larger ones. Also, these Seagate drives are from 2018, so not crazy old. The 4TB HGST drive you mentioned as an example is from circa 2013.

If you factor density into your definition of efficiency, though, I do agree that depending on your use case you can do better than these drives. There are still plenty of cases where it makes sense to jump on this deal, though. And with all things homelab, cost savings over time are always iffy: There is no guarantee that you won't get the upgrade itch prior to the purchase "paying off" ;-)
 
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UhClem

just another Bozo on the bus
Jun 26, 2012
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I think this makes sense for newer drives, but in the same product series, smaller drives are typically more efficient than larger ones. Also, these Seagate drives are from 2018, so not crazy old. The 4TB HGST drive you mentioned as an example is from circa 2013.
...
Good points.
I wasn't trying to "slant" the comparison by cherry-picking data. I only use/buy HGST drives, and they (aka WDC :() tend to retire lower capacities from newer series. (I also had the [attached] "evidence" handy.)

Aside from the fact that this deal IS for Seagate drives, circa-2018 6TBs @$7/TB vs circa-2017/8 (hgst) 10TBs @$10/TB does warrant consideration.
 
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FlorianZ

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Dec 10, 2019
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I hear ya! HGST fanboy myself ;-) Can't beat their reliability and helium efficiency. Stocked up on the recent 8 and 10 TB deals, but you know how it goes: Can't pass up a great deal.
 
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EasyRhino

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Aug 6, 2019
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i wonder if there was some big liquidation of 6TB drives, kind of like those 10TB that come from an AT&T data center?
 
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Marsh

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May 12, 2013
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Aside from the fact that this deal IS for Seagate drives, circa-2018 6TBs @$7/TB vs circa-2017/8 (hgst) 10TBs @$10/TB does warrant consideration.
My anecdotal evidence,
Oct-Dec 2021, purchased over 60 x 6TB SAS drives, form various ebay seller. similar to this deals price range.

Got 25 x Seagates 6TB SAS drives, rest are HGST 6TB SAS.

All HGST 6TB SAS passed 4 days of badblock tests.
out of 25 x Seagate drives had 7 failed drives.
Wasted at least 10 days of life testing and trying to repair drive.

From Dec 2021 to now, I swear that I won't buy any more used Seagate SAS drives.

Here I am today , itching and thinking buying more Seagate drives.
 

FlorianZ

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Dec 10, 2019
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Received my drives from Vibrant this morning. They were nicely packaged. All of mine are dated May 2018 with just above 12000 POH. Running badblocks now.
 
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Dave Corder

Active Member
Dec 21, 2015
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I'm living on the edge and not running badblocks on the two that arrived yesterday...just slapped them straight into my array and started resilvering.

Mine came with 512b sectors (no 520 reformat needed).

And FYI...these do have Power Disable on power pin 3, so be aware if your cables or backplane supply 3.3v... (my SuperMicro backplane worked fine, my Norco backplane required the tape mod).
 
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burtonmadness

Member
Feb 19, 2015
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I have 8 arriving today. Will start to badblock them (will take a few weeks as can only do them sequentially).
Fingers crossed as I don't plan to use the drives until mid-summer and don't want to wait testing until then,.
 
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FlorianZ

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Dec 10, 2019
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Fwiw, all 4 of mine passed badblocks and a long SMART test without errors. Purchased from Vibrant.
 
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kpfleming

Active Member
Dec 28, 2021
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Pelham NY USA
Box of 10 drives arrived today from ESISO. They were packed well enough. 4 drives are installed and running badblocks tests.

As reported earlier in the thread the drives are from 2018, but they have wildly different POH: 34, 49, 4279, and 11116 (for those four drives). Hard to believe drives from 2018 have less than 50 POH...
 
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nabsltd

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Jan 26, 2022
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My 6 drives arrived from Vibrant. Well packed in a 10-disk shipping box with foam on all sides and between the drives.

I tried to start badblocks last night, but ran into the "L2/L3 cache error" on my Fujitsu C400i, and grabbed all the files to flash it to the latest Broadcom IT firmware, but had to quit for the night before the flash. I've got 8 bays on the test rig, so I should be able to run it in parallel.
 
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