How to buy used U.2 drives (and recommendations for specific models)?
- Thread starter guiniol
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It should be fine if you place the SSDs on the bottom and have a high pressure fan in the frontThanks for the search! It doesn't show me the same items when changing the domain. However, I can select items on .com and then change the domain to get details about shipping and such.
I see a lot of SAS drives that are cheaper than SATA drives. Now I need to look at SAS controllers
Now you're sending me back to U.2. It's too fast and too hot and I've been trying to figure out how to convince myself to get SATA insteadPlease don't
I have been made aware. I'm currently considering the Node 804. Any idea if that would have sufficient airflow?
Ok. I didn't realise as those are the ones I found for cheap.
Alright, thanks! I was planning on putting them in the brackets with some kind of adapter (or a 3D printed bracket?), but I guess I should be looking at an adapter to put them on the bottom.
Those went from 260 to 375 overnight. The world doesn't want me running SATA drives
Enterprise SSDs generally stay at 100% for a while, obviously depends on the particular drive model and the workload. You'd probably get a better idea by asking about lifetime writes and power on hours, but not every seller has the time and motivation to actually check.
Usually, a drive will stay at 100% health until at least one spare block has been used, or if the total writes have passed a certain percentage.
For a 1 DWPD drive, 18.25 TBW per TB of drive would be 1% of endurance. The 5210 IONs you saw are rated at about 0.8 DWPD. They are cheap because they are QLC NAND.
Thanks for the confirmation that they're probably not too good to be true.
Ack. Since I'm not looking for the most speed, mostly just silence, I think that should be fine.
I saw some Micron 5100 ECO at the same price. Would those be better?
5100 ECO isn't in the same league that ION in term of endurance. For random 4k writes 5100 ECO is rated for 0.9 DWPD vs 0.09 DWPD for the ION. ION is an unusually low endurance SSD for an enterprise drive. It should be ok for if all you do is sequential though. But when you buy a used drive, endurance isn't just about the usage you intend to do but also the usage the previous owner did.
I find that the wear level/percent used is pretty much linear with the amount of writes in general. Not sure there is a threshold.
Why do you look at the power on hours? Obviously it matters for drives affected by the 32k/40k power on hours bug, but for any other model I am always assuming that it's an irrelevant metric vs bytes written, but I don't know if it's the right assumption.
Thanks for the info. I thought it was 0.8DWPD, but didn't realise that was best case only. Looking at 5100 ECO and PM863a now.
That best case is also pretty much how you plan to use them, so not that bad, unless you plan to write more than ~5PB to each drive before the next time you upgrade.
And keeping in mind SSD prices are decreasing fast per TB, and the capacities that enterprises are buying now that will make their way to the used market (ebay) in 5-7y are humongous drives. So it might make sense not to plan for too far ahead when buyinbg your SSDs.
Unfortunately I am guilty of hoarding cheap SSD when I can find them even when I don't need them, when I know perfectly well that it would be much smarter to only buy what I need now and to expand later at much cheaper prices.
Unfortunately I am guilty of hoarding cheap SSD when I can find them even when I don't need them, when I know perfectly well that it would be much smarter to only buy what I need now and to expand later at much cheaper prices.
Me too . Hoarding cheap SSD.
I am a firm beliver of "cigar butt" , if SSD price cheap enough , have couple of years left for use.
I am 69 years old , don't need any SSD last more then me.
Couple months back , picked up 8 x Toshiba (THNSN81Q92CSE) 1.92TB SSd @49 each.
Unbelievable long life.
5 .5 years POH
128PB read
14PB written
97% life
I am a firm beliver of "cigar butt" , if SSD price cheap enough , have couple of years left for use.
I am 69 years old , don't need any SSD last more then me.
Couple months back , picked up 8 x Toshiba (THNSN81Q92CSE) 1.92TB SSd @49 each.
Unbelievable long life.
5 .5 years POH
128PB read
14PB written
97% life
Well, they're gone now, so that's moot. Found some 5100 ECO (99%+ health), 5200 ECO (unknown health for now) and PM863 (90%+ health) (will probably go for either of the two last ones because of the power draw of 4W vs 6W for the 5100 ECO, though they are more expensive). I'm actually considering a fanless build in the Streacom FC10 (love the DB4 more but find mini ITX a bit too limiting), so limiting power draw will be paramount.
Ack. I did have a question around that as I was planning to start with 5 and expand to 8 before going for larger drives but realised that upgrade would be quite expensive. So instead I am doing 6 drives and will get larger drives directly if any fails or I need more space.
So, I bought 6 3.84TB PM863a for 200 each. I wanted to check the health, but I don't see a health percent in the smartctl output, so I am wondering what I should be looking at. I ran a short test for each one and below is the output of smartctl -x --all /dev/sdd for one of the drives. I see:
What other tests should I be running to check the drives? (They're actually the first hardware to come for the NAS I'm building so I'm checking them one by one in a USB dock, so performance won't be the best).
- Percentage Used Endurance Indicator = 5 -> 95% health ?
- Number of Reported Uncorrectable Errors = 0 -> good
- Max temp = 53 -> ok
- Wear Leveling Count = 95 -> 95% health?
- Total sectors written = 2203311554681 -> 1.1PB, the drives are rated for 5.5PB
- Total sectors read = 2434445497598 -> 1.2PB, not sure if there's a rating for those
What other tests should I be running to check the drives? (They're actually the first hardware to come for the NAS I'm building so I'm checking them one by one in a USB dock, so performance won't be the best).
Code:
smartctl 7.4 2023-08-01 r5530 [x86_64-linux-6.12.1-arch1-1] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-23, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Samsung based SSDs
Device Model: SAMSUNG MZ7LM3T8HMLP-00005
Serial Number: S2TYNX0M105696
LU WWN Device Id: 5 002538 c40c0045a
Firmware Version: GXT5404Q
User Capacity: 3,840,755,982,336 bytes [3.84 TB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate: Solid State Device
Form Factor: 2.5 inches
TRIM Command: Available, deterministic, zeroed
Device is: In smartctl database 7.3/5528
ATA Version is: ACS-2, ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4c
SATA Version is: SATA 3.1, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Fri Nov 29 22:19:45 2024 CET
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
AAM feature is: Unavailable
APM feature is: Disabled
Rd look-ahead is: Enabled
Write cache is: Enabled
DSN feature is: Unavailable
ATA Security is: Disabled, NOT FROZEN [SEC1]
Wt Cache Reorder: Enabled
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x02) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (12000) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x53) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
No Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
No Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 200) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x003d) SCT Status supported.
SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 1
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAGS VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct PO--CK 100 100 010 - 0
9 Power_On_Hours -O--CK 091 091 000 - 42883
12 Power_Cycle_Count -O--CK 099 099 000 - 29
177 Wear_Leveling_Count PO--C- 095 095 005 - 369
179 Used_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Tot PO--C- 100 100 010 - 0
180 Unused_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Tot PO--C- 100 100 010 - 13156
181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total -O--CK 100 100 010 - 0
182 Erase_Fail_Count_Total -O--CK 100 100 010 - 0
183 Runtime_Bad_Block PO--C- 100 100 010 - 0
184 End-to-End_Error PO--CK 100 100 097 - 0
187 Uncorrectable_Error_Cnt -O--CK 100 100 000 - 0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel -O--CK 063 047 000 - 37
194 Temperature_Celsius -O---K 063 047 000 - 37 (Min/Max 23/53)
195 ECC_Error_Rate -O-RC- 200 200 000 - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector -O--CK 100 100 000 - 0
199 CRC_Error_Count -OSRCK 100 100 000 - 0
202 Exception_Mode_Status PO--CK 100 100 010 - 0
235 POR_Recovery_Count -O--C- 099 099 000 - 23
241 Total_LBAs_Written -O--CK 099 099 000 - 2203311554681
242 Total_LBAs_Read -O--CK 099 099 000 - 2434445497598
243 SATA_Downshift_Ct -O--CK 100 100 000 - 0
244 Thermal_Throttle_St -O--CK 100 100 000 - 0
245 Timed_Workld_Media_Wear -O--CK 100 100 000 - 65535
246 Timed_Workld_RdWr_Ratio -O--CK 100 100 000 - 65535
247 Timed_Workld_Timer -O--CK 100 100 000 - 65535
251 NAND_Writes -O--CK 100 100 000 - 3179128717312
||||||_ K auto-keep
|||||__ C event count
||||___ R error rate
|||____ S speed/performance
||_____ O updated online
|______ P prefailure warning
General Purpose Log Directory Version 1
SMART Log Directory Version 1 [multi-sector log support]
Address Access R/W Size Description
0x00 GPL,SL R/O 1 Log Directory
0x01 SL R/O 1 Summary SMART error log
0x02 SL R/O 1 Comprehensive SMART error log
0x03 GPL R/O 1 Ext. Comprehensive SMART error log
0x04 GPL,SL R/O 8 Device Statistics log
0x06 SL R/O 1 SMART self-test log
0x07 GPL R/O 1 Extended self-test log
0x08 GPL R/O 2 Power Conditions log
0x09 SL R/W 1 Selective self-test log
0x10 GPL R/O 1 NCQ Command Error log
0x11 GPL R/O 1 SATA Phy Event Counters log
0x13 GPL R/O 1 SATA NCQ Send and Receive log
0x30 GPL,SL R/O 9 IDENTIFY DEVICE data log
0x80-0x9f GPL,SL R/W 16 Host vendor specific log
0xa0 GPL VS 16 Device vendor specific log
0xce SL VS 16 Device vendor specific log
0xe0 GPL,SL R/W 1 SCT Command/Status
0xe1 GPL,SL R/W 1 SCT Data Transfer
SMART Extended Comprehensive Error Log Version: 1 (1 sectors)
No Errors Logged
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
SMART Extended Self-test Log Version: 1 (1 sectors)
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Short offline Completed without error 00% 42883 -
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Short offline Completed without error 00% 42883 -
SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
255 0 65535 Read_scanning was completed without error
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
SCT Status Version: 3
SCT Version (vendor specific): 256 (0x0100)
Device State: SCT command executing in background (5)
Current Temperature: 37 Celsius
Power Cycle Min/Max Temperature: 26/37 Celsius
Lifetime Min/Max Temperature: 23/53 Celsius
Under/Over Temperature Limit Count: 0/0
SCT Temperature History Version: 2
Temperature Sampling Period: 1 minute
Temperature Logging Interval: 10 minutes
Min/Max recommended Temperature: 0/70 Celsius
Min/Max Temperature Limit: 0/70 Celsius
Temperature History Size (Index): 128 (29)
Index Estimated Time Temperature Celsius
30 2024-11-29 01:00 38 *******************
31 2024-11-29 01:10 38 *******************
32 2024-11-29 01:20 39 ********************
33 2024-11-29 01:30 38 *******************
34 2024-11-29 01:40 38 *******************
35 2024-11-29 01:50 39 ********************
... ..( 9 skipped). .. ********************
45 2024-11-29 03:30 39 ********************
46 2024-11-29 03:40 38 *******************
47 2024-11-29 03:50 39 ********************
... ..( 5 skipped). .. ********************
53 2024-11-29 04:50 39 ********************
54 2024-11-29 05:00 40 *********************
... ..( 3 skipped). .. *********************
58 2024-11-29 05:40 40 *********************
59 2024-11-29 05:50 39 ********************
60 2024-11-29 06:00 39 ********************
61 2024-11-29 06:10 38 *******************
62 2024-11-29 06:20 39 ********************
... ..( 4 skipped). .. ********************
67 2024-11-29 07:10 39 ********************
68 2024-11-29 07:20 37 ******************
... ..( 13 skipped). .. ******************
82 2024-11-29 09:40 37 ******************
83 2024-11-29 09:50 30 ***********
... ..( 5 skipped). .. ***********
89 2024-11-29 10:50 30 ***********
90 2024-11-29 11:00 29 **********
... ..( 56 skipped). .. **********
19 2024-11-29 20:30 29 **********
20 2024-11-29 20:40 30 ***********
21 2024-11-29 20:50 29 **********
22 2024-11-29 21:00 28 *********
23 2024-11-29 21:10 28 *********
24 2024-11-29 21:20 28 *********
25 2024-11-29 21:30 ? -
26 2024-11-29 21:40 35 ****************
27 2024-11-29 21:50 36 *****************
28 2024-11-29 22:00 36 *****************
29 2024-11-29 22:10 ? -
SCT Error Recovery Control:
Read: Disabled
Write: Disabled
Device Statistics (GP Log 0x04)
Page Offset Size Value Flags Description
0x01 ===== = = === == General Statistics (rev 1) ==
0x01 0x008 4 29 --- Lifetime Power-On Resets
0x01 0x010 4 42883 --- Power-on Hours
0x01 0x018 6 2203311554681 --- Logical Sectors Written
0x01 0x020 6 76660305662 --- Number of Write Commands
0x01 0x028 6 2434445497598 --- Logical Sectors Read
0x01 0x030 6 37997628275 --- Number of Read Commands
0x01 0x038 6 1324000 --- Date and Time TimeStamp
0x04 ===== = = === == General Errors Statistics (rev 1) ==
0x04 0x008 4 0 --- Number of Reported Uncorrectable Errors
0x04 0x010 4 0 --- Resets Between Cmd Acceptance and Completion
0x05 ===== = = === == Temperature Statistics (rev 1) ==
0x05 0x008 1 37 --- Current Temperature
0x05 0x020 1 53 --- Highest Temperature
0x05 0x028 1 23 --- Lowest Temperature
0x05 0x058 1 70 --- Specified Maximum Operating Temperature
0x06 ===== = = === == Transport Statistics (rev 1) ==
0x06 0x008 4 169 --- Number of Hardware Resets
0x06 0x010 4 0 --- Number of ASR Events
0x06 0x018 4 0 --- Number of Interface CRC Errors
0x07 ===== = = === == Solid State Device Statistics (rev 1) ==
0x07 0x008 1 5 N-- Percentage Used Endurance Indicator
|||_ C monitored condition met
||__ D supports DSN
|___ N normalized value
Pending Defects log (GP Log 0x0c) not supported
SATA Phy Event Counters (GP Log 0x11)
ID Size Value Description
0x0001 2 0 Command failed due to ICRC error
0x0002 2 0 R_ERR response for data FIS
0x0003 2 0 R_ERR response for device-to-host data FIS
0x0004 2 0 R_ERR response for host-to-device data FIS
0x0005 2 0 R_ERR response for non-data FIS
0x0006 2 0 R_ERR response for device-to-host non-data FIS
0x0007 2 0 R_ERR response for host-to-device non-data FIS
0x0008 2 0 Device-to-host non-data FIS retries
0x0009 2 0 Transition from drive PhyRdy to drive PhyNRdy
0x000a 2 0 Device-to-host register FISes sent due to a COMRESET
0x000b 2 0 CRC errors within host-to-device FIS
0x000d 2 0 Non-CRC errors within host-to-device FIS
0x000f 2 0 R_ERR response for host-to-device data FIS, CRC
0x0010 2 0 R_ERR response for host-to-device data FIS, non-CRC
0x0012 2 0 R_ERR response for host-to-device non-data FIS, CRC
0x0013 2 0 R_ERR response for host-to-device non-data FIS, non-CRC
Last edited:
Wear level = Health = 100 - Percentage Used
My usual command to get everything in smartctl is "-all -l devstat -l ssd" and if the drive is sata I add "-d sat".
Usually the metrics you care about (in that order):
1) wear level
2) TBW written ( = LBA written * LBA or logical Sector Size)
3) power on hours
4) power cycle counts
CRC error I think typically is not a problem with the drive, rather with the connection if I understand
Reallocated / bad sectors: you will get some bad sectors if you have significant amount of TBW so it's not a metric in itself. What you want to watch is its evolution through time going forward.
My usual command to get everything in smartctl is "-all -l devstat -l ssd" and if the drive is sata I add "-d sat".
Usually the metrics you care about (in that order):
1) wear level
2) TBW written ( = LBA written * LBA or logical Sector Size)
3) power on hours
4) power cycle counts
CRC error I think typically is not a problem with the drive, rather with the connection if I understand
Reallocated / bad sectors: you will get some bad sectors if you have significant amount of TBW so it's not a metric in itself. What you want to watch is its evolution through time going forward.
Last edited:
Thanks! That's more concise than what I was getting.
1) wear level is about 94-96% across drives
2) TBW is about 1.1PB out of the rated 5.5PB
3) power on hours are about 46k (ie about 5 years). MTBF is 20M hours.
4) power cycles are 23-37 across drives
Ack. Something to keep an eye on then.