"Shucked" drives with hardware RAID?

[jcl333]

Hello all,

I know that due to firmware issues in regards to recovering from errors that it is a bad idea to put regular consumer drives behind a hardware RAID.
As I understand it, the WD_RED drives for example, exist partially because of this, and have RAID-friendly firmware.

Now, when it comes to "shucked" drives that *appear* to be WD_RED drives but do not specifically say so, is this an issue?

Is there an actual way to tell if you have the right firmware to be able to safely do RAID?

I just want to know to decide which way to go. I have a bunch of 10TB shucked drives, if I can use them with RAID great. If not, I will go the ZFS or ReFS router.

Thanks

-JCL

 

[i386]

I don't think there is enough official information about the different firmware to say what should work in a raid configuration. Get enough drives for data + backups and try it. I say that as somebody who used to run wd 3tb caviar greens in a raid 5 for years

If not, I will go the ZFS or ReFS router.

I think there was a discussion about raid/nas drives in software raid and if the same logic applies to them as for hardware raid...
"Raid" friendly firmware means that the reponse times for failures are shorter and that the drive doesn't try to repair itself but reports it to the next layer (raid controller/zfs logic etc.).

 

[jcl333]

I don't think there is enough official information about the different firmware to say what should work in a raid configuration. Get enough drives for data + backups and try it. I say that as somebody who used to run wd 3tb caviar greens in a raid 5 for years


I think there was a discussion about raid/nas drives in software raid and if the same logic applies to them as for hardware raid...
"Raid" friendly firmware means that the reponse times for failures are shorter and that the drive doesn't try to repair itself but reports it to the next layer (raid controller/zfs logic etc.).

When you say you ran them in RAID for years, was it an actual hardware RAID like LSI? Things like Synology or QNAP use software RAID.

-JCL

 

[i386]

Hardware raid, adaptec 6805

 

[Netwerkz101]

I am not up to speed on this .... back in the days of using hardware RAID with consumer drives,
as long as you could set error recovery values, it was deemed "safe".

Again ... i am going back in time to when TB drives didn''t exist (or were not mainstream anyways).

SmartMonTools??? (SmartCTL) ... might show/set values ... you should try it on your shucked RED.
Not sure if the tools that come with today's spinners have the utilities like they used to.

I am at a point where I would simply get enterprise grade drives for a hardware RAID setup.
Then there is the whole CMR/SMR thing ..... forget it .. just get the right drives for the job if you really care about endurance/reliability.

 

[jcl333]

I am not up to speed on this .... back in the days of using hardware RAID with consumer drives,
as long as you could set error recovery values, it was deemed "safe".

Again ... i am going back in time to when TB drives didn''t exist (or were not mainstream anyways).

SmartMonTools??? (SmartCTL) ... might show/set values ... you should try it on your shucked RED.
Not sure if the tools that come with today's spinners have the utilities like they used to.

I am at a point where I would simply get enterprise grade drives for a hardware RAID setup.
Then there is the whole CMR/SMR thing ..... forget it .. just get the right drives for the job if you really care about endurance/reliability.

Yes, it's fine, I have tons of enterprise SAS spinners and SSDs, I just also have these shucked drives, just trying to decide what the best thing to do with them is. Maybe I do ZFS, maybe ReFS, maybe I sell them.....