WD Red SSD

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Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
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Specs ok for a sata drive but price is a bit steep, you can get enterprise drives for 2/3rd the price (sata) and even if warranty is a bit not confirmed you can just buy more.

For me I wound want the it to be $100/TB

You can buy Samsung 860 evo for $100/TB new... and used (lightly) other drives like micron or sandisk for less.
 

Jeff Robertson

Active Member
Oct 18, 2016
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Chico, CA
I've had quite a few issues with non enterprise drives when used in various configurations. I don't know anything about the WD RED SSDs but unless they can handle steady state writes without falling flat after a short period of time they will have limited usefulness. Of course their red line has always been made for multi drive arrays so hopefully they will act more like enterprise drives than consumer drives. Also Evan is spot on, used or old new stock enterprise drives are cheaper :).
 

ullbeking

Active Member
Jul 28, 2017
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London
Also Evan is spot on, used or old new stock enterprise drives are cheaper :).
I agree with @Jeff Robertson but if this is for work just buy new ones with a proper warranty. If it is for personal use consider buying from a white box vendor who will at least give you some kind of warranty.
 

Ryushin

New Member
Nov 7, 2019
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Anyone know if the WD Red SSD supports DRAT (deterministic read after trim) and RZAT (read zeros after trim)?
 

Ryushin

New Member
Nov 7, 2019
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3
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Just got a reply back from Western Digital and they said the SA500 supports DRAT and RZAT.
 

Mithril

Active Member
Sep 13, 2019
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Mini article here here: Western Digital Launches WD Red SA500 Caching SSDs for NAS

Highlights: Very much intended as cache drive is prosumer/SOHO NAS devices/systems; Write and mixed workload optimized; TLC NAND.

Too bad they don't come in NVMe (the M.2 are SATA only it looks like)

On a related note, has anyone looked into modified firmware to operate an SSD in full SLC mode? Just curious with a modern controller how good you could get "worst case" IO.
 

Ryushin

New Member
Nov 7, 2019
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I only ordered one drive to make sure it supports DRAT and RZAT:

WD Red SA500 2TB SSD hdparm results:
hdparm -I /dev/sdr

/dev/sdr:

ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: WDC WDS200T1R0A-68A4W0
Serial Number: <removed>
Firmware Revision: 411000WR
Media Serial Num:
Media Manufacturer:
Transport: Serial, ATA8-AST, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5, SATA Rev 2.6, SATA Rev 3.0
Standards:
Used: unknown (minor revision code 0x005e)
Supported: 11 10 9 8 7 6 5
Likely used: 11
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 0
heads 16 0
sectors/track 63 0
--
LBA user addressable sectors: 268435455
LBA48 user addressable sectors: 3907029168
Logical Sector size: 512 bytes
Physical Sector size: 512 bytes
Logical Sector-0 offset: 0 bytes
device size with M = 1024*1024: 1907729 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 2000398 MBytes (2000 GB)
cache/buffer size = unknown
Form Factor: 2.5 inch
Nominal Media Rotation Rate: Solid State Device
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
Queue depth: 32
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 1 Current = 1
Advanced power management level: 254
DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=120ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled Supported:
* SMART feature set
Security Mode feature set
* Power Management feature set
* Write cache
* Look-ahead
* WRITE_BUFFER command
* READ_BUFFER command
* DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
* Advanced Power Management feature set
* 48-bit Address feature set
* Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
* FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
* SMART error logging
* SMART self-test
* General Purpose Logging feature set
* 64-bit World wide name
* WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE_EXT command
* {READ,WRITE}_DMA_EXT_GPL commands
* Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
unknown 119[8]
* Gen1 signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
* Gen2 signaling speed (3.0Gb/s)
* Gen3 signaling speed (6.0Gb/s)
* Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
* Phy event counters
* READ_LOG_DMA_EXT equivalent to READ_LOG_EXT
* DMA Setup Auto-Activate optimization
Device-initiated interface power management
Asynchronous notification (eg. media change)
* Software settings preservation
Device Sleep (DEVSLP)
* SANITIZE feature set
* BLOCK_ERASE_EXT command
* DOWNLOAD MICROCODE DMA command
* WRITE BUFFER DMA command
* READ BUFFER DMA command
* Data Set Management TRIM supported (limit 8 blocks)
* Deterministic read ZEROs after TRIM
Security:
Master password revision code = 65534
supported
not enabled
not locked
not frozen
not expired: security count
supported: enhanced erase
2min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 2min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT.
Logical Unit WWN Device Identifier: 5001b448b190bded
NAA : 5
IEEE OUI : 001b44
Unique ID : 8b190bded
Device Sleep:
DEVSLP Exit Timeout (DETO): 30 ms (drive)
Minimum DEVSLP Assertion Time (MDAT): 30 ms (drive)
Checksum: correct


Made a zpool with one drive, trim is supported behind a LSI 9300-8i SAS HBA:
zpool status -t wdssd_tank
pool: wdssd_tank
state: ONLINE
scan: none requested
config:

NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
wdssd_tank ONLINE 0 0 0
ata-WDC_WDS200T1R0A-68A4W0_<removed> ONLINE 0 0 0 (untrimmed)

# zpool trim wdssd_tank
# zpool status -v wdssd_tank
pool: wdssd_tank
state: ONLINE
scan: none requested
config:

NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
wdssd_tank ONLINE 0 0 0
ata-WDC_WDS200T1R0A-68A4W0_<removed> ONLINE 0 0 0 (trimming)

zpool status -t wdssd_tank
pool: wdssd_tank
state: ONLINE
scan: none requested
config:

NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
wdssd_tank ONLINE 0 0 0
ata-WDC_WDS200T1R0A-68A4W0_<removed> ONLINE 0 0 0 (100% trimmed, completed at Sat 07 Dec 2019 01:26:43 PM MST)

So all is good. Going to order five more of these now.
 
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Ryushin

New Member
Nov 7, 2019
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Looks like there may be an issue with the SA500 drives. The drives have been randomly disconnecting. I've opened a support case with Western Digital. The contents of my support case:

Running Debian Linux with Kernel 4.9 and ZFS 0.8.2. Have six SA500 2.5" 2TB drives in a raidz2. Have this SuperMicro Chassis with a SAS3 Backplane connected with a LSI 9300-8i controller.
SC847BE1C-R1K28LPB | 4U | Chassis | Products | Super Micro Computer, Inc.

Drives appear to disconnect randomly from a LSI 9300-8i SAS3 controller during normal operation. A disconnect can be made to happen quickly by running the command "zpool trim rpool" and the SA500 the drives will disconnect from the backplane within minutes. Only by limiting the trim to 100MB/s will the trim finish with "zpool trim -r 104857600 rpool".

I'll post any feedback I receive from Western Digital.
 

Ryushin

New Member
Nov 7, 2019
17
3
3
Looks like there may be an issue with the SA500 drives. The drives have been randomly disconnecting. I've opened a support case with Western Digital. The contents of my support case:

Running Debian Linux with Kernel 4.9 and ZFS 0.8.2. Have six SA500 2.5" 2TB drives in a raidz2. Have this SuperMicro Chassis with a SAS3 Backplane connected with a LSI 9300-8i controller.
SC847BE1C-R1K28LPB | 4U | Chassis | Products | Super Micro Computer, Inc.

Drives appear to disconnect randomly from a LSI 9300-8i SAS3 controller during normal operation. A disconnect can be made to happen quickly by running the command "zpool trim rpool" and the SA500 the drives will disconnect from the backplane within minutes. Only by limiting the trim to 100MB/s will the trim finish with "zpool trim -r 104857600 rpool".
I upgraded the LSI 9300-8i BIOS and the firmware to the latest version 16.00.10.00 which was released on October 18th, 2019, and for the first time last night the drives were not kicked out and I saw no signs of errors. The Broadcom file contain firmware version 16.00.10.00 and BIOS version 8.37.00.00.
 
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Ryushin

New Member
Nov 7, 2019
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3
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How's it working otherwise for you ruse case?
Well, hard to say. I've been very paranoid about the data that was on the six drive raidz2. I've been using zfs send/receive every day to another pool as protection. Today is the first day that I've thought I would not have to return the drives.

My use case for the WD Red SA500 SSDs is for a root zfs pool with a very large cyrus mail spool, plexmediaserver, a half dozen virtual machines, web server, and other mail server bits. One of my requirements was for the SSDs to work behind a LSI 9300-8i HBA and have proper trim support and there are not many drives in the price range of the SA500 that can do that. Only other one I can think of off hand is the Samsung 860 EVO and after that, the price goes way up. With that in mind, and the endurance rating of the SA500's being a bit higher than the Samsung EVO 860, I'm thinking they will work quite well for my intended task. Of course the performance of the root pool is far higher with the SSDs than the six 10K 1.6TB 2.5" drives they replace.

Overall, for right now, I'm pleased. I don't see that changing unless some kind of issue crops up with the newer firmware and bios used in the LSI 9300-8i HBA.
 
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