NAS hard drives vs standard ??

digitaldreams · 10 Dec 2019 at 13:56

Thinking of upgrading my 6tb hard drive to 8tb or higher.

Looking on OC I keep seeing 'NAS' network storage drives at the higher end. What is the difference between these and standard drives ?, do they still have standard power and SATA sockets ?. Reliability and low idle power are important to me, I can certainly halve the idle power looking at specs of one NAS drive...

Thanks in advance !

digitaldreams · 13 Dec 2019 at 12:43

Anyone ?

rhysduck · 13 Dec 2019 at 12:48

This is a good read:
https://blog.synology.com/xmas-wishlist-why-choose-nas-drives-over-desktop-drives-for-your-nas/

But basically to answer your question NAS drives are designed for constant read/write 24/7. They supposedly have better anti-vibration features and are more heat resistant.

The SATA and Power connectors are identical to a normal desktop drive though.

digitaldreams · 13 Dec 2019 at 12:55

rhysduck said:
This is a good read:
https://blog.synology.com/xmas-wishlist-why-choose-nas-drives-over-desktop-drives-for-your-nas/

Thanks !. So higher reliability hopefully.

But basically to answer your question NAS drives are designed for constant read/write 24/7. They supposedly have better anti-vibration features and are more heat resistant.

The SATA and Power connectors are identical to a normal desktop drive though.

Audigex · 15 Dec 2019 at 23:30

In theory they're designed for more continuous (24/7) workloads, and for higher numbers of read/write cycles. In practice if you take them apart there don't seem to be any obvious differences, but it may simply be that the materials are a little more expensive and thus better at handling heat/vibration, or that they're machined more precisely to reduce vibration etc.

From a user point of view, though, that's mostly irrelevant and just translates as "usually has a better warranty, might fail a bit less often"

As long as you're following a 3-2-1 backup regime, it's not a big deal - drives are cheap enough already and by the time one fails, it's usually pretty cheap to replace it anyway.

andy_mk3 · 15 Dec 2019 at 23:36

I always buy WD Red drives for my nas. However I still have a couple of old Samsung F4 2TB drives in there, both have around 60k power on hours with no sign of any problems yet. Not bad for consumer drives.

digitaldreams · 16 Dec 2019 at 00:11

Audigex said:
In theory they're designed for more continuous (24/7) workloads, and for higher numbers of read/write cycles. In practice if you take them apart there don't seem to be any obvious differences, but it may simply be that the materials are a little more expensive and thus better at handling heat/vibration, or that they're machined more precisely to reduce vibration etc.

From a user point of view, though, that's mostly irrelevant and just translates as "usually has a better warranty, might fail a bit less often"

As long as you're following a 3-2-1 backup regime, it's not a big deal - drives are cheap enough already and by the time one fails, it's usually pretty cheap to replace it anyway.

Thanks !

Nasher · 16 Dec 2019 at 10:55

They are noisier too I think.

Armageus · 16 Dec 2019 at 11:44

NAS drives also have different firmware compared to Desktop Drives.

Upon encountering an error, a desktop drive will continuously try and retry the read/write operation.
NAS drives on the other hand will only try for a short amount of time before stating the operation failed (therefore allowing e.g. a RAID controller or RAID software to deal with the error, and mark the drive as failed)

Also of note are CCTV/Surveillance branded drives, which whilst physically identical also have different firmware - in this case optimized for CCTV use, where it doesn't matter if there is an odd error here or there, as long as the majority of data gets written.

digitaldreams · 27 Dec 2019 at 07:33

Armageus said:
NAS drives also have different firmware compared to Desktop Drives.

Upon encountering an error, a desktop drive will continuously try and retry the read/write operation.
NAS drives on the other hand will only try for a short amount of time before stating the operation failed (therefore allowing e.g. a RAID controller or RAID software to deal with the error, and mark the drive as failed)

Hmmm I wonder if they are a good idea for single drive desktop use then ?. General consensus is that they are more reliable ?

b00merang69 · 27 Dec 2019 at 07:38

Well a server HDD is suited to 24/7 use though a desktop HDD will no doubt not due on you as its not advertised to do same job.

Also the HDD's may have TLER (WD's name for it) for RAID where as normal desktop HDD will not but you can still Raid them.