question ZFS and WD green drives?

[Adcadet]

I'm continuing to struggle to figure out how to store my music and home video collections on my main, Windows 7 machine. Up until now, I've sufficed with 2 TB drives, but over the next year, my video collection will likely go >2TB. I like storing it locally (I actually do go back to the old footage frequently), and I prefer not to break it up across multiple drives, and I also like to have a local backup as well (e.g., external drive) in addition to my CrashPlan cloud backup. I may simply get some 3-4 TB drives for the local storage, but I'd also like to use my older 2 TB drives if I can for backup stuff. I have two WD 20EARX drives, and one WD 20EARS, and another EARS that I could re-purpose from another PC, and I could use a spare PC to run Linux, BSD, or FreeNAS. ZFS seems to be the best FS to use for backup purposes. Does ZFS play nicely with the green drives, and a mix of slightly different types of green drives (EARX, EARS)? Anybody have a more elegant solution?

 

[Mercutio]

WD Green drives work with absolutely nothing that makes disk arrays and I promise I tried a LOT of different setups. Your best bet is to use Windows 8 Storage Spaces if you really want to use green drives.

 

[Adcadet]

Any objections to using Hitachi 7K2000's in ZFS?

 

[Chewy509]

Don't know about the 7K2000's specifically, but I'm running 7K3000's with ZFS with zero issues (Solaris 11.1 currently as the host OS).

 

[Mercutio]

Only Seagate and WD deliberately crippled their drives as far as I can tell. I don't have any large Samsung drives but I do have a dozen 3TB Hitachis that have been happily buzzing away for about 18 months.

 

[Mercutio]

Also, I suspect the price on those 3TB drives isn't going to be THAT special in the coming months. I wouldn't be surprised to see them at $99 standard price before too long.

 

[Adcadet]

Anyone have experience with the 1TB platter Toshiba drives? IIRC, there was some deal with one of the mergers where some parts and/or technology was transfer ed to Toshiba to allow them to produce larger drives.

 

[LunarMist]

They are the low platter count Hitachis.

 

[Stereodude]

Also, I suspect the price on those 3TB drives isn't going to be THAT special in the coming months. I wouldn't be surprised to see them at $99 standard price before too long.

FWIW, Costco has 3TB external USB 3.0 Seagate drives for $99.99 tomorrow (11/23).

 

[Adcadet]

Amazon, Seagate Barracuda 3 TB drives, $99.99 with free (slow) shipping, limit one.

 

[Stereodude]

Amazon, Seagate Barracuda 3 TB drives, $99.99 with free (slow) shipping, limit one.

If you're talking about this drive it's not limit 1. I put 25 of them in my cart and the price stays the same. I didn't try to checkout though. So, unless the limit kicks in at the final step of checkout you could buy as many as you want.

 

[Mercutio]

Amazon will politely tell you when you try to check out that there is a limit and you've exceeded it.
Also, when there's a limit, they won't let you order the item again for at least a week.

 

[Adcadet]

Placed an order on my account, one on my wife's, same credit card, different name, well see if it ships.

 

[Stereodude]

Placed an order on my account, one on my wife's, same credit card, different name, well see if it ships.

I passed on that one. I did go get two of the $99.99 external USB 3.0 3TB Seagate drives from Costco though. At least they have a 2 year warranty.

 

[LunarMist]

Amazon, Seagate Barracuda 3 TB drives, $99.99 with free (slow) shipping, limit one.

The Egg has the same drive for $89 if you trust their shipping.

 

[Handruin]

Amazon will politely tell you when you try to check out that there is a limit and you've exceeded it.
Also, when there's a limit, they won't let you order the item again for at least a week.

The two of these I ordered Wednesday did not impose a limit.

 

[Mercutio]

I was commenting on the general behavior of Amazon limits, not that specific item.