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HDs for CalDigit HDOne
I have a CalDigit HDOne with eith 1TB Seagate drives. It’s about 3 years old, and I have had to replace three drives in the last year. I’m looking for new 2TB enterprise drives to double my storage and simply to have newer and, I hope more reliable drives.
I would appreciate advice as to which HD to buy. I will be buying ten of them so I want to make a great choice (eight drives to use, two to keep on the shelf, so I can quickly rebuild the RAID when a drive fails). I currently run RAID-5 but am considering changing to RAID-6, because when one drive dies with RAID-5, it’s pretty risky until the RAID rebuilds.
I’ve narrowed the list down to two Western Digital drives: RE WD2000FYYZ and RE4 WD2003FYYS – roughly the same price. If anyone has an insight as to which of these is better, or whether there is another 2TB drive that is more appropriate, I would most appreciate hearing from you.
Thanks.
Bob C
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3 Replies
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Hey Bob
Has the HDOne always had your drives in it, and not CalDigit-supplied drives with CalDigit firmware? When I spoke with them years ago about the HDOne, Element and other RAID products, they told me I couldn’t use drives that didn’t have the CalDigit firmware. It’s a big reason why I don’t use CalDigit RAIDs anymore (other than the awesome VR2)
e
Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv -
First, I am speaking from ignorance, but experienced ignorance!
But in my limited experience, there is no need for CalDigit firmware. I know that CalDigit used to insist on CalDigit-vetted drives, but I suspect that was more a matter of their selecting and testing the drives than anything else.
My HDOne started with all CalDigit-supplied drives. As they have failed (three of them), I sent them to Seagate for replacement under warranty. I put the replacement drives from Seagate into the HDOne as-is, without any firmware upgrades. They have worked fine.
When I started thinking about doubling the storage by replacing my 1TB with 2TB drives, I called CalDigit, bec. their website indicated that they were temporarily not able to supply the drives. So I asked what I could do. They were more open this time. My sense from talking with some CalDigit folks is that I will be fine with replacement drives, as long as they are no larger than 2TB. From reading online, I discovered that certain drives are listed as being especially appropriate for RAIDs.
Good luck.
Bob C
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i think CalDigit told me that RAID Shield wouldn’t work with drives that didn’t have their firmware. but if everything’s working for you, awesome. that’s a big money saver and takes CalDigit out of the bottleneck.
my go-to drives have always been Hitachi Ultrastars and Western Digital Caviar Blacks. i looked up your drives, and they’re part of WD’s RE series of enterprise drives, which is confusing because i thought Blacks were their enterprise drives. even pictures of the RE’s show them with black stickers. WD’s website has moved Blacks to their Desktop series and they’re not recommended for RAIDs. this doesn’t affect your situation, but i’m personally confused.
reminds me of when Hitachi’s awesome Saturns were replaced with their middle of the road Jupiters and it confused me then too.
both of those drives you listed are solid and exactly what you want. WD only lists one model of the 6Gbps SATA RE on their site, so my only guess is they’re the same drive from 2 different batches.
https://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=30
hopefully there’s still some Cyber Monday deals you can get
e
Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv
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