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2 x 2TB WD Green (WD20EARS) Raid 0 Question

S

skiffx

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Just curious if anyone has tried these 2x2TB WD Green Series (WD20EARS) in raid 0? How fast/slow are they and overall general performance?

Im concerned about noise in my new 2010 3.33 Hex MP so as my boot I have an OCZ Vertex 2 180GB, but was thinking having 2 x 2TB WD Greens in Raid 0 for storage or even use the array for the Home folder (I read somewhere that you can turn off the sleep function for them so, they down spin down, thus eliminate the waiting 'beachball' lag). I simply care for an adequate performance, and for them not to have any perceivable lag when using the system.

I have a separate storage server that will be used as a daily backup so raid 0 data loss is of no issue.

Im specifically choosing Green Series for the lack of noise as opposed to WD Black Series.
 
The green drives are known to cause issues when in raid configuration. They often spin at different speeds, causing lag and other problems.
 
CaoCao said:
you can't put the computer to sleep at night?
Click to expand...

Not a possibility for me.

But would an overall system performance, that runs off of an ssd drive, be slower if the home folder is placed onto a mechanical drive (fast or slow) ?
 
I've got the exact same drives running in my Mac Pro for about 6 month now.

They run without any problems in RAID 0 and reach 200MB/s+ read and write.
My array is half full and still makes 180MB/s.

I came from an array of WD Blacks and excanged them with Greens because of noise. The Blacks are extremely noisy, the Greens inaudible in a closed Mac Pro enclosure.

Great drives! Got 4 Green drives plus an Intel for boot in my Pro and the computer is almost inaudible. 😀


My fileserver runs 8 Green drives in a raidz2 for are year now without any problems whatsoever.

Get the Greens and have a restful sleep, they won't disappoint you. 😉
 
Transporteur said:
I've got the exact same drives running in my Mac Pro for about 6 month now.

They run without any problems in RAID 0 and reach 200MB/s+ read and write.
My array is half full and still makes 180MB/s.

I came from an array of WD Blacks and excanged them with Greens because of noise. The Blacks are extremely noisy, the Greens inaudible in a closed Mac Pro enclosure.

Great drives! Got 4 Green drives plus an Intel for boot in my Pro and the computer is almost inaudible. 😀


My fileserver runs 8 Green drives in a raidz2 for are year now without any problems whatsoever.

Get the Greens and have a restful sleep, they won't disappoint you. 😉
Click to expand...

Awesome😀

So would it make sense for me to move my home folder off of ssd onto the 3x2TB raid 0 ? I already have the vertex 2 180gb one, Im thinking to partition 100 for OSX and leave 80 for win7 (games/work apps)?

Or is it more advisable just to move the data off an ssd once in a while and just keep the home folder there?

Edit: Also have you tweaked your Greens in any way (i.e. prevent from sleeping, etc.) ?
 
skiffx said:
So would it make sense for me to move my home folder off of ssd onto the 3x2TB raid 0 ? I already have the vertex 2 180gb one, Im thinking to partition 100 for OSX and leave 80 for win7 (games/work apps)?
Click to expand...

I left my home folder on the SSD (except for the iTunes library). It depends how often you have to access your home folder. If you access it constantly, leave the home folder there, if not put him on the array. A 3 drive array makes more than 300MB/s substantial, which is plenty fast for everything.

It really depends on your work and how much data you've got in your home folder. Mine is only 13GB and my SSD always only 50% full (160GB), so there is no need to put the home folder on a data array.

skiffx said:
Edit: Also have you tweaked your Greens in any way (i.e. prevent from sleeping, etc.) ?
Click to expand...

The Greens themselves are standard, I just unchecked the option for putting the hard discs to sleep in the energy saver preferences. That way you don't have to cope with umbrellas when accessing that drive. You'd have to do the same with an array of Blacks, so no difference there.
 
Well I dont want to saturate my boot drive with movies and music, and its convenient to have those folders under places, so IM looking into a way of moving those folders off the boot drive.
 
Yes it doesn't make sense to fill up the SSD with such files.
I keep those files on my file server. iTunes then simply is linked with the library file on the server.
You can place your media file where ever you want, no reason to move the complete home folder off the SSD.
 
This could be a stupid question, but what would the throughput look like if I used 2 Blacks instead of 2 Greens in a raid0? Am I limited by the raid itself at 200MB, or would having the Blacks give me a lot more like 300MB, 400MB, for instance?
 
jenzjen said:
This could be a stupid question, but what would the throughput look like if I used 2 Blacks instead of 2 Greens in a raid0? Am I limited by the raid itself at 200MB, or would having the Blacks give me a lot more like 300MB, 400MB, for instance?
Click to expand...

The array speed depends on the drives you use.

Due to the higher rotation speed Blacks are generally faster. The 2TB Black drive is the fastest mechanical drive till today and reaches sustained transfer rates of 140MB/s.
 
alust2013 said:
The green drives are known to cause issues when in raid configuration. They often spin at different speeds, causing lag and other problems.
Click to expand...

The different speeds thing is marketing nonsense. They are either always 5900RPM or 5400RPM dependent on brand.

skiffx said:
well I ordered 3x2TB Greens, so we'll see how the raid goes 🙂
Click to expand...

Wish I'd seen this in time...

A so-called "feature" of the WD20EARS series is something called "IntelliPark". What this actually is supposed to do is unpark/park the heads only when they are needed to reduce drag or some marketing nonsense that inevitably leads to a "power savings" claim.

Now, the unfortunate part is that on UNIX-based systems, for whatever reason this results in the drives clicking every 8 seconds, because of some kind of OS/FS incompatibility. Meaning the drive will reach its estimated total Load/Unload cycles for the heads in 200-300 days, and the drive will likely die around that time.

You can see here for one discussion: http://www.networkedmediatank.com/printthread.php?tid=20686

But I have seen it discussed elsewhere as well.

Supposedly you can run some program on a command line to disable the IntelliPark, but unfortunately for me, my 2TB WD Green drive is already near the max Load/Unload cycles before it dies.

I have gotten two 2TB Samsung EcoGreen F3s instead for my new Drobo... So let's hope these don't click every 8 seconds. I shouldn't even bother using this 2TB WD anymore, so there goes $100 of my money wasted.

For anyone interested in the Samsung EcoGreen F3s they are $109.99 at MicroCenter, btw, which is why I got them.
 
Call me deaf but I never heard a single click from my Green drives. 😕

I just opened my Pro and listened for a clicking noise, nothing.
 
jonwd7 said:
The different speeds thing is marketing nonsense. They are either always 5900RPM or 5400RPM dependent on brand.



Wish I'd seen this in time...

A so-called "feature" of the WD20EARS series is something called "IntelliPark". What this actually is supposed to do is unpark/park the heads only when they are needed to reduce drag or some marketing nonsense that inevitably leads to a "power savings" claim.

Now, the unfortunate part is that on UNIX-based systems, for whatever reason this results in the drives clicking every 8 seconds, because of some kind of OS/FS incompatibility. Meaning the drive will reach its estimated total Load/Unload cycles for the heads in 200-300 days, and the drive will likely die around that time.

You can see here for one discussion: http://www.networkedmediatank.com/printthread.php?tid=20686

But I have seen it discussed elsewhere as well.

Supposedly you can run some program on a command line to disable the IntelliPark, but unfortunately for me, my 2TB WD Green drive is already near the max Load/Unload cycles before it dies.

I have gotten two 2TB Samsung EcoGreen F3s instead for my new Drobo... So let's hope these don't click every 8 seconds. I shouldn't even bother using this 2TB WD anymore, so there goes $100 of my money wasted.

For anyone interested in the Samsung EcoGreen F3s they are $109.99 at MicroCenter, btw, which is why I got them.
Click to expand...

Yeh Ive read about it as well you can change that from 8 to 300 easily.
Do a Google search for "smallnetbuilder TLER" however I dont even know if Im going to bother with that yet.
 
Well heck I've had a Green 1TB in my kids Popcorn Hour 110 for about a year. Guess I better check that out.

Kinda ticks me off that WD hasn't been more forthcoming in this regard.
 
brentsg said:
Well heck I've had a Green 1TB in my kids Popcorn Hour 110 for about a year. Guess I better check that out.

Kinda ticks me off that WD hasn't been more forthcoming in this regard.
Click to expand...

I think its safe to assume that its working fine if it lasted you that long, usually the whole issue is that they die much much quicker, way before 1 year mark.
I just dont know if WD would screw up like that to be honest, I think this 'issue' is simply overblown.
 
I actually decided to talk to WD guys and theyve confirmed its best not to be used in raid 🙁
 
OP - I would suggest you don't move your entire home folder off the SSD as this contains things like application support files and prefs which will slow things down a bit if apps have to access them from the slower drive. Just move your photos, movies, music and maybe email over.
 
Hello,

I've had two 2tb Greens on my desktop (external enclosure) and I've never heard them "clicking".

Loa
 
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