Promise Pegasus R6 with Seagate NAS HDD 4TB

[nochnia]

I'm currently using a Synology DS 1513+ with 5x4 TB Seagate NAS HDD. This system is great for archiving and backup usage but it's too slow to use it as a working drive. Therefore I'm gonna substitute it with a Promise Pegasus R6.

As far as I read the cheapest possibility to get a 24TB R6 is to buy the R6 with 6TB and buy 6x 4TB disks anywhere else.

I just looked at the compatibility page of Promise and found two 4TB drives there. I guess it's not a problem to buy them aftermarket and not directly from Promise?

And my other question is if anyone knows if the Seagate NAS HDD 4TB drives work in the Pegasus? They are not listed in the compatibility sheet... if it's not possible I would sell them with the NAS.

Thank you in advance.

 

[maflynn]

I'm kind of anal and if its not on the compatibility list then I'd avoid putting them in just to avoid headaches either in the short term or down the road.

Plus (perhaps it my OCD ) but I think there's some value in adding new drives to a new enclosure as opposed to used drives - but that is probably due to my OCD

 

[nochnia]

okay. that makes sense for me.
so if the drives are listed on the compatibility sheet I don't have to be worried about putting in these drives on my own right?!

 

[flynz4]

okay. that makes sense for me.
so if the drives are listed on the compatibility sheet I don't have to be worried about putting in these drives on my own right?!

I would DEFINITELY recommend using drives off of the compatibility sheet. Get the exact model they tested. You will probably not be thrilled with the price... but I have not checked lately. When I got my R4... it was available with 1TB and 2TB drives. I bought the 2TB because it was cheaper than upgrading myself.

Pegasus is a high performance RAID system... and they do use enterprise class drive (albeit Enterprise SATA... not enterprise SAS or FC). High performance RAID is susceptible to consumer class drives. It is not just RPM and capacity. Things like commmand queue depth and many other items factor in.

You do not want a drive crapping out because it such issues... causing data integrity problems.

/Jim

 

[cube]

HGST makes desktop drives which are certified by some RAID vendors because Hitachi would not cripple the firmware. But in the retail packaging they have a "not for RAID" warning (at least now that they have been bought by WD).

I bought 4x4TB for my Onnto quad interface, and it's working well so far.

Onnto has a similar (but I hope indeed faster) 4-bay TB enclosure which appears in a recent thread.

 

[nochnia]

I would DEFINITELY recommend using drives off of the compatibility sheet. Get the exact model they tested.

Sry I didn't get it. So you recommend to use drives on this list or enterprise disks which are not on the list?

 

[flynz4]

Sry I didn't get it. So you recommend to use drives on this list or enterprise disks which are not on the list?

Use the drives that they specify as being compatible. I personally would not use any other drives. There are lots of things going on inside of a RAID array... especially a high performance array. HP RAID is not easy to implement.

Another way of looking at it... storage professionals managing RAID infrastructure only use enterprise drives that are certified for their arrays. They do not do this because they like to spend more money on the drives. The use the more expensive certified drives because it saves them money.

/Jim

 

[nochnia]

Okay. Thank you very much for your detailed information!
I'm definitely going with the drives on the compatibility sheet.

Since the 24TB versions are way to expensive and not very well available yet I guess I'm going to buy an R6 with 6TB and substitute these 6 drives with own drives off the compatibility sheet.

 

[matchless1895]

Pegasus is a high performance RAID system... and they do use enterprise class drive

I wouldn't be so sure: my Pegasus came with six 1 TB Hitachi HDS72101 and unless they had a batch especially manufactured for them, which I doubt, you can find them for $ 50.00 - 60.00 apiece almost anywhere. Nothing special, but I would be glad should somebody be able to show otherwise.

 

[flynz4]

I wouldn't be so sure: my Pegasus came with six 1 TB Hitachi HDS72101 and unless they had a batch especially manufactured for them, which I doubt, you can find them for $ 50.00 - 60.00 apiece almost anywhere. Nothing special, but I would be glad should somebody be able to show otherwise.

If they are on the compatibility list... then they would be fine. I haven't looked at the list lately... but I would expect that the drives they ship with would be on the list.

My point is that it is a mistake to start putting any old drives into a RAID array. Of course it is possible that some non-certified drives work... but you do not know which ones do reliably. in a RAID array... you do not want to have errors corrupting your your RAID integrity.

/Jim

 

[g4cube]

I wouldn't be so sure: my Pegasus came with six 1 TB Hitachi HDS72101 and unless they had a batch especially manufactured for them, which I doubt, you can find them for $ 50.00 - 60.00 apiece almost anywhere. Nothing special, but I would be glad should somebody be able to show otherwise.

I can confirm. Neither the R4 nor the R6 come with Enterprise class drives.

And yes, stick to the drives on the compatibility list. Not all drives are created equal, especially for drives that are aimed at NAS and other consumer devices.

A good test is to see what your drive does after the computer wakes from sleep - ie let drives spin down, and let computer sleep.

Drives that might perform well in a benchmark may not do so well in other more stressful applications and uses.

 

[nochnia]

Thank you very much for your tips. I bought an R6 with 6TB + 6x 4TB aftermarket drives.

What's the best way to change the drives within the software. Do I have to put all drives offline first before I should take one drive out?

 

[g4cube]

Thank you very much for your tips. I bought an R6 with 6TB + 6x 4TB aftermarket drives.

What's the best way to change the drives within the software. Do I have to put all drives offline first before I should take one drive out?

If you are going to configure as RAID-1, 5, or 6, all drives must be similar size. Cannot mix capacities.

If RAID-0, you need to reformat the entire array.

You cannot mix drive capacities in any RAID configuration without reformatting. That should be clear from the documentation.

Only a JBOD config lets you mix things up.

 

[bergert]

The manual ...

The PROMISE manual is quite clear - that server grade disks are recommended. On the other hand, if you are not planning to pay for the annual PROMISE support, then you can save a bundle by using other disks. Of course, this voids any warranty. I got HDS UltraStar 4TB disks (8/2012), and they were very expensive (PROMISE was not selling 4TB at the time); also they run hotter than the 2TB disks in my original R6.

This year I got another R6 with Seagate 4TB NAS disks, and they run even a tad cooler than the original 2TB DeskStar. Best of all, I paid the same for 6x4TB what a 6x3TB unit costs on the apple store. NAS disks have less IO, but for my application 470MB/sec (RAID6, 520MB/sec read) is still good enough; heat and noise being the main issue for me.

Just make sure you update the R6 firmware, even my new R6 came with an old version which does not support disks 3TB or larger.

I guess PROMISE is already working on Thunderbolt 2 and possibly also a SSD slot to cache IO access (just like other vendors already do); but they never announce any plans - so this is just my guessing as educated consumer. In any case, for my personal needs I need the space now and with TB IO is not a bottleneck any more. The 2 years old 6x2TB unit will be used with the new MacPro whenever it ships.

hope this helps ...

 

[nochnia]

I love the R6 with 6x 4TB disks. Everything works just fine and very very fast

I read the manual and there is stated that the media patrol is running automatically. On my R6 is turned off out of the box. Should I use it?
And what about the redundancy check?

 

[nochnia]

I read the manual and there is stated that the media patrol is running automatically. On my R6 is turned off out of the box. Should I use it? And what about the redundancy check?

Does anyone have any ideas about this features on the Pegasus R6?

 

[dia3olik]

Does anyone have any ideas about this features on the Pegasus R6?

yeah, I'm curious too!

 

[nochnia]

yeah, I'm curious too!

Any news about that feature?

 

[dtpearson]

I just thought that i would report the successful use of Seagate 6TB drives (ST6000DX000) in a Promise Pegasus R6 in Raid5. These drives are NOT on Promises list of approved drives.

Total usable size - 30TB

I am getting about 700MB write and 820MB read, which is pretty damn good and probably getting near the limits of TB1

It is still synchronising but I will retest once i get a bit of data into it (i have about 6TB to chuck in).

I used 512KB stripe size with 4KB Sectors as i do mostly video and photo work with large file sizes.

R6 RAID5 6X6TB GRAPH 2 by dtpearson1975, on Flickr

I had some issues when i had only 4 of the 6TB drives in the R6 with slow reads (only 250MB/sec) and janky writes with fast speed (500MB/sec) but it bounced up and down a lot. They worked fine in Raid0 (nice and fast) but not in Raid5. But all of these issues seem to have disappeared with six of the drives in Raid5.

If i have any issues i will report back. I am keen to see what happens when i have lots of data in there.

 

[olivierstaub]

A month after ?

I just thought that i would report the successful use of Seagate 6TB drives (ST6000DX000) in a Promise Pegasus R6 in Raid5. These drives are NOT on Promises list of approved drives.

Total usable size - 30TB

I am getting about 700MB write and 820MB read, which is pretty damn good and probably getting near the limits of TB1

It is still synchronising but I will retest once i get a bit of data into it (i have about 6TB to chuck in).

I used 512KB stripe size with 4KB Sectors as i do mostly video and photo work with large file sizes.

[url=https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7581/16027342106_947b5592ef_s.jpg]Image[/url]R6 RAID5 6X6TB GRAPH 2 by dtpearson1975, on Flickr

I had some issues when i had only 4 of the 6TB drives in the R6 with slow reads (only 250MB/sec) and janky writes with fast speed (500MB/sec) but it bounced up and down a lot. They worked fine in Raid0 (nice and fast) but not in Raid5. But all of these issues seem to have disappeared with six of the drives in Raid5.

If i have any issues i will report back. I am keen to see what happens when i have lots of data in there.

Just wondering how is your 6x6tb setup going. I am very close to do the same move with my 6x 4tb pegasus and I would appreciate to benefit from your experience.
thank's

 

[reranes]

please try to fill up the r6

I just thought that i would report the successful use of Seagate 6TB drives (ST6000DX000) in a Promise Pegasus R6 in Raid5. These drives are NOT on Promises list of approved drives.

Total usable size - 30TB

I am getting about 700MB write and 820MB read, which is pretty damn good and probably getting near the limits of TB1

It is still synchronising but I will retest once i get a bit of data into it (i have about 6TB to chuck in).

I used 512KB stripe size with 4KB Sectors as i do mostly video and photo work with large file sizes.

[url=https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7581/16027342106_947b5592ef_s.jpg]Image[/url]R6 RAID5 6X6TB GRAPH 2 by dtpearson1975, on Flickr

I had some issues when i had only 4 of the 6TB drives in the R6 with slow reads (only 250MB/sec) and janky writes with fast speed (500MB/sec) but it bounced up and down a lot. They worked fine in Raid0 (nice and fast) but not in Raid5. But all of these issues seem to have disappeared with six of the drives in Raid5.

If i have any issues i will report back. I am keen to see what happens when i have lots of data in there.

hi,

i also own the R6 and in the beginning i have changed the 2TB drives to 3TB drives in raid 5 and they are not supported at this time. all seems fine, like your test now... till i get about 80% full of diskspace... the raid disappears and all data are gone. i thought i have made a mistake in formatting and tried it again. the same issue... about 80% full, the raid disappears and all data are lost. i wrote a mail to the support of promise an the answer was very clear: we don´t support 3TB drives. this was in 2013 and now only 4TB drives are supported. dtpearson: can you fill up the R6 to 95% and test it a few days? this would be very interesting and i hope my knowledge about the R6 helps the people out there.

thanx!

 

[bergert]

now running (since 9/2013) ...

hi,
test it a few days?
thanx!

My two R6 are running still fine - one has 13TB used, the other has 9TB used.

I guess you missed the part where the manual says you should upgrade the firmware. Even my new R6 did have a version which supports only 2TB drives (not 3,4,5,6TB).

 

[reranes]

now running (since 9/2013) ...



My two R6 are running still fine - one has 13TB used, the other has 9TB used.

I guess you missed the part where the manual says you should upgrade the firmware. Even my new R6 did have a version which supports only 2TB drives (not 3,4,5,6TB).

yes, i know... since one year i am using 4tb drives. all works fine, like the support document is writing. at 2013, i had the latest firmware and 3tb drives were not supported, but they worked in the R6, till 80% from the space were full... then crash... all data lost... support said : we not do not support 3TB drives. (like i wrote before)

so at this time the problem can be similar, because 5, 6 and 8tb drives are not supported. if the r6 is 90% full, what will happen... crash, all data gone, or works fine? that would be very interesting, before i upgrade to 6 or 8tb drives.

13TB and 9TB used space of an Raid5 30TB or 40TB volume have nothing to say about this problem, but if you duplicate the files to get 90% full on the r6 and try it one week, then i think it will work. would be great, if anyone try this.

 

[mikepcdoc]

I just thought that i would report the successful use of Seagate 6TB drives (ST6000DX000) in a Promise Pegasus R6 in Raid5. These drives are NOT on Promises list of approved drives.

Total usable size - 30TB

I am getting about 700MB write and 820MB read, which is pretty damn good and probably getting near the limits of TB1

It is still synchronising but I will retest once i get a bit of data into it (i have about 6TB to chuck in).

I used 512KB stripe size with 4KB Sectors as i do mostly video and photo work with large file sizes.

R6 RAID5 6X6TB GRAPH 2 by dtpearson1975, on Flickr

I had some issues when i had only 4 of the 6TB drives in the R6 with slow reads (only 250MB/sec) and janky writes with fast speed (500MB/sec) but it bounced up and down a lot. They worked fine in Raid0 (nice and fast) but not in Raid5. But all of these issues seem to have disappeared with six of the drives in Raid5.

If i have any issues i will report back. I am keen to see what happens when i have lots of data in there.

I would also like a follow up, if you don'd mind. I would like to add 6x6tb HGST-NAV drives to my Pegasus R6. So, how are your current 6tb drives working for you?

Thank you in advance,

Michael

 

[iCal]

I would also like a follow up, if you don'd mind. I would like to add 6x6tb HGST-NAV drives to my Pegasus R6. So, how are your current 6tb drives working for you?

Thank you in advance,

Michael

Holy thread resurrection!

I too have a Pegasus R6 (v1) with 6x2TB. After 6 years of faithful service I started getting loads of error messages, whenever I had the Promise app running it would beep every 5 seconds with some disk reset or other.

So I could not lose my 8TB of data and bought a Lacie 6Big 36TB version. But guess what it only works on USB with my iMac 2014 as TB2 not backward compatible with the new TB3 on the Lacie even though I bought the Apple adapter which promised to work (no pun intended). Either way I copied all my data off, albeit slowly and have ordered a new iMac 2017 model which will go fast on TB3 (expensive afternoon).

No way I buy another Promise product; their support for replacement HDDs is limited to such a small list and 6 years after purchase none are available.

But now I have a Pegasus R6v1 with some disks reaching EOL.

So today I ordered 64TB Ironwolfs, Seagate IronWolf 4TB NAS Hard Drive to stick in it. No they are not on the compatibility list but good luck finding any disks that are.

So tomorrow they arrive and I will stick them in, fill them up past 90% in Raid 5 (which seems to be a failure point judging by my many internet searches on the topic) and see if they work.

If they do then to any others with an old R6v1 this could be a way of making it 24TB, or I could have just wasted £600 on 6x4TB NAS drives. We will see and I will let the internet know.