Suggested 2.5" HDD for T2

[mick_queensland]

Hi,
I searched but didn't find the info I am after. I have bought a T2 bare bones and I am looking to purchase a new HDD for it. I usually buy a video or surveillance drive for my wizzers but they seem a bit hard to find in 2.5" form.

So, firstly is there a height restriction on the drive? And secondly, will a normal 5400rpm laptop drive work ok or will it die fairly quickly? Thirdly any suggestions on a source for good suitable 2.5" HDDs?

I am not convinced the WD Green would work due to its power saving modes. Anyone else have experience with these or any other 2.5" HDD?

I know there are video drives available but they all seem to be overseas. I would like a 1TB drive, or more if the price is right.

I have a 1TB WD Purple 3.5" drive I could slap into a USB case. Thoughts on that idea? Is it ok to record to a USB drive?

I may just plug a USB HDD in and use a small internal 2.5" AV HDD. Its a bit of messing around to copy over to free up space.

Any help and ideas much appreciated, thanks and cheers.
Mick

[Grumpy_Geoff]

See this thread for some info - viewtopic.php?f=53&t=10824
I got the WD Blue WD20NPVZ - its 15mm thickness was no issue.

I'm not sure, but the WD10SPZX may be a shingled drive as it has 128MB cache.
The WD10SPCX has a much smaller 16MB cache, what I think is a non-shingled drive.
Do some checking when buying.

[mick_queensland]

Hi GG, thanks for the link, it was very informative. Good to know the T2 can take the 15mm high drives.

So, I have been researching the hell out of 2.5" HDDs (not something I ever cared about before lol) Anyway, I think I found a drive that is easily available in Oz and not too pricey either, and the manufacturer actually recommends it for use in PVRs!! Awesome huh!!

It is a Toshiba HDD and it is described on Toshi webpage here. https://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/us/ ... bdxxx.html
So far I havent found any other manufacturers recommending PVR usage for their drives (other than the stupidly expensive and impossible to get WD AV-25 series) Saying that, maybe the other hybrid drives would be OK for the T2, like the Seagate model. Seagate never mentions PVRs though.

The Toshi drive MQ01ABD100 is an Hybrid drive, 9.5mmm high, super quiet and super low power. Downside, the largest capacity Toshi hybrid is 1TB. I have seen the MQ01ABD100 online for about $72 plus shipping.

Hope this helps someone else. I am off to order it now.
Cheers, Mick

[glen]

I'm not sure, but the WD10SPZX may be a shingled drive as it has 128MB cache.
The WD10SPCX has a much smaller 16MB cache, what I think is a non-shingled drive.

Geoff

What are the pro's/con's of a shingled/non-shingled drive in a PVR?

Glen

[MrQuade]

What are the pro's/con's of a shingled/non-shingled drive in a PVR?

A shingled drive will be higher capacity.

Shingled drives store data a bit like a shingled roof (funnily enough) and data is written in an overlapping pattern. Because the data is overlapping, when writing to new locations, adjacent data blocks will also often need to be rewritten. It has been suggested that this could potentially lead to unpredictable delays and possibly data corruption if you had a lot of concurrent and asynchronous disk writes happening all at once, and the drive stalls or fails to write in a timely manner for some reason.

I'm honestly not sure how much of a risk that is in actual practice....it may be scaremongering, or it may be a genuine concern.

[Grumpy_Geoff]

I'm not sure, but the WD10SPZX may be a shingled drive as it has 128MB cache.
The WD10SPCX has a much smaller 16MB cache, what I think is a non-shingled drive.

Geoff

What are the pro's/con's of a shingled/non-shingled drive in a PVR?

Glen

It was the forum advice to stay away from SMR (shingled) drives for PVR use.

peteru -

• "Stay away from the shingled "Archive HDDs". Although 8TB may sound attractive, the performance is unlikely to be adequate for PVR use."
• "These days, most of the drives have a similar noise and power consumption profiles and performance is not going to be a factor, as long as you don't choose a shingled drive."
• "I would not go with a shingled drive.
  As far as I know, no-one has tested the real world performance, but it has plenty of potential to go wrong when you have multiple recordings and trash cleanup (or other read-modify-write activity) kicks in."
• "It's only the shingled drives that are an unknown quantity. Those archive drives are only rated for 180TB of writes per year, on a 8TB drive."

IanB -

• "And with shingled drives in normal use there becomes the overhead/performance problem of rewriting the current shingle set as the file-system become fragmented over time."

search.php?keywords=shingled

[glen]

Thanks

I am thinking about what 2.5" to buy for a U4 so that certainly will be something to keep in mind.

Regards Glen

[peteru]

Don't over think it. Just pick an ordinary 2.5" SATA laptop drive (5400rpm will do) that has the required capacity at an attractive price and uses conventional recording methods. Hitachi, Samsung, Toshiba, WD Blue, etc. They'll all do the job.

If you are made out of money, go for an SSD drive. Samsung 2TB 850EVO is known to work. The 4TB model is also likely to work.

If you are willing to take a risk with a shingled drive, go for it. Make sure you stress test it and then report back. I'd have no hesitation in recommending one for archiving recordings for long term storage, but it would take a lot of testing before I would be willing to qualify one for normal usage, where you may be writing 8+ streams while also trying to read 2+ streams.

[warkus]

I agree, especially about the overthinking it...

I have sold several people the WD Blue 2TB drives - 15mm thick and they fit fine. Not exactly cheap compared to their 3.5" counterparts but still they work perfectly. Have had no issues...

But seriously, wow how good would a 4TB SAMSUNG EVO 850 SSD be, very nice!

Im sure the price isnt so nice though lol...

Mark

[prl]

...
But seriously, wow how good would a 4TB SAMSUNG EVO 850 SSD be, very nice!

Im sure the price isnt so nice though lol...
...

On Techbuy, Samsung 4000GB (4TB) 2.5" Solid State Disk - 3D V-NAND, SATA-III - 850 EVO is a breezy $2019.90 (reduced from $2999).

[warkus]

Oh, is that all...



Ill take 3...

[prl]

It's a pretty flat price/GB:
250GB - $0.60
500GB - $0.47
1000GB - $0.47
2000GB - $0.45
4000GB - $0.50

All Techbuy prices for the standard 850EVO series (not 850 Pro). The Pro series are even more expensive (and Techbuy doesn't have a 4TB 850 Pro).

[wazh]

I have a question on this. What type of HDD is currently supplied in the U4? Are they all different depending on the size of the unit you purchase?

[prl]

I think the answer is probably "whatever they could get a good price on at the time they ordered HDDs."

My U4 2TB has a factory-installed Seagate ST2000LM015-2E81.

If you want a particular brand/model, either chack with Beyonwiz, or buy a barebones and put whatever your preferred drive is in it.

[blip]

The factory installed 4TB drive in my U4 is a ST4000LM024-2AN1

[Grumpy_Geoff]

I have a question on this. What type of HDD is currently supplied in the U4? Are they all different depending on the size of the unit you purchase?

paullings posted that he has a ST1000LM048-2E71 in his U4.
So far, I think that's three for three with Seagate drives.

[paullings]

Update on that. I did order a 2TB U4 but got the 1TB instead. Originally asked for a refund but got Jai to send me a 2TB disc which I replaced.
ATA(ST2000LM015-2E81)

[wazh]

Guys,

Thanks so much for the input this is great. Looks like Seagate is the goto HDD for the U4.

Either way.. Thanks again.. appreciate so much the input... Back to working out which one I want to put in my U4.