Looking for input for hard drives for Freenas. I have a Dell R710 running as a FreeNas server and currently it shows my main pool as “Degraded” due to a failed drive. All drives in it were used equipment when I installed them, so I knew I was taking a chance. Now is the time to buy new.
So far, I am looking at Seagate Ironwolf or WD Red. I am also trying to decide on the drive size. Right now I have 2TB drives in it. I see the Seagate Ironwolf drives come in an 18TB flavor and that is quite tempting… costs aside.
As far as what this is used for… it’s mostly basic document storage. The most “significant” part would be running a Plex server in a jail.
Make certain the drives are CMR or PMR, SMR drives have shown issues when rebuilding an array and WD started sneaking them into the RED line without telling anyone. Pretty sure the RED line now specifies CMR/PMR or SMR, but it might require the the RED Pro drives. Pretty sure any 18GB drive is going to be SMR, but worth checking.
You should also check the Seagate Exos line, which is their data center product. So these drives are actually “above” the Ironwolf Pro, but seem to be cheaper in most parts of the world.