Lacie 2Big 4TB Raid0 Replacement Drives

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Level 1

45 points

Lacie 2Big 4TB Raid0 Replacement Drives

My Lacie 2Big 4TB recently failed on me. That came preformatted as a Raid0.

Upon the recommendation of OWC I replaced the Seagate drives which came with the Lacie with two Toshiba drives.

Using disk utility I created a brand-new Raid0.

Problem. Although this new Raid0 mounts absolutely fine, the drives sounds like they're constantly being accessed in some bizarre reason that sound you get when the drivers being written to . Furthermore my Softraid 5 software seem to imply that the drives are actually not brand-new at all but it had over 5000 hours of use.

Can anyone shed any light on this? Thanks

Mac mini (Late 2012), OS X Mavericks (10.9.1), 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7/16 GB AM

Posted on Mar 28, 2015 10:36 AM

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Answer 1

BenB

Level 6

13,178 points

Mar 29, 2015 7:26 AM in response to welshwiggle

According to those images, both drives are too full to use. "available: 3.58 KB" Drives have to have at least 10%-15% of their total capacity as free space to function properly.

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Answer 2

Mar 29, 2015 12:51 PM in response to BenB

BenB and WW

Those drives do look like they have been used before.. based on the Hours of Use being reported by the SMART system... and if they were sold to you as brand new, I would be seeking replacements straight away.

The constant drive noise is probably the Raid0 setup continuing... as it can take some time to fully complete, especially with very full drives...

Bearing in mind you have them setup in Raid 0 mode.. so you have no protection in case of crashes/disk issues except if you also have a backup being made of the entire Raid array (both disks).. as data is being spanned across both drives.... to provide the fastest speed... but the least amount of error protection... and with very full drives, that is asking for trouble imho...

Finally those Toshiba drives are from the lower end of the consumer level range of drives (selling for about $75 each on Amazon and were even cheaper a few weeks ago on Newegg) and so I'm not sure i would trust them in such a raid 0 setup.... without full constant backups in operation too. Raid 1 with mirroring or even better, Raid 5, yes..... but raid 0, no... I wouldnt use them that way.

Most reviews seem to rate these Toshibas as High Speed (as they are 7200rpm) but with, according to the reviews on Amazon and NE, a pretty High Failure rate too...

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Answer 3

welshwiggle Author

Level 1

45 points

Mar 29, 2015 2:42 PM in response to The Art Of Sound

Hi there, AOS. Brilliant response above. Thank you

As you can see below something doesn't make sense. SoftRAID have confirmed that the hours of use categorically is coming from the drives (and is not the LaCIE enclosure) and they were sold to me as a brand-new, coming in the metallic unopened Static shielding bags . On the other hand command I throws up the following information and as you'd expect it's showing me that 4 TB are you available.

It's also interesting that OWC choose Toshiba drives in their Thunder Bay enclosures. I'm trying to find out which particular models.

AOS, could you give me your opinion on what drives you would consider to be trustworthy for a Raid0 or a Raid5 set up.

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Answer 4

Mar 29, 2015 3:15 PM in response to welshwiggle

Hey WW,

The Toshibas should be ok.. (if they were brand new that is and I really think you got sent some used ones..).. in a Raid 5 setup.... because of the built in redundancy if one of them fails...

Personally, after being a long time Seagate user.. but finding their QC was dropping off badly over the last few years...however, I now use WD Reds myself for my Raids and NAS Raids (All in Raid 5 configuration) long term storage and backup setups simply because they have been proven to be reliable and durable over a long period of time...

Other than that... for streaming audio and library drives... where speed really matters.. I use WD 10k 2TB Velociraptor TBolt Duos which are very fast (almost as fast as many SSDs) and very reliable again in a Raid 5 setup...which were a steal at less than $300 recently though the prices do fluctuate up and down quite frequently.. The list price was originally over a $1000!)

WD 2TB Reds - http://www.amazon.com/Red-2TB-NAS-Hard-Drive/dp/B008JJLZ7G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qi d=1427666472&sr=8-1&keywords=Western+Digital+red+2tb

WD Velo 2TB Duos.. - (with TBolt cable) http://www.amazon.com/VelociRaptor-External-Drive-Storage-Thunderbolt/dp/B008R7E WF2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427666571&sr=8-1&keywords=Western+Digital+velocirapt or+duo

I noticed that in the last week most places have raised their prices again and started selling the Duos at $700 or more.. I guess because of the high demand for them so Amazon's current price is by far the best i could find at $350.

Additional: The 2TB 10K drives inside the Duo now sell at over $200/$300 each and compared to a Duo that has two of these drives inside and includes the TBolt interface, case and cable.. its a bit of a no brainer to buy the Duo at this time while prices for it as still so low even if it was just for the drives inside to fit elsewhere!!.

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Answer 5

Mar 29, 2015 3:25 PM in response to The Art Of Sound

I will just add.. that I have had a WD Duo for over a year now (I actually have three in total but the oldest i bought a year ago) and they have all worked flawlessly.

The Reds.. I have 12 in total, situated in various NAS Raid and Raid enclosures.. and again, apart from one DOA which Amazon replaced immediately without fuss they have all worked flawlessly too.. the oldest ones being over 2 years now I believe..

Hope that helps...

Cheers..

Nigel

Note: I am not connected with Amazon nor WD in any way.. I am simply passing on my personal opinion on these products...

🙂

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Answer 6

welshwiggle Author

Level 1

45 points

Mar 29, 2015 3:42 PM in response to The Art Of Sound

If you don't mind. May I start from scratch? Until it failed two weeks ago, I was using my Lacie 2Big 4TB as a 'do all' Drive.

I streamed my Library samples from this drive, and also recorded my logic projects to the same drive at the same time. Thankfully, the crash wasn't too devastating as I have a dropbox backup of projects.

However, seems like a good opportunity to get my house in order. So help me understand.

What type of drive do you write your logic projects to? and how is it configured? Raid? Mirrored?

How is your Sample library WD Velo 2TB Duo configured? Raid0? Raid5? Mirrored?

Alas, the UK price is not such a steal. At £530. Still I could look into importing it from the USA. Even adding VAT on top that's still in only about £280.

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Answer 7

Mar 29, 2015 4:17 PM in response to welshwiggle

Ok.. This is how I have things set up here, bearing in mind, I have an 'over the top' amount of paranoia about drives crashing and backup systems 🙂

(Based on past crashes and loss of data.. which I intend will never happen again!)

I use my 2 of my Duos for Sample Libraries and Audio files.

I use one of my Duos for Logic projects only

These Duos i run in Raid 0 to get the absolute best access and overall speed from them over a TBolt connection..... but note: I only feel safe with Raid 0 because they are automatically backed up to other drives... using Chronosync every night

I use a Synology 4x2TB REDs Disk Enclosure as my primary back for the first 2 Duos.. configured in Raid 5

http://www.amazon.com/Synology-America-DiskStation-Attached-DS414slim/dp/B00KXQD 7WY/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=14276697…

I use a QNAP 2x2TB Reds Disk Enclosure in Raid 1 which backs up the remaining Duo

http://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-231-Personal-Mobile-Support/dp/B00O3Y7F02/ref=sr_1 _2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1427669799&…

I also have a QNAP 2x2TB REDs Enclosure in Raid 0 with Hardware Encoding which runs PLEX and stores my audio and Video library

http://www.amazon.com/QNAP-Personal-2-41GHz-Transcoding-TS-251-US/dp/B00L8GHOQ8/ ref=sr_1_6?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=142…

This QNAP is backed up to a 2TB Samsung USB3 HD attached to the USB3 port on the QNAP using QNAPs own backup system

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Desktop-External-Drive-STSHX-D201TDB/dp/B00C9TEL46

I also use Dropbox of off site / Online storage/backups of all my Logic Projects...

My System drives are all backed up using SuperDuper! to external 2TB and 1TB drives.. which I rotate on and off site each week.

I also make a weekly backup of my Duos to 2x4TB external USB3 Samsungs which again I store off site.. and rotate.

Thats it! (I think....)

🙂

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Answer 8

welshwiggle Author

Level 1

45 points

Mar 29, 2015 4:52 PM in response to The Art Of Sound

The Art Of Sound wrote:

Ok.. This is how I have things set up here, bearing in mind, I have an 'over the top' amount of paranoia about drives crashing and backup systems 🙂

(Based on past crashes and loss of data.. which I intend will never happen again!)

I use my 2 of my Duos for Sample Libraries and Audio files.

So one of these Raid 0 Duos is used for your sample library and the other for your audio files? Buy audio files do you mean audio files being recorded as part of a logic project?

I use one of my Duos for Logic projects only

Do you record the audio for these logic projects to this same drive? Or is that recorded to the discreet Audio File Duo mentioned above?

These Duos i run in Raid 0 to get the absolute best access and overall speed from them... but note: I only feel safe with Raid 0 because they are automatically backed up to other drives... using Chronosync every night

Art, this is a serious CIA level array of hard drive craziness you've got going on. Respect. Now then. Given what you tell me, I wouldn't expect you to endorse the following but here are my thoughts on what I propose to do.

I have asked OWC's UK distributor Megamac to quote me for a preconfigured Thunderbay (TB2) Raid5 12TB external enclosure which OWC Will make up and certify for me before shipping. I have a Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter which I normally back up to so I would use this on an ongoing basis for project backup.

I know there have been literally decades of chats about keeping Sample Libraries and Audio on separate drives, but given the speed Thunderbolt 2 and Now offers OWC themselves seem to think that I'll be fine with this, and in fact they sell it fairly frequently to pro musicians/ composers.

I don't know Chronosync but I guess I could use something like this to back up my logic projects to my Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt

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Answer 9

Mar 29, 2015 6:29 PM in response to welshwiggle

Like I said.. I am way too paranoid about making backups for my own safety and pocket! 🙂

Anyhow, your plan sounds good to me... A TBolt 2 array should provide plenty of bandwidth for what you need in regards to both projects and libs.. so long as the drives inside can keep up with it. Any idea which drives they will be? Backing it up to the Seagate should be fine too...

Chronosync is a simple little drive/folder/file backup prog I use... though SuperDuper! would do the trick too.. I use both.. Not sure why I started to use Chrono... but there you go.. Maybe I did a trial of it for one of my clients and never removed it?

Anyhow.. either will do the job...

Cheers..

Nigel

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Answer 10

welshwiggle Author

Level 1

45 points

Mar 29, 2015 7:12 PM in response to The Art Of Sound

Thanks Nigel,

You'll be intrigued to know, that The Toshiba drives that you have reservations with are the very drives that OWC use. The Toshiba DT01ACA200's.

It's a pity that western digital don't appear to offer a comparable option two the OWC Thunderbay. I like the look of the WD 10k 2TB Velociraptor

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Answer 11

Pancenter

Level 6

14,782 points

Mar 29, 2015 7:36 PM in response to welshwiggle

One related comment....

It's possible your Lacie enclosure/controller needs a firmware update to properly read the drives, some of those readings may be errors.

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Answer 12

Mar 29, 2015 7:38 PM in response to welshwiggle

welshwiggle wrote:

Thanks Nigel,

You'll be intrigued to know, that The Toshiba drives that you have reservations with are the very drives that OWC use. The Toshiba DT01ACA200's.

It's a pity that western digital don't appear to offer a comparable option two the OWC Thunderbay. I like the look of the WD 10k 2TB Velociraptor

You are welcome... as always!

I agree about WD and something like the Thunderbay.... I cant find anything comparable in their catalog.... as it seems WD focuses mainly on NAS enclosures and therefore Gigabit connections when it comes down to larger bays than the Duo...

As far as the Tosh's are concerned.. As I said earlier, the upsides are they are fast and cheap to replace..... Hopefully OWC pretest and burn in the drives for you... to weed out any DOAs.. though hopefully not for 5000+ hours as per the replacements you got 😉

Please let us know who you get on with your setup ... It's always good to hear about real users experiences with different gear...

Cheers!

Nigel

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Answer 13

Mar 29, 2015 7:39 PM in response to Pancenter

Pancenter wrote:

One related comment....

It's possible your Lacie enclosure/controller needs a firmware update to properly read the drives, some of those readings may be errors.

Good call my friend... I hadn't considered that...

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