Getting ready to add additional drives to my qnas server. Been looking at 10 tb drives… but not sure if I will notice a difference or benefit from had that have a 7200 rpm. Server is mainly used as a pet server… some feed back would be appreciated can seem to find a ttaight answer any where… thanks
Video streaming is a very undemanding function. As long as you do not store your Plex data directory or your transcoding temporary directory on the drive you should notice no real difference.
The only other situation where there could be an impact is if you have multiple users streaming at the same time from the same drive. I that case it is not the rotational speed but the seek time that has the most impact but, usually, a slower rotation speed means a slower seek time. I would think it would only matter at a minimum of five users (a guess based on comments from others as I only have direct experience with one or two streams maximum.)
When I choose drives for my server the rotational speed is way down the list of considerations but most people say the 5200 RPM drives run cooler and last longer and consume less power than 7200 RPM drives. I am unsure if the difference is much at this time but it is another thing to think of.
I expect 3 to 4 people steaming and trying to improve the quality and back buffering and pausing dissappear all together I hope
A 5400RPM hard drive is more than sufficient to saturate your network connection. You should save your money and just go 5400 RPM. The drives indeed run cooler, quieter, and use less electricity. The WD Reds (not “Pro”) would be an ideal choice.
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The WD Red 5400 drives are perfect for almost all home NAS and streaming applications and anything faster isn’t needed. They run cooler, are more energy efficient and save you money. I’ve been running 18 4TB WD REDs in my media server for the past 2 years and couldn’t be happier with them. It’s not uncommon for me to see over a dozen video streams going and a few music as well both locally and remotely taking place as I share my server with family and a couple close friends. Unless you’re doing live editing or database such applications you should be fine with 5400 drives.
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Alright that’s makes sense and what I needed… thanks for the input… I don’t see a 10tb red wd… does anyone know of a 10 tb drives that runs at 5400rmp …
@Myticdrgn said:
Alright that’s makes sense and what I needed… thanks for the input… I don’t see a 10tb red wd… does anyone know of a 10 tb drives that runs at 5400rmp …
Nope. You’re going to have to compromise somewhere. I’d suggest compromising on size of individual drives. The only ones making 10GB drives are Seagate and WD, and I stopped trusting Seagate with my data. WD’s 10GB drives are not targeted at you and are meant for datacenters, hence the high-speed since internal transfer speed matters there.
I suppose you could compromise on total number of drives and increasing it so you can still get the desired capacity, but at that point you’re adding additional power usage, noise and heat from the additional drives so I’m not sure it’s better than just going with fewer, 10GB drives. So at the end of the day, if 5400RPM is an option you should go with that, but if the only way to get the capacity you want is via 7200RPM drives then you do what you need to do.
I use 5200 rpm for permanent storage of movies and TV shows but have an SSD for the OS and a fast 7200rpm drive for working. This means ripping, converting, etc. I’ve had 3 people streaming 1080p at once from the 5200 green drives with no issues.
I use the certified refurbished hgst enterprise drives from amazon 3tb for 50 bucks each i have built 3 server using this for myself and clients. one goes out its only 50 bucks and 3 in there to rebuild itself. Especially if your running unraid OS.
Interested to read your setup. Im in the process of a complete rebuild of my plex server using 5400 drives and os on ssd drive. When you say using a fast 7200 rpm for working,ripping,converting etc. are you installing the ripping/converting software onto that drive to save work on the ssd or just holding the working video files raw and converted on the 7200 working drive. I’m probably wrong but always thought installing software progs needed to always go to the main os drive.
No, the software is installed on the SSD with the OS. I just used the 7200 drives to hold files when I rip DVDs, files needing conversion, etc.
That’s an old post and since then I’ve converted my entire setup from full tower server to an older 17" IBM Elitebook Workstation. i7, 16gigs ram, 3 1tb Samsung SSDs for OS & working.
The main videos (TV, Movies, Etc) are on a USB (3.1) 4 drivebay with those same 5200 RPM drives.
It stays open 24/7 and I have it pinched between two laptop fans (the top one exhausting up) to help it run nice and chilly and keep dust away. Been this way for 2 years now and no issues at all. Using the laptop saves TONS of electricity and space. The older Elitebooks were built to be workhorses.
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