pushing envelope with older drives....

[Jan Janowski]

After giving the 215J with DSM 6 and 2x 4TB Reds away to son-in-law, (Because it could not easily upgrade to V7 for the 'long term')

I wanted a NAS to Experiment with V7... but $$ was tight...
To keep $$ down, I bought a new 720+, stuffed with used 3rd Party 4GB Ram (6GB Total), and pulled 2x 10 year old Seagate 1TB 7200 Baraccuda's with patched firmware, previously used as Raid 0 in Video Editing System -- Installed as SHR Storage.... Which 720+ told me wasn't supported, but I used them anyway...... Wife allowed me to upgrade her 720+ with Samsung 256GB Cache's, and the 128GB Seagate Cache's were moved to "Experimental" NAS...

With this Hodge-Podge of hardware, (Drives, and Ram that was not fully supported....) I experimented with V7, knowing if it didn't work well, it wasn't an issue: It was 'Experimental'! Some but not all of data from other NAS's were stored here as a test so I could compare how V7 worked with V6 on other NAS's...

About a year has passed.... V7 is solid, Ram, and Drives ok, though one drive failed (I had 4 1TB Seagate's with patched firmware), so replaced bad with new (old) and continued on!.... The one Hold-Over rule from 1990's I follow to this day regarding Raid's: Identical Drive(s) each with Identical Firmware....

These 10 year old drives are still chugging along... though report an occasional bad block.... Have 1 more 1TB spare on shelf if needed.... Have now decided to let it run till they fail.... as a long term test of he robust-ness of the V7 Storage Manager software..... How good it reacts to old drive(s) slowly die-ing....

It's an 'Experimental' NAS..... If there are any questions or suggestions for Storage Manager tests using V7, holler.... I'll experiment! !

 

[sandcrab]

I have a similar situation happen, my old DS412+ bit the dust a few years ago.. motherboard issue i believe. I was left with four old two terabyte Seagate drives.. not sure of the nomenclature but they were still functional. I bought a DS418 and populated it with these four seagates and it runs well. These Seagates must be at least 11 years old. i have a cold spare in case one drive fails.

I remember at my work, we used to run SUN Solaris servers, those beasts ran forever,24x7...they ran nonstop for 20 years... amazing machines!

I only use the DS418 as a Drive, Office and Calendar server. It does have some importance but Drive replicates files to all users and i also use Hyper-backup and Snapshots.. just in case!

 

[Jan Janowski]

These came out of an old Grass Valley Video Server from TV Station that was obsoleted/retired.... Many Years ago (Probably 2014-2015)..
I used them for years as Raid0 on my Video Edit System.... and Now in 720+ as SHR
Just checked date code on spare: 09076 It's a ST31000340A8 with SD1A Firmware

 

[Coop777]

all I can say is good luck...

 

[Jan Janowski]

So far: Been good for ~6 months..
One more spare drive, on UPS, with whole house generator as backup.
Backup configuration on laptop if worst case happens, and files are copies of stuff from other NAS’s!
With a true Alfred E. Neuman attitude: “What, Me Worry?”

PS: The SD1A firmware is the patch that Seagate came out with for this model drive when this model started dying all over the world… it was applied to drive after removal from the Grass Valley Server.

 

[Coop777]

nothing wrong with repurposing older hardware - I've done it many times myself.