longevity of Enterprise HDD NAS drives

Hi folks
Anybody got an idea how long some of these large NAS classical Spinner HDD's drives last when running 24/7 on a NAS server.
There's some tremendous value out there now with 12 and 16 TB Toshiba Enterprise grade NAS drives 7200 RPM with decent cache sizes, I gather these are actually designed for running 24/7 unlike more standard HDD's which are used on a PC / desktop which get switched on and off regularly.

I'd like to replace some older drives (which have been running 24/7 fine for 3 years or more) - of course with big drives one also needs to understand backup strategy - as hardware can and does fail (although these days hardware seems much more reliable).

was looking at these from the UK via Amazon :

with 20% VAT not applicable for me (educational material import from UK -- 0% !!) price is around 210 GBP -- 240 EUR approx in "Clown Money" !!



Cheers
jimbo

I've used 2 x 2TB WDC My Cloud drives for more than 4 years without issue. Due to security issues with the software for them and no update for it I have taken one out of service and shopping for a 4TB replacement for the other. The only issue in doing it is first saving the data before taking it offline then I took the red-label drive from the case which immediately made the data inaccessible, pre-planning helped. The drive is fine but same data issue as a 2TB USB drive had a couple years ago that failed without any warning, it's the interface in the case that interprets the data and stores available for any computer that can access the drive ending up as showing all corrupted or as RAW, positively having a backup or second copy to assure data is somewhere else is good.

Anything to do with computers....keep a backup and if possible an image

So far the longest I've heard a drive has been spinning for in a server environment is for about 25years+ 24/7. Works like a champ, but if you turn it off, it will take about 2-3h to "warm" it up and getting it spinning properly again and work reliably.

jimbo45 said:

Anybody got an idea how long some of these large NAS classical Spinner HDD's drives last when running 24/7 on a NAS server.

Click to expand...

If anyone does, then it will be Backblaze. Their Drive Stats for 2021 should give you a good idea - and that Toshiba drive you are looking at is one of the drives in their statistics.

In real world usage I've been running 4 WD Red Pro (6TB each) since 2019 in RAID 10 24/7/365. In those near 4 years I've only shutdown maybe 4 times, most reboots from firmware updates.

Below are specs for the Toshiba MG series drives. Looks like they have a rated workload of 550 TB / Year. Multiply that by a 5 year warranty and you get a rated lifetime workload of 2,750 TB or 2.75 PB.

My 750GB WD Blue 2.5" spinner is 11 (soon 12) years old and still running like a champ. The system has been on for the past 5-6 years 24/7.

Just thought that I would add some other info...

I worked for a major storage company for 12+ years. I can tell you that the NAS rated drives are definitely at their best when left spinning 24/7. Whenever we had customers who lost power with systems that had been running for a few years, you could pretty much guarantee a small pile of drive failures upon restoring power. So, as always, backups are your friend.

Thanks everybody for all the replies.

The only time I shut down that NAS system is very rarely to update the OS or if totally going away for several days or more and house is empty -- I still don't like leaving a computer on and running in an empty property. So it looks providing I have backup getting that type of HDD is fine.

Storage will be mainly for multi-media files and Music - these don't change much so initial backup (which I have already) and just run backups when new files added. For file sharing I'm already using a RAID array which has been working reliably for ages too.

Cheers
jimbo