Is the Hitachi Deskstar 2 TB 5K3000 compatible with DS211?

[Butterfingers]

Hi,

I am having a hard time choosing between the WD20EARs 2TB, Samsung F4 2TB and the Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 but I think I am veering towards the Hitachi.

Since it is not on the compatibility lists for the DS211, has anyone used it in one and can verify that it is compatible?

Would anyone suggest any of the other choices instead of using the Hitachi 5k300? If so, why?

Really appreciate your feedback.

Thank you.

[keke]

Hi Butterfingers,

My DS211j and a Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 5k3000 drive arrived today. If you look elsewhere in the forums it seems other users have got these drives working successfully in their units. However, the drives have been accused of having a high failure rate (earning the nickname 'Deathstar' ) and unfortunately mine was one.

It powered up first time in the unit with no problems. I powered the 211j down safely, powered it up again and just got continuous clicking. Powered it on and off several times and then opened the unit up, changed the bay, same problem. Unfortunately I don't have a desktop unit or SATA connector unit to test the drive separately with on my network, so couldn't check if it was a problem with the DS211j itself, but the noise and perception from other users would say that that probably isn't where the fault lies. I was careful not to touch any PCBs on the hard drive and earthed myself, so it seems I was unlucky.

The drive had a batch date of JAN 2011 on it, some people have reported that there was a bit of a bad batch going round between DEC 2010 and FEB 2011, so that would concur, however, other people have had success. Additionally, the drive was sold as bare, thus only packed loosely in an anti static moisture bag and thin bubblewrap within the same parcel that contained my NAS, so it may have incurred damage in transit.

Just wanted to let you know if you do proceed, basically YMMV. As for me, I ordered the same model from another supplier (hoping to avoid the bad batch problem!) before the 211j and failed drive arrived, so I'll update you when I receive it and set my DS211j up.

Here's the Google Products review link: http://bit.ly/iw7cLd

Kind Regards and Good Luck!

[keke]

Well after some extensive testing with another two Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 5k3000 drives, the DS211j is working successfully. The drives were from two different suppliers, one drive stamped FEB2011 and the other MAR2011. I put the NAS through an extensive burn-in unwittingly, as the sleep mode didn't seem to be working properly in DSM3.1, but nothing died over the 3 - 5 days it was on 24/7, thus giving me hope that the 5k3000s are quite a good match. I then downgraded the system to DSM3.0. In DSM3.0 the sleep mode appeared to behave itself but I will investigate further later. From here I ran some tests using Helios LanTest to test the speed and response of the 211j in several different Redundant/Spanning configurations. The tests were done on a Gigabit network using Jumbo Frames [9000] and AFP b/w a Mac Mini and 211j. The results are averaged out over 10 consecutive passes:

No Redundancy
Basic: Write 33.320 MB/s Read 65.961 MB/s
JBOD: Write 32.162 MB/s Read 63.396 MB/s
RAID0: Write 33.122 MB/s Read 65.275 MB/s

1 Disk Redundancy
RAID1: Write 17.954 MB/s Read 42.089 MB/s
SHR: Write 17.589 MB/s Read 49.001 MB/s

If 10 consecutive passes can be taken as long enough (and bar the first or second passes the speeds began to be very similar), then it appears that Software RAID1 and SHR are not optimised for fast reads in this particular product but perform perfectly well as 1 Disk Redundant systems. Strangely, even with the additional overhead that SHR introduces it seems to read faster than RAID1, at least in this short test. If no redundancy is required it appears that Software RAID0 is comparable to Basic disk set up, but there's no real advantage in having the box set up with RAID0 unless it is to make the disks appear as one logical unit, as the read/write speed is the same as in Basic. If it's not necessary for the hard disk space to appear as one logical unit, one has a better safety net leaving it in Basic as one disk failing in this situation means that data on the other disk will be safe, unlike RAID 0 (and JBOD) IMO.

So the disks have been put through their paces as you can see, as long as it's not a DOA when shipped to you, it appears the Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 5K3000 works very well with the Synology DS211j.

Here's a link to the NAS testing software I used:

Helios LanTest: http://www.helios.de/web/EN/products/LanTest.html

[NewToItAll]

Hi All,

Having read this (and other) feedback, I decided to buy 2 Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 5K3000s for my new DS211j because they are quieter and significantly (29%) more energy efficient than the 7K3000 models. I then set them up as a single JBOD volume and connected the DS211j to a new BT Infinity 3.0 Wireless Hub.

I transferred some mp3 files to the DS211j, installed the Media Server and fired up Windows Media Player 12 on my laptop to listen to some music.

However, the music stutters. Is this a problem others have seen?

The same music streams to my laptop without stuttering from a 7200 rpm Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 3TB Desktop USB 2.0 External Hard Drive attached to a WD TV Live which is also wired into the Hub.

Note: There is a difference in the way the music is selected because the DS211j is DLNA compliant. So the music is selectable from within Windows Media Player. Whereas, the WD TV Live doesn't support DLNA, so I have to navigate my network using Windows Explorer and select individual music files. This is much less user friendly and so was one of the reasons I bought the DS211j.

Something I don't quite understand is that I can stream video from the DS211j to Real Player on the same laptop without any sign of stutter. I would have expected video to be higher bandwith than audio.

The laptop is wireless but since I can stream HD video wirelessly to my laptop from the internet without any problems and can also stream music from the GoFlex drive, I think we can rule out the wireless component as the source of the problem.

Have I simply chosen incorrectly by going for 5900 rpm drives or is this a hardware/software problem?

[Noah]

Would anybody care to share their user experiences? Not only to the above question, but also to one of mine, since I might consider buying these for a 1512+/1812+, yet I got some hint that these disks are (irritating) slow to resume from hibernation.

Thank you in advance for replies