most suitable hard drives for 211j

[sims]

I am almost ready to buy the Synology 211j. Amazon offers 2TB Green Western Digital drives with that.

I read in one or two entries here that these Green drives do not deliver performance that is as good as can be.

Can anybody here advice on which hard drive delivers the best balance between price, speed and power consumption?

Thank you.

 

[stevech]

I'd go with Western Digital non-green drives, 7200RPM of course. IMO, over many years, many drives, WD has fewer lemons.

I think a Plus for the green drives is lower heat dissipation - but they are variable RPM I think - to save power. Maybe the diminished I/O rate is insignificant for home users - that's my guess. For NASes, the green drives tend to spin-down more quickly than non-green. But maybe the NAS is clever enough to touch the drive interfaces to keep them spun-up during the active-use hours of the day? Maybe not.

 

[sims]

So I checked Amazon and Newegg for WD drives, and it looks like I can get the Green drives for $80 a piece. Any other options appear to be $100+ (on both Amazon and Newegg). Is that about what you expect?

If so, I will pass on the faster non-green drives. Thanks for the advice!

 

[stevech]

OK. You might want to get a couple of other opinions on specific drive models, as WD like all, do have bad models now and then. It's them and Seagate. Hitachi underprices both companies. Some few reviews on Newegg are credible; most are from technically incompetent people.

these days you can sometimes find a non-green sold inside a USB enclosure, on sale at Newegg or Frys (price matches) or ? for less than a bare drive. Mass market, I guess. Simple enough to remove the drive from the USB enclosure. And put some other drive in the enclosure. (SATA).

 

[sims]

The USB route is an interesting one but I am not sure how that will impact warranties etc.

So, I guess I will stick with WD internal drive. Green is $80, others are more than $100, so I guess I will stick with green.

Thanks for the advice and taking the time. Will report here if I have problems.

 

[ATC4USMC]

Green

I have two 2TB greens in my 211J. Got them from newegg for about 70.00 each (gotta catch the sales!!) They are performing perfectly with ZERO issues. As far as performance goes, I really have not had any issues. I use my Synology for storage as well as cloud computing and it runs smooth.

Bottom line I have zero regrets with my setup.

 

[stevech]

Does the Synology ever spin-down the green drives?

 

[sims]

I have two 2TB greens in my 211J. Got them from newegg for about 70.00 each (gotta catch the sales!!) They are performing perfectly with ZERO issues. As far as performance goes, I really have not had any issues. I use my Synology for storage as well as cloud computing and it runs smooth.

Bottom line I have zero regrets with my setup.

I got the 211j. And two green drives from WDC. $80
But working great so far. Not really used for anything yet.

Will use it for squeezebox server. Hopefully it will work.