Samsung Raid 5 replacement HDD suggestions?

[narb77]

Hi All,
I have a ds1511+ running 5 2TB Samsung HD204UI drives in a RAID 5 configuration. System has not missed a beat since setup a year ago. But, I'm a little paranoid about losing data so I tried today to buy a spare Hdd in case of drive failure to find out Samsung drives are no longer available since being bought out by Seagate.
I'm trying to find the best replacement Hdd to drop into my RAID 5 in case of drive failure, keeping in mind the HD204UI specs and low 5400rpm spin rate.
I've been told as long as I put another 2TB drive in it will be ok, but do I need to make sure it's also a 5400rpm drive or could I use a 7200rpm drive (Seagate for example)

All my important stuff is backed up externally but I would still prefer not to have any loses especially if it can be avoided.

Any suggestions and technical advise will be appreciated.

 

[Thatguy]

You always want to go at least to the smallest size and speed, not ANY smaller. After that it doesn't matter. Raid will always default to the smallest size/speed. Just make sure the HD will connect to your raid controller.

As far as if a disk fails, always read the documentation as many different RAID cards act differently. Some are hot swappable but some need you to reboot and fail the bad disk first. Some people just yank disks and think everything is o.k. then wonder they they lost all their data only to go back after that and read the documentation on how to properly replace HDs for that controller.

Listen for advice, read for accuracy.

 

[stevech]

DS212... Seagate 7200RPM is my primary volume. Drive #2 is a non-RAID second volume (backups); it is a Seagate 5400RPM green drive.

These were on-sale drives - bought with USB enclosure when these were cheaper than bare drives. Enclosure got re-purposed.

I wouldn't use different-speed (RPM) drives in a RAID setup. But for a 2 drive system, I'm not using RAID1.

Long haul, I usually buy Western Digital. But you never know with these commodity drives.

 

[narb77]

The problem I'm having is that I can't find a drive selling at the moment that only has a spin rate of 5400rpm. Seems that most brands are all doing 7200rpm with the odd 5900rpm.
So if I dropped in a 7200rpm it should still work but won't require full spinrate and should slow down to match the other drives.