Price / GB for 6 new HDD

I have been pondering buying some new HDD lately. Price/GB isn’t the only metric. But I did up a list of the short candidates, but before you buy, read below.

I should mention all the links below go to Newegg, only because that’s where I was searching. They may not be the best price, but they have a reputation of making sure that links don’t die 6 months after I pasted them. Yeah, why use prices that aren’t necessarily the cheapest? Well, because I did. That’s why.

Model Price Capacity (TB) Price/GB
Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 ST3000DM001 $139.99 3 0.04557
TOSHIBA DT01ACA300 3TB $157.27 3 0.05119
TOSHIBA DT01ACA200 2TB $109.99 2 0.05371
Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 $109.99 2 0.05371
Seagate Barracuda ST1500DM003 $99.99 1.5 0.06510
TOSHIBA DT01ACA100 1TB $74.99 1 0.07323
Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 79.99 1 0.07812
Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002 $59.99 0.5 0.11717
TOSHIBA DT01ACA050 500GB $61.98 0.5 0.12105
Western Digital WD Black WD5003AZEX $84.99 0.5 0.16600

Based on this, the Seagate is the best buy. But I’ve heard good things, 3rd hand, regarding Toshiba and its implementation of TLER. Storage forums ranting about them being used in ZFS arrays.

But price isn’t everything

I was tempted by the Toshiba drive specs over the Seagate specs. Mostly because of the TLER and ZFS reputation. I was quite prepared to pay the extra $17.28 per drive. Then diizy mentioned they were $140 at ServerSupply. So price is no longer a factor.

I was asked if I was going to do zfsboot with this array. Yes, yes, I am.

But if I wanted to get another couple of HDD for booting, I’d need a SATA card, because all six ports on the M/B would be filled. I’m basing this array in this gateway box I described earlier. Here are some of the items mentioned:

I think I’ll be ordering those Toshiba drives later today.

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12 thoughts on “Price / GB for 6 new HDD”

  1. Mentioned on IRC regarding TLER: you can use smartmontools to adjust TLER:

    [20:59]  <BaT> smartctl -l scterc -d areca,9 /dev/arcmsr0
    [20:59]  <BaT> Well, that's for my controller
    [20:59]  <BaT> SCT Error Recovery Control:
    [20:59]  <BaT>            Read:      2 (0.2 seconds)
    [20:59]  <BaT>           Write:      2 (0.2 seconds)
    
    1. Warren: Thank you for that. I had indeed noticed that earlier this morning. However, I had placed my order last night.

      BUT!

      The vendor called me this morning regarding that order. We clarified a few things, and at the end of the call, I mentioned this price. He said he could not meet it, and would back out my order if I wished. I did so and just ordered from Newegg.

      I don’t think I would have mentioned that if I hadn’t just seen your comment. Thank you for saving me about 10%.

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