Western Digital Caviar Green WD15EARS 1.5TB Drives

[adamnash]

Looking to boost my NV+ from 4x750GB to 4x1.5TB.

NewEgg has a great deal on the Western Digital Caviar Green series:

Western Digital Caviar Green WD15EARS 1.5TB 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136513&cm_re=1.5TB_SATA-_-22-136-513-_-Product

What determines compatibility? The low power / large cache seems ideal at the surface for installing in the NV+.

- Adam

[mdgm]

There are some compatibility issues with the green features of these disks and the NAS thinking there is a problem as a result when there isn't.

I'm not sure, but RAIDiator 4.1.7 beta may provide a fix for this issue:

New features since RAIDiator 4.1.6

8. [T29] Added support for WD drives that don’t support TLER.

[Rexxie]

I bought two WD15EARS-00Z5B1, and they didn't work with Radiator 4.1.6, but after an upgrade to 4.1.7 (beta) everything works fine!

[msze]

Thanks for creating and putting 4.1.7beta up, I can confirm that it works with the WD10EARS (1TB) as well.

I bought two WD10EARS drives a few days ago and they didn't work with 4.1.6 so it's a huge relief that I don't have to consider returning the drives

[adamnash]

This is great news. I'll go ahead and get the 1.5TB drives then. Seems like the best cost / performance / size.

[mdgm]

There is still the WDIDLE issue for some drives, but apart from that hopefully the drives should work fine.

[thecheeto]

I bought two WD15EARS-00Z5B1, and they didn't work with Radiator 4.1.6, but after an upgrade to 4.1.7 (beta) everything works fine!

Can you provide details about what you mean it "didn't work"? I had already purchased two 1TB WD10EARS-00Y5B1 drives before I bought my ReadyNAS Duo. I have installed the drives and they seem to be functioning. I did get one notice when I logged into FrontView that there were ATA errors, but I have not continued to receive that error.

I can see where the change log for 4.1.7 lists the following...

8. [T29] Added support for WD drives that don’t support TLER.

However, I have been unable to find documentation that these drives (the WD10EARS or the WD15EARS) do not support TLER. So how am I to know that this firmware will resolve the "issues"?

I have to make a decision to keep this NAS or return and go after a QNAP or Synology, since both of them list the WD10EARS on the supported hardware lists, and right now, returning the hard drives is not an option.

Any help in understanding the issues with WD10EARS and the ReadyNAS Duo would be greatly appreciated.

[Cheesy2]

Hi,

I am new to this board and am awaiting my first nas to arrive which will be the NVX Pioneer edition. With it I also bought three of these WD hard-drives. As I understand the NVX pioneer uses the x86 firmware because of the intel chipset it uses. So the 4.1.7 firmware you guys talk about I cannot use. But does the x86 firmware with version number 4.2.9 (the most recent one) work with these drives? The hardware compatability list on the site (http://www.readynas.com/?page_id=82) makes no mention of this drive when I select the NVX pinoneer edition, so now I am not sure and getting nervous that I bought hard-drives that will not work with my NVX Pioneer which will be shipped next week.

Can someone give an answer to this? After reading this topic I am getting sweaty hands of the thought that I bought things that do not work together.

[mdgm]

I have installed the drives and they seem to be functioning. I did get one notice when I logged into FrontView that there were ATA errors, but I have not continued to receive that error.

That could possibly be the TLER issue.

I can see where the change log for 4.1.7 lists the following...

8. [T29] Added support for WD drives that don’t support TLER.

However, I have been unable to find documentation that these drives (the WD10EARS or the WD15EARS) do not support TLER.

If you look around the forum you will find that these are WD Green drives and don't support TLER. SO the TLER issue should be fixed by 4.1.7 beta.

So how am I to know that this firmware will resolve the "issues"?

I think it will, but it would be nice if one of the Jedi could comment on a list of drives they were referring to by the comment about TLER. Even if they said, "We don't yet officially support these disks, but we believe this fix will lead to these disks passing our testing".

[Cheesy2]

Anyone already who has tested these drives with a nvx and know of any problems?

[CannedCorn]

I just purchased an NV+. How bad is Netgear's support if they don't support THE most popular hard drive right now unless I use beta software? BETA software and NAS should not ever be two things that mix.

People buy this stuff for reliability, lets get an official firmware here...

[CannedCorn]

I'm getting the idea that this is such a small part of Netgear that even they don't care... I'm furious for buying this basically dead product. Should have gone with synology or just built a linux nas myself. This is shameful quality.

[mdgm]

How bad is Netgear's support if they don't support THE most popular hard drive right now unless I use beta software? BETA software and NAS should not ever be two things that mix.

The beta firmware may or may not help. It shouldn't be any less compatible with the disks than 4.1.6. It's WD's fault that the disks aren't designed for use in RAID arrays, not NetGear's. NetGear is trying to get a fix for the compatibility issues, but it isn't easy. Even then NetGear will need to retest the disks (a lengthy process) that are not yet listed as compatible before they can signal to us users which disks are now compatible. There is also the LCC issue which this doesn't fix. The WDIDLE3 utility (if it works on the drive) may need to be used.

My advice is to buy disks on the HCL. I have 8xSeaGate 1.5TB's working fine apart from a few reallocated sectors.

[CannedCorn]

Why? That doesn't make any sense. I don't need netgear to choose disks for me. I can build a linux box that I can put virtually *ANY* hard drive into and turn it into a raid. Why is this any different?

[adamnash]

Just a quick update for everyone.

I installed the 4.1.7 beta software, and installed 4 of the 1.5TB drives into the ReadyNAS NV+. One-by-one, to allow resynch. Once done, I did a couple of reboots, and I had the larger storage.

It took 2 days (roughly) to complete the process, but well worth it. Performance, so far, has been excellent. Seems faster than my original configuration with 4 Seagate 750GB 7200.10 drives.

Adam