WD 8TB BLACK SN850X
- Thread starter LunarMist
- Start date
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
You can also get the 1DWpD SN840 in U.2 Ultrastar dress at around $100/TB and the extra added bonus of a nifty and quite substantial heat sink that doesn't cost an extra $50.
The SN840 is more archaic technology and that U.2 stuff just doesn't make sense with my limited PCIe lanes. The viable option was one of the $1000 8-lane multimode comptrollers that would power 1-2 U.2/U.3 and 4-8 SATA III. Then I could remove the SAS Raid controller.
I have to figure out how to use them. Right now I have three 4TB SN850X and one 512GB 970 Pro (boot drive). The four NVMe on the X670E are split between the two double-sided M.2s (5.0) and the two single-sided M.2s (4.0). I also have 3x4TB and 2x4TB of SATA III.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
The controllers most definitely aren't that expensive. Yes, you're giving up performance, but the workloads that need 6+ GB/s I/O really aren't all that common and could be isolated to a single fast drive if need be. 8 PCIe lanes to have access to 8 drives instead of two just seems like a better deal to me.
I do not have a good plan, that is for sure. Somehow I need to add and aggregate, but JBLOD is no good. The 4TB SATA are neither there nor here, but the three 4TB SN850s should be utilized somehow. Maybe I need to change to an incremental property instead of the 12:12 (1:1). I think there were some ways to mount it sideways in the file folders.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
They are distinct volumes. They're just mounted to an empty folder instead of a root drive letter. Although technically you can do both if you want.
The 512GB boot drive could be replaced with an 8TB WD and then partutioned so ~7.5TB could be mounted on the 12TB Dynamics Dics. Last time I had some problems in the past and am not sure if one DD can mount onto another DD. I can run the extra 2x4TB SATA via hardware RAID 0 if needed or just ignore that folder from the onboard syncs.
The main constraint is that I want to use as much of what I already have as possible and cannot tolerate any more drive letters. MS drive letters are just silly. All of the internal SSDs must be allocated to either X or Y.
The main constraint is that I want to use as much of what I already have as possible and cannot tolerate any more drive letters. MS drive letters are just silly. All of the internal SSDs must be allocated to either X or Y.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
On my big Windows file server, what I do is create an entry point called c:\mnt\(drive label), and a second directory location called c:\share. In C:\share, I add symbolic links to whatever directories I want from the drives found under c:\mnt so they appear contiguous for purposes of browsing around the filesystem, but I know full well where the actual directories are if I was too lazy to link one for some reason.
This is very much analogous to how *nix handles drive and directory locations and it makes complete sense to me.
There's a tool called Link Shell extension if mklink is scary.
This is very much analogous to how *nix handles drive and directory locations and it makes complete sense to me.
There's a tool called Link Shell extension if mklink is scary.
So the short answer is that I will probably buy just one. It's a pain to remove that gigantic video card out of the system to access most of the SSDs, so ideally it will be at the same time as the CPU upgrade.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I actually got a single UltraStar SN840 out of the pile of nonsense my data center had set aside. New (sealed) drive, and I wouldn't have bought it if it doesn't have HGST style dress vs. Western Digital. It's just 2TB, too small to put in a production server, I'll find something to do with it.
HGST was no more after 2012 so the label is just an artifact of the historical branding (2018 or older). The first PR on the SN840 I found is from 2020. I agree that 2TB is too small. I have numerous 2TB SATA III and M.2 SSDs.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I'm thinking it's a good size for a boot drive. I have to assume there's still some reason why WD maintains the distinct labeling.
sdbardwick
Storage is cool
Corporate approved vendor lists?
Have you worked with a brand team and marketing on anything ever?
I'm not so sure. Maybe that is in small companies, but category managers would not be so interested in the label graphics.
ddrueding
Fixture
Or just a paper launch if their OEM customers demanded all their capacity, or if they didn't see enough demand to warrant starting production.
The Blacks are always enthusiastic grade consumer drives. I'm just irritated there is no availability date, so it could be too late.
8TB M.2 is not new and Corsair has extended the MP600 series to 8TB already. I'm not sure about the Corsairs and definitely rejected the Sabrents.
The Koreans (Samsung and Hypoxia) don't seem to care about the capacity drives so there are not many mainline options.
8TB M.2 is not new and Corsair has extended the MP600 series to 8TB already. I'm not sure about the Corsairs and definitely rejected the Sabrents.
The Koreans (Samsung and Hypoxia) don't seem to care about the capacity drives so there are not many mainline options.