Which Hard Disks for a OMV server (HP Proliant N36L)

I am currently running a HP Proliant N36L (4 disks) with the following setup:

Disk 1: 160GB HDD that came with the Proliant N36L as system disk (latest version of OMV)
Disk 2: Raid 1 - WD Green 1TB
Disk 3: Raid 1 - WD Green 1TB
Disk 4: Internal backup - 1TB Seagate (I think, not sure which model)

2x Seagate portable USB HDD which I use for weekly backups (rotated - so each every 2 weeks).

Now I am getting closer and closer to the 1TB. At the moment the disks have around 725GB on them.

So I was looking around for 2TB disks. I heard that the Green series from WD is actually not made for NAS servers, but to be honest, I am running them for more than 2 years in my little machine and there was never a problem. I know that the RED series is made for NAS, but they are so much more expensive here (Brazil). --> WD Green 2TB about R$ 300-350, WD Red 2TB R$ 600 and above.

What HD do you recommend? I am rather looking for an inexpensive solution, but of course I don't want to buy disks that are known for breaking quickly.

Another question: How would you move the data to the new Disks??

yeah, Brazil is quite expensive when it comes to technology. Because the government puts huge import taxes on stuff (sums often up to 100% including the shipping). So getting it from the US isn't really a good option either. I looked also into the 3TB options, because this would mean I won't have to worry for a while, but at the moment here it seems that the 2TB HDDs are the best cost/benefit (price per GB is the lower).

The greens have actually quite a OKish price compared to the prices you are mentioning from Germany. 82 Euros would be around 240 Reais, so 300 Reais is OK, knowing that Brazil is simply more expensive.

Bringing them from Germany during my yearly visit isn't really an option, as the price difference doesn't justify not having warranty and also having problems with accounting due to an invoice from abroad.

The NAS is running as a small file server and is only switched on during working hours. So it runs from 8 or 9 in the morning until 18 or 19h in the evening during the week. On weekends it is usually switched off.

I heard that the problem with the green version of WD is due to the power saving options in the disk. I guess I will have to research a little, because I haven't noticed them going to sleep or using any power saving technology.

Ohh, I have just seen that the prices that I took for comparison are the ones for 3TB. Nevermind. I won't have a go about the prices here. We won't change it anytime soon I guess.

So it is even more important to look around and find good options for a reasonable price.

OK, so I had pushed this aside for a while, but now I am really running out of space and I really have to buy bigger drives now.

I am between 2TB and 3TB, but think about the fact that I don't want to do the change of disks and setups too often, I guess I'll spend the extra money and go for the 3TB.

Prices for harddisks are still ridiculous and due to the bad exchange rate from Brazilian Reais to Euro/Dollar it has actually gone worse. But what can you do.

I was thinking of going for NAS drives for the 2x disks in Raid1 and get a normal, cheaper one for the backup disk that will only get synced 1-2 per week with the data from Raid1.

I found the Seagate NAS drives ST3000VN000 for a reasonable price (R$659,63). The 2tb one costs R$ 597, so I guess it is worth going for the 3TB version. I read good things about this drive (tested better than the WD Red), but would like to know how it works with Openmediavault, if someone has a clue.

Yeah, it is the Seagate NAS drives ST3000VN000 I was looking into. The greens work pretty well for well over 2 years now for me (maybe because there are only 4-5 people accessing the NAS as a small file server and we switch the server off over night and on the weekend). But as I don't want to risk any data loss, I will go for some of those special NAS drives.

Thanks for the reply! I read some reviews and they were all pretty good. Didn't see anything about the 2TB being more reliable though. Well, too late I guess. Just ordered them 3TB version.

Now there comes my other question in play: How do I best make the move? At the moment I have 2 1x TB in Raid 1 and one 1TB to mirror what is saved on the Raid1 (about 2 times a week - and there are 2 external HDs that are stored off site and rotate every other Friday).But my main concern is, how to move data from the old 1TB disks to the new 3TB disks.

Is it possible to move the data without having to create new shares? At the moment I see no other way than to exclude the shared folders (3 in total) on the raid disks to unmount them. Then I would have to put the 2 new ones in, create a new raid and then setup new shares. I am wondering if there is any better method?

I also haven't upgraded to OMV 2.x yet. Do you recommend to do this before or after the move?

How would you guys handle this? I would have to run all this over a holiday or a weekend, in order keep the impact on operations in the office to a minimum.

Just wanted to thank everyone who responded and help to make this move from 1TB to 3TB as smooth as possible.

Seems everything went well (only the next few days will tell if this is true), but at the moment the system is up and running just fine. Took quite a bit to get everything "unconfigured", then the raid setup. The actually setup of shares and folders, etc. was relatively quick. Then copying the files again took a long time, but with a lot of small files this is probably normal.Now time will have to tell how good those 3TB Seagate NAS drives work. If they work anything comparable to the WD Greens that I have used until now, I am happy. And they actually should be better I guess.