I have a NAS configured as RAID 5. 4 drives, all 4 TB. I’m getting about 9 months useful life on my drives before I start getting media errors and have to replace the drives. I’m using WD SATA / 64 MB cache, 7200 RPM. For example, I’m replacing one today that I put in service on 7/29/25. My only question is whether this is within normal ranges of expectations or if this seems wildly out of proportion. Thanks.
That seems really unusual.
I have a 12-bay Synology NAS with Synology Hybrid Raid configured. I started with 6 4Tb drives and over the last 5 years it has been filled with 12 16Tb drives. In all that time I have had only one drive which developed media errors so I replaced it; none have failed.
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Thank you. That’s what I feared! So, the question is whether the drives are cheap (I think they are not) or whether there is something wrong with my NAS. I’ll see what I can figure out.
I am no expert but NAS use means permanently spinning and, depending on how your NAS is being used, a possibly a high frequency of access (as in, processes other than you actually doing something).
There are “NAS class” drives to be had. I use Synology’s own NAS HDDs. Specifically, I currently have 3 x 16TB HAT3310 drives, plus an old 8TB thing I had lying around when I first got the NAS.
These drives claim “up to 3 times the typical desktop lifetime” which is quantified as:
"a 1.2 million-hour mean time between failure (MTBF) and a 180 TB per year workload rating”.
I guess you might think to divide those numbers by 3 for a “normal” drive, but even that is probably well beyond what you’re experiencing.
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One thing it occurs to me would significantly add to the loading is running Time Machine backups to the NAS. I started out doing that, but stopped because the NAS is currently in my office and hearing the grinding drives every single hour of every day was wearing on me.
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What kind of NAS is it? Does it monitor drive temperatures - if so what does it show?
I think heat is my problem. My drives are refills running in the high 40s to low 50s. I think i’m going to move the NAS to another location that has better temperature control and air flow.