Best WD for RAID

[madsriisager]

I thinking of buying two WD HDD's for RAID control, so that if one HDD fails the other one will still have the data.

My problem is that I don't know which one is the best choice for RAID.

 

[smorizio]

the wd red drives were the ones that were sold for raid system. if not then the black drives.

 

[madsriisager]

the wd red drives were the ones that were sold for raid system. if not then the black drives.

Would two WD red in RAID have the same speed as one WD Black or better?

 

[smorizio]

there only few stock speeds hd run at 5400 the slowest...7200 that most drives run at and then 10,0000 rpm for the high end enterprize drives. if you can get 10,000 or faster drives at a good price jump for them. 7200 are fine for most servers now.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, madsriisager!

What exactly do you plan to use the array for?
From what I can understand you intend to build a RAID 1 configuration, where one drive is mirroring the other one.
This is a highly reliable array, but keep in mind that RAIDs are not really a backup solution, so keep your data safe in multiple places.

As smorizio already mentioned, WD has specifically designed HDDs for RAID/NAS solutions.

I wouldn't recommend building your NAS/RAID with WD Blacks because they are specifically designed for gaming and performance usage as standalone drives, RAID-ing them would void the 5-year warranty.

WD Reds have specific features that are optimized for NAS/RAID only. They also improve their reliability and performance in increased workloads. Since the NAS/RAID system is always on in most cases, it is essential to have a reliable storage solution. WD Reds have 35% MTBF improvement over regular standard drives and it is designed for 24/7 environments.
You can see more about them here: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=fFMtrc

Hope this helped. Keep me posted if you have more questions!
Merry Christmas!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[sighlentz]

Hey there, madsriisager!

What exactly do you plan to use the array for?
From what I can understand you intend to build a RAID 1 configuration, where one drive is mirroring the other one.
This is a highly reliable array, but keep in mind that RAIDs are not really a backup solution, so keep your data safe in multiple places.

As smorizio already mentioned, WD has specifically designed HDDs for RAID/NAS solutions.

I wouldn't recommend building your NAS/RAID with WD Blacks because they are specifically designed for gaming and performance usage as standalone drives, RAID-ing them would void the 5-year warranty.

WD Reds have specific features that are optimized for NAS/RAID only. They also improve their reliability and performance in increased workloads. Since the NAS/RAID system is always on in most cases, it is essential to have a reliable storage solution. WD Reds have 35% MTBF improvement over regular standard drives and it is designed for 24/7 environments.
You can see more about them here: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=fFMtrc

Hope this helped. Keep me posted if you have more questions!
Merry Christmas!
SuperSoph_WD

Why do you post this answer when WD website states these drives can be used in RAID array:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/996/session/L2F2LzEvdGltZS8xNDIwMTQ2NDQ4L3NpZC83ZzQ1VW5ibQ%3D%3D

 

[madsriisager]

Hey there, madsriisager!

What exactly do you plan to use the array for?
From what I can understand you intend to build a RAID 1 configuration, where one drive is mirroring the other one.
This is a highly reliable array, but keep in mind that RAIDs are not really a backup solution, so keep your data safe in multiple places.

As smorizio already mentioned, WD has specifically designed HDDs for RAID/NAS solutions.

I wouldn't recommend building your NAS/RAID with WD Blacks because they are specifically designed for gaming and performance usage as standalone drives, RAID-ing them would void the 5-year warranty.

WD Reds have specific features that are optimized for NAS/RAID only. They also improve their reliability and performance in increased workloads. Since the NAS/RAID system is always on in most cases, it is essential to have a reliable storage solution. WD Reds have 35% MTBF improvement over regular standard drives and it is designed for 24/7 environments.
You can see more about them here: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=fFMtrc

Hope this helped. Keep me posted if you have more questions!
Merry Christmas!
SuperSoph_WD

Hello SuperSoph_WD

You are right I want to have to drives mirroring each other. But I want to ask which of the Red's are best. I can se WD Re are out of my pricerange, but what about WD Red and WD Red Pro. How much faster is the Pro?

 

[sighlentz]

Hey there, madsriisager!

What exactly do you plan to use the array for?
From what I can understand you intend to build a RAID 1 configuration, where one drive is mirroring the other one.
This is a highly reliable array, but keep in mind that RAIDs are not really a backup solution, so keep your data safe in multiple places.

As smorizio already mentioned, WD has specifically designed HDDs for RAID/NAS solutions.

I wouldn't recommend building your NAS/RAID with WD Blacks because they are specifically designed for gaming and performance usage as standalone drives, RAID-ing them would void the 5-year warranty.

WD Reds have specific features that are optimized for NAS/RAID only. They also improve their reliability and performance in increased workloads. Since the NAS/RAID system is always on in most cases, it is essential to have a reliable storage solution. WD Reds have 35% MTBF improvement over regular standard drives and it is designed for 24/7 environments.
You can see more about them here: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=fFMtrc

Hope this helped. Keep me posted if you have more questions!
Merry Christmas!
SuperSoph_WD

Hello SuperSoph_WD

You are right I want to have to drives mirroring each other. But I want to ask which of the Red's are best. I can se WD Re are out of my pricerange, but what about WD Red and WD Red Pro. How much faster is the Pro?

You don't have to use the WD Red drives. this quote from WD web site:
"WD desktop hard drives (WD Blue, Green, or Black) have been tested and are recommended for consumer RAID applications when using the drives in a RAID 0 (Stripe) or RAID 1 (Mirror) configuration.

No need to use the Red: I run 2 WD Blue in RAID 1 without issues

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hello SuperSoph_WD

You are right I want to have to drives mirroring each other. But I want to ask which of the Red's are best. I can se WD Re are out of my pricerange, but what about WD Red and WD Red Pro. How much faster is the Pro?

Hi again, madsriisager!

The WD Red is designed for 1-8 bay NAS/RAID systems, whereas the WD Red Pro are designed for 8-16 bay NAS solutions.
So basically both have the NASware features, the difference is that WD Red Pro are a bit faster due to the fact that they are supposed to handle bigger workload. You can check more about them here:
WD Red: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=DGbrYj
WD Red Pro: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=QDkaUY

Keep me posted if you have more questions & Happy New Year!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Why do you post this answer when WD website states these drives can be used in RAID array:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/996/session/L2F2LzEvdGltZS8xNDIwMTQ2NDQ4L3NpZC83ZzQ1VW5ibQ%3D%3D

Hello there, sighlentz!

Sorry about that. I should have worded it differently. Here is an extract from our Knowledge base regarding the use of the consumer drives in RAID: "WD Black, WD Green, and WD Blue hard drives are not recommended for and are not warranted for use in RAID environments utilizing Enterprise HBAs and/or expanders and in multi-bay chassis, as they are not designed for, nor tested in, these specific types of RAID applications. (http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=PEcWL8)

So yes, basically madsriisager can use a Blue drive as you in a consumer-level RAID without voiding its warranty. But since the Blue is not designed for such use it doesn't have the NAS/RAID-related features of our NAS/RAID drives (which we call NASware features) and the risk of having drive dropouts and failures is higher.
Again sorry for creating confusion with my previous posts & I'm sorry for the late reply on this.

Cheers,
SuperSoph_WD