Western Digital Red: NAS-Specific SATA 6Gb/s Drives, Reviewed

[Guest]

I like cheese! cftw!!

 

[mythbustersaddict]

Sounds like a good hard drive to use.

 

[master_chen]

After what Western Digital did to the entire planet, with their Blue and Green "Caviar" (basically raped the planet's population, pissing on us while we got raped, and laughed out loud while they were doing that) garbage, I'll never buy another HDD from Western Digital ever again. Those scars are still too fresh, that's not something I could heal even in 10 year-time span...and to think that only 3 years ago I was a devoted Western Digital fan, always buying their products without hesitation...

 

[Guest]

These drives are not great for 24x7 use in RAID, despite what the manufacturer claims. Stick to Hitachi for rock solid reliability in RAID setups. Source: http://blog.backblaze.com/2011/07/20/petabytes-on-a-budget-v2-0revealing-more-secrets/

 

[Guest]

Just had a 3tb model fail after 2 days. Going for the Seagate ES3.

 

[Guest]

Well I can speak from first hand knowledge about the drives burning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goGNYKOVr3A

 

[spearhead]

I dont really care for speed of the drives i will be using an SSD in my next build however i do care alot about drive reliability i had a 1TB F3 spinpoint from samsung which recently died without notification. no clicking just notbooting didnt work anymore. i lost quite alot of important data as a result. That was quite frustrating now i do understand the importance of making backups on other devices in the future. ill soon get a external WD device for that. I hope these 24/7 red drives are more reliable im tempted to get one in my next build if they prove more superiour then the WD green series. i have my system running for longer periods of time so a decent drive is no luxuary

 

[Fraidycat]

@Luscious: I've ordered 2x 3TB Reds for my QnapTS-212.

I currently have two 500GB Seagate NS (Enterprise) Drives (nearly 5 years old) in my QnapTS-212 and one of them is starting to report I/O errors. I have them RAID0 (1TB minus overheads) and it has been a nightmare trying to recover/backup when errors have occurred. Will definitely mirror the two reds this time for a total 3TB (minus O/H) as the performance of striping IMHO is negated by wireless network performance anyway when streaming media or doing nightly backups, which is what I'm using it for in a 24/7 situation.

 

[Fraidycat]

@Luscious: I've ordered 2x 3TB Reds for my QnapTS-212.

I currently have two 500GB Seagate NS (Enterprise) Drives (nearly 5 years old) in my QnapTS-212 and one of them is starting to report I/O errors. I have them RAID0 (1TB minus overheads) and it has been a nightmare trying to recover/backup when errors have occurred. Will definitely mirror the two reds this time for a total 3TB (minus O/H) as the performance of striping IMHO is negated by wireless network performance anyway when streaming media or doing nightly backups, which is what I'm using it for in a 24/7 situation.

 

[Fraidycat]

[citation][nom]Fraidycat[/nom]@Luscious: I've ordered 2x 3TB Reds for my QnapTS-212.I currently have two 500GB Seagate NS (Enterprise) Drives (nearly 5 years old) in my QnapTS-212 and one of them is starting to report I/O errors. I have them RAID0 (1TB minus overheads) and it has been a nightmare trying to recover/backup when errors have occurred. Will definitely mirror the two reds this time for a total 3TB (minus O/H) as the performance of striping IMHO is negated by wireless network performance anyway when streaming media or doing nightly backups, which is what I'm using it for in a 24/7 situation.[/citation]

 

[Fraidycat]

[citation][nom]LukeCWM[/nom]I've read in several places it is enabled. I don't know why Tom's didn't mention it.[/citation]

"Intelligent error recovery

With built in intelligent error recovery controls, NASware also prevents hard drives from being dropped off the RAID due to extended error recovery. This provides more availability and less down time rebuilding the RAID. "

Source, From the NASWare section of: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=810

 

[ByALongShot]

Just to back up the claim that they're fire hazards, I just had one burn up on me. Was setting up a new home server with 6x WD20EFRX when one of then started on fire! On first boot, I headed into the BIOS and just as I read "HDD 4 not found" I noticed the distinct smell of burning electronics. As I popped off the side of the case, the corner of the HDD sparked a few times and then burst into a flame. Luckily I was able to blow out the flame before anything else caught fire as I switched off the power. Can't say I've ever had this happen to me and I hope it never does again.

 

[Touko]

Ok, someone told me that the RED drives will just keep running and not go to sleep when not used.

His line was that they "burn themselves out" from running continuously and so he told me to use the GREEN drives instead...

I'm using a RED in my computer as data drive, its worked out fine so far, going on 9 months in operation, and my computer never does get turned off...

Anyone know if these RED drives do go to sleep or no? How would I find out?

 

[Marsigne]

Wow :O

 

[RealBeast]

Ok, someone told me that the RED drives will just keep running and not go to sleep when not used.

His line was that they "burn themselves out" from running continuously and so he told me to use the GREEN drives instead...

I'm using a RED in my computer as data drive, its worked out fine so far, going on 9 months in operation, and my computer never does get turned off...

Anyone know if these RED drives do go to sleep or no? How would I find out?

The "burn themselves out" comment is total nonsense. One or a few anecdotal reports have no meaning.

All of my array drives run 24/7 and many folks believe the idea that a drive running full time may last at least as long as those that are turned on and off. Green drives don't spin down by themselves but they do park their heads and they don't seem to last any longer than other drives, and perhaps not even as long. Your red drives do not have the parking issue.