What Hard Drive for Media server/seed box?

[eshepard]

I just did a new build, I have a 480 gig ssd as my boot drive, but I am also going to put in a few 3 TB drives and use this computer as a torrent box and a home media server, as well as my primary computer.

I have read a lot about the WD Red series, and how they are optimized for NAS.

I was wondering if I should consider drives like these for my media server, keeping in mind this is not a dedicated NAS box, but a primary computer that will host media as well.

What hard drives should I get?

any old WD or seagate drives or should I look for something like Red's optimized for a NAS environment??

Thanks everyone.

 

[inzone]

Unless your building a Raid set then I would go with a good hard drive from WD. The Red drive will still work for your situatin as it can be a benefit in a media server.

Streaming support - NASware provides built-in compatibility with the ATA Streaming Feature Set which is important for AV storage applications such as Windows Media Center.

Also the WD Green and Black drives are good options with the Black being a bit more expensive but a good performing drive.

 

[eshepard]

I do intend to implement raid at some point. I want to build a high quality, 1080p media collection. I don't know if I will be going Raid 0 + 1 or Raid 5, I am leaning towards Raid 5

I am not looking at blacks because I don't care too much about transfer rate and speed, I am considering Reds because I have read that Greens don't fare too well in a RAID/NAS environment.

Longevity is my primary concern

on amazon a 3 TB green is about 140 while a red is about 190, is the premium price worth it?

 

[inzone]

The Red drive comes with the NASware and that would be beneficial to your raid and if your running 24/7 since the Reds are optimized for a NAS environment then they would be the better option. Since Amazon doesn't give a good description like you get in Newegg you can look at the Overview tab in this link for some good info on the Reds.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236344

I'm sure that the WD site would have all this info as well.

 

[eshepard]

Best answer selected by eshepard.