WD Red (NAS) Drive for normal PC use?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
R

ResurgenceX87

Commendable
Feb 25, 2016
2
0
1,510
I have a long term goal of putting together a NAS build where I will want to use WD Red drives. I have a more immediate need for a storage HDD in my home theater PC. Is there any downside to buying a Red drive to use in my home theater PC, with the eventual goal of moving it to a NAS?
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
K

kilerb

Honorable
May 19, 2012
6
0
10,510


Would there be an advantage of using a non-NAS HD? I need a larger hard drive in my PC. (Not the HD with the OS on it.) Will pretty much just stream videos to my TV. I read some posts saying that NAS drives are 5200rpm, but the new WD Red Pro's are 7200... So would a different hard drive be better for any reason? Or would these actually be the best way to go? Thanks!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
The Original Ralph

The Original Ralph

Distinguished
Sep 14, 2011
2,222
1
20,510
the WD red drives are all 5400 scroll down on the link to the specifications section https://www.wdc.com/products/internal-storage/wd-red.html

the 7200 would offer some advantage if you were using it to load OS etc, but not for video streaming - i've been using WD red and green HDD, all 4 TB for 4+ years for exactly the purpose you're describing with no issues. I was a little surprised to see one of the vendors drop their price on the 4 TB Reds to $99 shipped, and have since caught 3 at that price

sign up with newegg for their email notifications
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
K

kilerb

Honorable
May 19, 2012
6
0
10,510


It looks like the red pro on Amazon is 7200rpm... Here's the link... https://www.amazon.com/3-5-Inch-SATAIII-7200rpm-Internal-WD8001FFWX/dp/B01H33VQDG/ref=cm_cd_al_qh_dp_i

Is there any disadvantage to using the NAS drive? Is it the best way to go? Or would green be better for this purpose?

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
K

kilerb

Honorable
May 19, 2012
6
0
10,510


I think it's these....

https://www.wdc.com/products/business-internal-storage/wd-red-pro.html


 
Upvote 0 Downvote
K

kilerb

Honorable
May 19, 2012
6
0
10,510


I guess my main question is this... If cost isn't an issue, is the red a better buy than the blue or green for my purpose? Seems like it's made to last longer and endure... But if there are any disadvantages, besides price I'd want to know before grabbing it.

Thanks!!!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
The Original Ralph

The Original Ralph

Distinguished
Sep 14, 2011
2,222
1
20,510
well the greens are no longer available, but they were the bottom of the food chain from WD
all i can offer is my own experience - after having too many seagate hdds go tits up, i switched to the wd greens about 4.5 years ago - have 9 of them and 3 WD reds - the oldest WD Red is only 2 years old, but have had zero failures on any of them. And i am running the WD Red, standard grade. Newegg (and i'm sure other vendors) have been putting them up for sale a $99 for the 4TB unit - when i see them come up, i jump on one or two.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
K

kilerb

Honorable
May 19, 2012
6
0
10,510
Cool! So reds (especially the red pro at 7200rpm) doesn't have any disadvantage compared to say the blue or black other than costing more? They'll work great in a PC as a secondary storage drive for streaming?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
The Original Ralph

The Original Ralph

Distinguished
Sep 14, 2011
2,222
1
20,510
actually on a per TB basis, the 8 TB red Pro is about $11/TB more - $99.99 / 4 TB = $25 a TB, the 8 TB Red PRO was something like $36.71 per TB

When i copy (and write) a 5-7 GB file to the 4 TB red HDD it takes a total of 4-5 seconds. No way i need it to transfer faster when reading or streaming that same file. So 7200 rpm is kind of like buying a 396 chevelle to go to the corner convenience store for milk & bread. Think about it
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
C

cat2devnull

Prominent
Sep 1, 2017
2
0
510

Using a NAS drive in a non-NAS (more specifically a non-RAID) environment is a really bad idea. One of the key differences is that NAS drives by default will have TLER (Time-Limited Error Recovery) enabled.
This is important because in a RAID environment you don't want the whole array pausing while one drive struggles to read one faulty sector. You want the drive to immediately give up and the array will recreate the damaged data from the other copy (RAID1) or parity (RAID5).
In a single drive desktop environment you absolutely want the drive to keep trying to get that data back because there is no redundancy.
So if you use a WD Red as a stand alone drive in a desktop and it has any issue then it is just going to give up and your data will be lost.
Now I believe that you may be able to find some software online that allows you to edit the firmware and disable TLER but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom