4x WD2000AAKX with RAID 5

[MR_AWESOME55]

I recently purchased a QNAP TS-410 for use as a home backup location and to stream movies to my PS3. I plan on backing up my computers (2 of them) biweekly or so. When I am not using it, I will probably just power it off.

The drives I got, 4x WD2000AAKX, came with the NAS, but have never been used. These drives were on QNAP's 3.5" compatibility (which I cannot seem to find now...), but were listed as "not recommended for Business Critical RAID Environments", but on amazon, it mentions that "WD Caviar Blue Hard Drives are tested and recommended for use in consumer-type RAID applications. (RAID-0 / RAID-1)".

I am planning on setting these drives up in a RAID 5 configuration, which I understand is NOT a consumer-level RAID, but "Business Critical RAID Environment" sounds to me like it would both be using higher level RAIDs as well as being on 24/7.

I hear that the WD Caviar Green drives have a lot of issues, but I haven't heard as much about Caviar Blue, which is what these are. Should I be safe using these drives if I'm using it for home applications and not having it on 24/7?

Thanks!

 

[RealBeast]

Caviar Blue drives are fine, just not as reliable as enterprise models, but they are adequate for home use. Green drives are a problem in RAID because they park the heads after a very brief time to save energy and the app (wdidle3) to disable that no longer works on the newer drives.

 

[MR_AWESOME55]

Excellent! And I should be safe with RAID 6 then too eh?

 

[RealBeast]

Sure, but I would use RAID 5 with only 4 drive slots.

 

[MR_AWESOME55]

Excellent, thanks for all the help!

 

[MR_AWESOME55]

Best answer selected by MR_AWESOME55.