Cheap drives in NAS, worth it?

[enewmen]

Hi all.

I wil get a premium (ARM) based NAS for a home office - 4 bay & software-Hybird RAID 5.
It will be on 24/7 and mostly idle (about 2 hours a day of real work).
The first drives I thought of was Western Digitral Reds. I live in a tropical area, so the slower/ cooler 5400(ish) RPM drives sound good.

After reading some reviews, features like 3D Active Balancing, and a new technology called NASware in the firmware should help a lot.
Other reviews compare the Reds the cheaper Green drives and found NO difference after a few months.

So, do I go with the Reds because I value my data?
Or just get the Greens because all drives fail and I should have backups anyway ?

thanks!

 

[RealBeast]

It really doesn't matter, since as you say it is not a mission critical use and you recognize the importance of having backup. If the difference is enough, and your NAS maker has the Greens on their approved list, go with them and get an extra to have ready to replace the eventual failure.

 

[enewmen]

I double checked.
The WD Green WD30EZRX (WDBAAY0030HNC-NRSN)
IS approved.

For years I read to always avoid putting non-enterprise WD drives in ANY RAID environment.
Maybe things changed now..

 

[RealBeast]

Me too, but now I use Hitachi and WD non-enterprise drive for non critical uses.

I have a lot of green WD 2Tb that have held up very well, but only have used the Hitachi Deskstar 7200rpm at the 3Tb size in large arrays. With the prices and extra size, I would be willing to try the Green 3Tb in a four disk array for this use with the good backup that you employ.

 

[enewmen]

Best answer selected by enewmen.