Are WD Red drives worth the extra?

nails666 · 1 May 2013 at 16:28

Hi,
I'm going to be getting myself a little home server of some description soon (either HP Microserver or a self build one) to perform file serving, media streaming, backup duties etc. It'll be running WHS2011 and probably StableBit Drivepool and I'm looking into what drives to buy. I see the WD Red drives are marketed as NAS drives, suitable for 24/7 operation but they are a fair bit more expensive than 'normal' drives. I'm expeccting the server to be on 24/7 but it's very unlikely to actually be constantly working and serving files. Are the Reds really that much more reliable than other drives and even if they are, would a combination of folder level redundancy from DrivePool and regular backups to other/external drives mitigate the risk of drive failure for a home environment?

Many Thanks,

Ross

Tackle_Berry · 1 May 2013 at 16:49

I went for 4x 3TB reds just for the 3 year warranty and heard lots of good things on the build quality, been very happy with them. Plus there is not much difference in the price of a 3TB green and 3TB red.

nails666 · 2 May 2013 at 10:23

Hmm, there is a reasonable difference between them in price, a 3TB Green is the same price as a 2TB Red here on OCUK. How do you find the reds for noise? For a while at least the server will be in my office so keeping it quiet would be a real bonus. Is there much performance difference between the Reds and Greens?

Thanks,

Ross

Little_Crow · 2 May 2013 at 13:41

I have 4x3TB reds in my Microserver and there is little to no noise, I'd have no hesitation in recommending the combination if you felt noise was an issue.

HungryHippos · 2 May 2013 at 18:51

I normally buy from OCUK (even if it's a little more) but in this instance, OCUK seem to have really bad prices for the WD Red drives compared to just about every competitor I checked!

olivier renault · 3 May 2013 at 11:31

They seem quieter than my Seagate Barracuda Green. TBH, I don't know how that 'reliability' will pan out in the future, but I prefer to stack the deck in my favour as much as I can for data backup / storage. So hopefully it's worth the little extra. They do the job so far, without issue.

Scotteh · 3 May 2013 at 13:21

Eulogy said:
I normally buy from OCUK (even if it's a little more) but in this instance, OCUK seem to have really bad prices for the WD Red drives compared to just about every competitor I checked!

All hard drive prices seem to be rather poor atm compared to some competitors

kmetek · 3 May 2013 at 13:25

does anyone have seagate 4tb, how're they?

Westyfield2 · 3 May 2013 at 15:15

I don't get the point in the Reds.

Sticking purely within Western Digital, you either want a Green for the ecos, a Black for a regular desktop, or an RE for a Server.