NAS Drives. Are RED drives better?

GiraffePencils

GiraffePencils

GiraffePencils

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I was wondering if anyone knows why WD Red drives are better?
Their website says they're more suited to RAID configurations, but why?

I was thinking green drives for the energy and noise.
Excluding warranty is there anything that makes them better for a NAS?
 
From a review of the 4TB drive:

The drive's defining feature is NASware 2.0, a collection of optimizations targeting network-attached storage and RAID implementations. The firmware includes special hooks for NAS-specific power management routines. It also supports the ATA Streaming command set used by some consumer electronics gear. Designed for streaming media, this extension to the ATA command set allows hosts to demand that data is delivered within a specific timeframe.

For RAID configurations, NASware offers time-limited error recovery. This feature prevents drives from engaging in lengthy error recovery procedures. If drives spend too long chasing down errors, the RAID controller can drop them from the array, forcing a time-consuming rebuild. RAID controllers have their own error correction routines, so they can address problems that drives can't resolve quickly enough on their own.
Click to expand...

tl;dr:
Power management, error recovery & firmware geared towards control by a NAS raid controller.

Edit:
I have 4 of the 1TB RED drives in my QNAP NAS box :)
 
You would need to connect the drives to a RAID controller to see the benefits apart from power consumption.

Most motherboards have a SATA RAID controller but you'd have to check your manual for supported features.
 
It's a single board PC, so not confident on the features without being home.
I wouldn't expect RAID, but I can hope.
Would it need to be a supported RAID controller?

I just saw you pop-up on my other thread too :p
Thanks for both responses
 
Just needs to be a RAID controller. They all do the same basic thing with price being an indicator of performance, resilience, error recovery etc.

I guess it really depends on what you want the storage for.

I have a 4TB WD Black in my system to host music, movies etc. and use SSD for OS, games & apps. All my movies & music is also on my NAS box - both for backup and so I can stream from it without having the PC on.
 
I can't tell the difference between my red and green drives. Red cost more. I'll buy red again next time. Make of that what you will :)
 
JonJ678 said:
I can't tell the difference between my red and green drives. Red cost more. I'll buy red again next time. Make of that what you will :)
Click to expand...

Red drives also come with a 3 year warranty as opposed to a two year warranty that a Green comes with.
 
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