WD RED or Green for media server?

Mak3R

Mak3R

Mak3R

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Hi guys,

I'm looking to buy a couple of 3TB drives to stick in my N54L microserver and RAID 1 them for some backup power.

I'm stuck on whether to buy RED or green drives? They seem to be priced similarly. My only concern is the noise of them, as the server sits in my living room. Speed isn't really a concern as all the server does is play videos.

I currently have a 2TB green drive and it's working great but I require something bigger, hence the 3TB.
 
You'll hear the PSU and 120mm fan in a Microserver before you hear WD Reds. My N54L is in the lounge next to the telly at the moment and it's fine for day to day viewing.
 
I doubt you'd ever notice the difference to be honest!

Personally I've got 2 x 2TB WD Red's for my Synology NAS as they are supposed to be optimised for 24/7 use but I doubt they are any different in real world usage!

From memory, according to the WD website, they are supposed to be a little quieter and cooler than the other types but again I doubt you'd notice a difference!
 
Have two 3TB red drives running in my everyday PC in mirrored mode and they run great. I would get the Reds over the greens as there is little difference in price plus the Reds come with a 3 year warranty as opposed to 2.
 
Yeah I figured there wouldn't be much difference, thought I'd ask anyway.

I also want to stick a small SSD in the server as a boot drive as I'm fed up hearing the OS drive that came with it crunching away. Any recommendations on something 60GB or less?
 
Again, pretty much any SSD will do the job for you - personally I've got a Samsung 830 and a Crucial M500, both of which work perfectly!
 
I've got a cheap OCZ 60GB in mine on the ODD port, 2x 3TB and 2x 1TB and a GF610 and it's quiet enough to have next to the telly to do XBMC duties.
 
Fair enough, I'll just go with what's cheapest for the SSD as it doesn't really matter in the end. Might need a bracket for it to fit in the server, will have to check when I'm home!
 
I'm also after a new HDD, and I think I'm choosing between the WD Red and Green.

It will be for a PC that's on 16 hours a day, used mostly for 40MB photo files, and backups.

While the Reds sound like a good idea, being rated for 24/7 use with a 3 year guarantee, I read that they are designed to handle higher temperatures in enclosed spaces (not relevant to me) and that their firmware is targeted for parallel use (again, not relevant to me).

So are Greens not more suitable for most of us?

Thanks
 
I hope not...I just ordered 2 of the REDs! Also treated myself to a new Samsung Pro 256GB SSD, which can go in my main PC, then my old 128GB SSD from it can go into the server. Upgrades for all :D
 
I went for greens

My server only turns on when a laptop or Pc is on
So that's about 5 hours per day
Hardly 24/7

Never had a problem across 4 drives
 
Ive got an SSD I bought from the MM for the operating system and 4 3TB WD Greens for storage, I cant hear a thing even with the TV sound down ....probably because its connected to the TV via a 10m HDMI cable with the server in a different room all controlled via XBMC and Yatse on my Tablet :)
 
Jed Shields said:
Do you manually turn it on?
Click to expand...

No
It goes into standby and when a connected Pc turns on it receives a network packet to wake it up
It auto wakes to perform backups
It goes back to sleep X minutes after all PCs connected to it turn off

It works with Wifi devices via router too

I haven't physically had to turn it on since setup
 
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How do you set that up? Would it work with a Sonos system that's plugged into my router? I leave mine on all the time as I don't know when I'll be playing music.
 
Jed Shields said:
How do you set that up? Would it work with a Sonos system that's plugged into my router? I leave mine on all the time as I don't know when I'll be playing music.
Click to expand...

Well all my laptops and PCs and htpc all run Windows. What I use is a little app called lights out in combination with WOL. I have no idea how sonos actually works Tbh. I know what it does but not how.
You will also need wake up on lan enabled in the bios of the server.

The server takes about 20 seconds longer than htpc to boot... Ssds vs hdd etc so I have a delayed bat file to map network drives etc on htpc etc

Probably saves 18x7hours of uptime pet week
 
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RED - I have had issues with the Greens going into power saving mode causing some RAID controllers to think the drive has gone off line causing fatal array failure, I assume the reds don't do this
 
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