WD Red 2tb use in external USB3 enclosure?

[gizmo1990]

I've repurposed an old lenovo 93p tiny thinkcentre to run openmediavault and I'm looking for a hard drive as the main backup/storage device. The Lenovo only has one internal SATA connector which I'm just leaving as a 500gb 2.5 hd, since only 2.5inch drives fit inside the chassis.

I figure the most cost effective way to add a lot of storage is to go the 3.5 hd route inside a USB3 enclosure. I've been looking at prices and currently I've seen a pretty cheap (£50) new WD Red 2TB (64mb cache, so an old version) drive. Would this NAS drive be ok to use for this purpose? Ie not in RAID, just as an always attached USB3 drive?

I've read some reviews and someone mentions that NAS drives not used in RAID configuration can suffer a higher than usual chance of data loss. Due to NAS drives not moving bad blocks around, like a standard drive would, as they expect controllers to recover the data from other drives?

Does anyone know if this info is correct? Currently a 2tb wd blue is more expensive than the red! Any advice greatly appreciated.

 

[gizmo1990]

Thanks for the replies guys. I think I'll grab one then. @Avalon I hate subs, they're pricey (for me), I don't like the idea of them (everyone is trying to push that model now) and I'd rather keep things local. I will take advantage of one of the free services to upload the most recent/important data though.

 

[gizmo1990]

Yeah I do understand that. But that dis-counts the physical presence of the items (I can repurpose them in the future, sell them even), the other uses of the storage/streaming, not being reliant on an internet connection nor its speed, possible data issues with the cloud supplier etc etc.