NAS drive question

[jpk]

I bought a WD RED 3TB NAS drive. Can I use it as a standard system hard drive. My OS will be on another drive. Thanks.

 

[Compman55]

Yes. It is just a little different firmware more optimized for NAS use, but it will still work in a desktop.

 

[taq8ojh]

I will work (why wouldn't it), but I wouldn't do it. Speed. It doesn't have it 😛
(I believe it's one of those drives with variable rotating speed, and after all, it's meant for NAS sort of work, which values other parameters)

 

[jpk]

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to exchange it for a Seagate 3TB 7200rpm drive.

 

[Zxian]

I will work (why wouldn't it), but I wouldn't do it. Speed. It doesn't have it 😛
(I believe it's one of those drives with variable rotating speed, and after all, it's meant for NAS sort of work, which values other parameters)

This entire post is almost entirely false.

Speed is just fine for regular use.

Neither the WD Red or Green drives change their rotational speed. They run at 5400 RPM all the time. The "Intellipower" is a marketing line to say that you can get performance levels comparable to a 7200 RPM drive while spinning at 5400 RPM.

The only other NAS-specific feature that the Red drives have is TLER, which only matters if you have the equipment to use it.


There is zero reason not to use a WD Red drive for general purpose storage. I would actually recommend the WD over Seagate if you already have it. Three year warranty and quiet operation are winners in my books. You won't notice any performance benefit from the Seagate unless you're using it for applications and OS.

 

[aigomorla]

drives designed for NAS do not sleep.
OR they are not supposed to sleep.

that i heard is the only real big difference...
Its the sleep on the HDD which drives RAID controllers crazy thinking the drive is failing.


I am the opposite in choices for the guy above me.
I have yet to recieve 1 non DOA Western Digital when i buy them in bulk of 10 or more..
Meaning.. ALWAYS... 1 is DOA...

Im not saying my luck applies to anyone... If you read on feedback, WD has more DOA's then any HDD vendor in all the stores feedback.
Seagate ive been having great luck with, also has less feedback of DOA's from vendors.... so im gonna go with a seagate recommendation.

This statement doesnt apply to WD Black Label, and other enterprise series HDD.. as any vendor enterprise class will be pretty much solid.
However i just dont trust WD anymore when it comes to economy HDD's.... they remind me of Hitachi Death errr deskstars...

 

[Soulkeeper]

I've got two of the seagate 3TB 1tb/platter drives.
They are the fastest spinners out right now.
Nothing wrong with them for me.

 

[taq8ojh]

Speed is just fine for regular use.

Well, reality is sometimes different from benchmarks.
I decided to go with 1TB 5400rpm disk in a notebook over 500GB 7200rpm one based on charts like this one. I couldn't have done more wrong thing. The thing is crawling, even by notebook standards.

Neither the WD Red or Green drives change their rotational speed. They run at 5400 RPM all the time. The "Intellipower" is a marketing line to say that you can get performance levels comparable to a 7200 RPM drive while spinning at 5400 RPM.

I wouldn't be so sure, but you also may be right. Marketing talk is a bitch in either way.

There is zero reason not to use a WD Red drive for general purpose storage.

Oh, I guess I wasn't reading the whole thing right. For some reason I thought "system drive". General purpose storage, I'd take a Red anytime of a day.

 

[KingFatty]

Isn't the problem is it has slow seek times, or "snappiness" that you want for desktop use? It should be fine for just doing large file transfers, but perhaps for desktop use you'll maybe install something on it, or somehow use it for something other than backup storage?

 

[Doomer]

I ordered 5 WD WD4000F9YZ R. One from Amazon arrived with zero packing in the box. Only thing protecting the HD was the anti static bag. i sent it back without even taking it out of it's bag. 4 came from Newegg. One was bad and is on it's way back to Whittier. I'm hoping this is just an isolated case of bad luck.

 

[Zxian]

Well, reality is sometimes different from benchmarks.
I decided to go with 1TB 5400rpm disk in a notebook over 500GB 7200rpm one based on charts like this one. I couldn't have done more wrong thing. The thing is crawling, even by notebook standards.

You're also talking about your system drive. For storage, there's very little benefit to 7200RPM.

I wouldn't be so sure, but you also may be right. Marketing talk is a bitch in either way.

The first post doesn't have any conclusive evidence, aside from transfer rates (which improve with platter density). I used to work at SPCR. Every Green and Red drive that's ever come through the doors there has been 5400 RPM. There's no debate about this. 😉

I am the opposite in choices for the guy above me.
I have yet to recieve 1 non DOA Western Digital when i buy them in bulk of 10 or more..
Meaning.. ALWAYS... 1 is DOA...

If you've purchased from NewEgg, they've had some pretty horrific handling practices in their warehouses in the past. I've seen plenty of pictures of people with drives shipped without any protective casing or padding (or even a fragile sticker on the outside for that matter).

I've purchased somewhere close to 100 WD drives in the past 5 years for friends and family. I go to the store to pick them up myself though (NCIX has a stores all over Vancouver). Only one of them was DOA (actually, it started throwing SMART errors within a week, close enough). One of them started throwing SMART errors after about two years. My experiences with Seagates have been the exact opposite. They seem fine for a while, but those that fail die within a year or so. I've seen more Seagate failures than any other drive manufacturer in the same time period.

I'd still take a drive with a proper warranty over one without.

 

[Childs]

I ordered 5 WD WD4000F9YZ R. One from Amazon arrived with zero packing in the box. Only thing protecting the HD was the anti static bag. i sent it back without even taking it out of it's bag. 4 came from Newegg. One was bad and is on it's way back to Whittier. I'm hoping this is just an isolated case of bad luck.

I recently bought 6 3TB Reds from Amazon, and 3 out of 6 failed. I blame it on the packing...they were OEM drives in a huge box with air packing thrown on top, so they were sliding around. I returned them and bought 6 from a local shop, and I had no problems. WTF is going on with these online shops? I used to buy OEM drives online and never thought twice about it, but the way they pack them these days is ridiculous.

 

[Zap]

I ordered 5 WD WD4000F9YZ R. One from Amazon arrived with zero packing in the box. Only thing protecting the HD was the anti static bag. i sent it back without even taking it out of it's bag.

Did it look like this?

That was one I ordered from Amazon. Surprisingly it passed all testing, and still works to this day (few years later).

I had some drives from Tiger Direct that showed up without padding. Rather, they were on the BOTTOM of a big box, with a small wadded up sheet of packaging paper on top of the drives (two of them, IIRC) and not even filling up the space. Those drives also passed and have continued to work.