So are the WD 4TB Red drives a safe to use these days?

[GCS]

Want to upgrade our server at home (running a 3ware 9650se in Raid 10 (the one with 2 redundant drives)). It is used for our pics, data, videos and our Bluray/DVD collection in ripped form.

Mainly wanting to move it to a smaller case with less drives (currently in a Norco 4020 with 20 2 TB drives). Just make the system more manageable for me.

I had red there were a lot of issues with the Red drives when they came out are they working well now. Naturally I cannot afford any issues with these drives and wouldn't want to lose any date at any time.

Greg

 

[Essence_of_War]

Yeah, they're fine and a good choice over the greens if you need TLER.

Naturally I cannot afford any issues with these drives and wouldn't want to lose any date at any time.

This is a job for good backups, not for relying on the fickle nature of spinning platters. :thumbsup:

 

[GCS]

Its why I am running a Raid array (mirroring with striping - 2 redundant backups). There is no efficient & cost effective way to back up 20+ TB of information that I know of.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I wouldn't consider a RAID 10 set-up to be a real back-up plan. You're pretty well protected against mechanical failure, but not well protected against a myriad of other potential problems.

It is admittedly tough to back up 20+ TB of data to anything but another array, but that is part of the cost of having 20+ TB of data, and wanting to make sure it is secure.

 

[GCS]

Well it won't happen for me (ie 2 servers) just not a viable option for me both space and money wise. I do keep vital items on a separate disk (i.e. pics, documents, home movies) that cannot be retrieved on a separate disk that is backed up. The main array (20TB) is not backed up and contains my ripped movie collection and DVRed things that I have moved over to the server to keep.

All of that can be "retrieved/redone" if it disappeared, albeit it would take me a very long time to redo my collection but I do have all the discs.

 

[Zxian]

What were your issues with Red drives when they first were released? I purchased eight 3TB Reds a month after release and they've been spinning in my server for over a year without any issues or hiccups.