6TB WD My Book Pro came with WRONG DRIVES?!

J

Jim Gravina

Weaksauce
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Aug 20, 2008
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So I bought the 6TB WD My Book Pro advertised as coming with 2 WD BLACK 7200 RPM Hard Drives. GREAT! Just what I wanted.

However, Upon opening the enclosure to take a look at the drives...they are NOT WD BLACK drives! They are in fact WD SE ENTERPRISE "data center" drives. WTF!?

Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, though. I will be using this ONLY for my video editing rig and being used only as storage for my source footage and assets. Will these give me the performance I am expecting from the BLACK drives? I have had many BLACK drives and they have worked perfectly...but the fact that these are more geared towards data centers, i'm worried that their performance has been compromised to make them more reliable in a 24/7 environment.

Any thoughts? Thanks!
 
Drawmonster said:
Shucking drives is never a sure bet. Last I heard people were shucking these for Reds.
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Well thats the thing...I am currently using the last gen My Book Duo and that has 2x WD REDs, but at least that one didnt specify what drives would be included. I recently learned that the REDs only run at 5400 RPM which is why I opted for this new My Book Pro because its advertised to have 2x WD BLACK 7200 RPM drive....but nope! Got these enterprise data center drives instead. Not cool!
 
Jorona said:
WD SE's are just Blacks that have better firmware for Raid.

They're still 7200 RPM.
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Ok, that is good to know at least. Haven't had much time to look into it to be honest, but that sounds promising. Was still a little surprised to see those, however. Since the SE Drives seemed to be geared towards 24/7 operation, I was worried if shutting down my PC every night would be an issue as I power everything down at the end of the night. Didnt know if the constant on/off would be a problem with these....
 
Bandalo said:
If it's just backup storage, why bother going to 7200RPM?
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No, its not backup storage at all. Quite the opposite. This will be my main video editing drive that I will be directly editing video off of via Thunderbolt 2. Need fast drives (yes, I know i could go SSD, etc but thats not an option for me.)
 
Jim Gravina said:
No, its not backup storage at all. Quite the opposite. This will be my main video editing drive that I will be directly editing video off of via Thunderbolt 2. Need fast drives (yes, I know i could go SSD, etc but thats not an option for me.)
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In that case, I'd go with the Enterprise drives. They're generally near the performance of the blacks, and usually more reliable. I think the main difference is the enterprise has a larger cache (128 vs 64). The firmware on the SE drives are optimized for RAID use (changing the TLER setting, etc), and they used to have a longer warranty, but I think they're the same now.

At the end of the day, you'll probably not be able to tell any difference between the two models from the desktop. As long as the warranty is the same and the performance is where you want it, just roll with it.
 
Bandalo said:
In that case, I'd go with the Enterprise drives. They're generally near the performance of the blacks, and usually more reliable. I think the main difference is the enterprise has a larger cache (128 vs 64). The firmware on the SE drives are optimized for RAID use (changing the TLER setting, etc), and they used to have a longer warranty, but I think they're the same now.

At the end of the day, you'll probably not be able to tell any difference between the two models from the desktop. As long as the warranty is the same and the performance is where you want it, just roll with it.
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No of course, and I agree with you...and the drives themselves have the 5 yr warranty...but i dont know about the unit as a whole. I just wasnt 100% sure about performance, but thats only because I have used BLACKS before and i'm just not familiar with these enterprise drives.
 
Jim Gravina said:
Actually looks like the unit as a whole has 3yr warranty. But the drives themselves have 5 yr...interesting.
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Warranty can get tricky depending on how the drives are sold. If they're sold as part of that WD enclosure, you might get stuck with the 3 year warranty. Then again, you might be able to register the drives individually with WD using their serial numbers.

I wouldn't count on getting anything longer than the 3 years though. Plan for the worst in this case.
 
The only units that you are 'guaranteed' to get a drive type are the ones that are meant to be user servicable, like the duos. (and have per-drive warranty/replacement - but the time will match how it was sold)
 
Aluminum said:
The only units that you are 'guaranteed' to get a drive type are the ones that are meant to be user servicable, like the duos. (and have per-drive warranty/replacement - but the time will match how it was sold)
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Well thats just the thing...this IS user serviceable. And even the manual says only WD BLACK are to be used. Again, not really complaining, just trying to figure out the WD advertising on this. WD BLACK drives are mentioned in 3 separate places...their own product video, their user manual, and in two different location on the box! Again, if the BLACK drive were not mentioned, i wouldnt think twice...

See pics...

96ccd432724db43fd5c56ebf89366ac3a9e6afd8.jpg a8fe87904c4e892c2cfc2bf0b3f7b9533dc2119f.jpg c8f31b3a5368a7060c3f361eb76a7c1b779f5344.png e9c01960d7aa3dc17ff905f50941ff2b128419fd.jpg
 
Jim Gravina said:
Well thats just the thing...this IS user serviceable. And even the manual says only WD BLACK are to be used. Again, not really complaining, just trying to figure out the WD advertising on this. WD BLACK drives are mentioned in 3 separate places...their own product video, their user manual, and in two different location on the box! Again, if the BLACK drive were not mentioned, i wouldnt think twice...

See pics...

View attachment 14952 View attachment 14953 View attachment 14954 View attachment 14955
Click to expand...

I could see WD making the substitution based on stock at the factory...since technically the enterprise drive would be an upgrade from the consumer black drive. If the factory was out of black drives, or overstocked on enterprise drives....
 
Yeah, just wanted to make sure that if they weren't necessarily better, then at least comparable to the BLACK as that is the main reason I went with this unit.
 
I think you got a good deal there to be honest. The only noticeable thing I've found with enterprise HDDs is the noise. Whiny things!

My best deal was ordering a empty QNAP dual drive NAS enclosure and finding the box was quite heavy when it was delivered.

They had sent me the version with two WD 3TB Reds in it. I didn't complain.
 
daglesj said:
They had sent me the version with two WD 3TB Reds in it. I didn't complain.
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Yeah I have 2x 4TB REDs...but for video editing they are just not quite where I need them to be due to the 5400RPM speed. Great drives...and I will keep them for archiving!
 
Just wanted to give an update...

I got an email from Western Digital because I had reached out to them and here is their response.

"We sincerely apologize for the inconveniences. In regards to your case the drives on the My Book Pro where upgraded to WD Gold because of better performance on the unit since we are making some changes so our products can work as good as possible."


Which is great...but they are not GOLD drives as he stated...they are SE drives. From what I read...the GOLD drives replaced the RE driver (more higher end enterprise drives). It just seems like they are in the middle of a marketing change and i'm caught in the middle :)
 
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