WD Red drives?

Just ordered 3 of these from newegg. 2tb models. I am highly hopeful they will perform well and be stable.

I know these are not compatible with my Thecus N12000V as of now but I am going to give them a shot and run the shit out of them and see how they perform.

I am hopeful that the LSI 2008 HBA SAS 6G controller is friendly with them.
 
Can these be used in a non nas? The greens have a poor warranty and there are no 3TB Blacks.
 
We have been testing them in HW RAID6 arrays at work for a number of weeks now, and other than 2 SIDS failures they have been working fine.
 
Scotch77 said:
Can these be used in a non nas? The greens have a poor warranty and there are no 3TB Blacks.
Click to expand...

I don't see why they wouldn't be able to.
I just wouldn't recommend using them in a SAN or anything enterprise-grade or mission-critical of that nature as they are not true nearline-class drives, but rather desktop-class drives with nearline-like features.
 
mwroobel said:
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Usually when a drive passes the initial DFT with flying colors and then dies completely in 2-14 days.
Click to expand...

Oh wow that is a pretty high rate of failure.

WTF did the floods do the hard drive industry... make them all outsource to China? It clearly shows if that is the case here.
 
Just an FYI here.. Newegg has a special now for 15% off all Western Digital internal 3.5" hard drives. The promo code is EMCNBHG38 and it doesn't look to be one of those that only works for a specific account like some Newegg codes. It says that it's good through 8/25 or sooner based on fund availability. I added one each of the 1TB, 2TB, and 3TB red drives to my cart and applied the discount successfully to all of them. That discount can chop a big bunch of change off the price of several drives. Hope someone can use it. :)
 
I just got 6 3TB REDs from CDW for $178 each. They gave me a 25% off coupon on top of that for giving them the business of where I work. so I got 6 of them for about $810 total.

Newegg deal they are way to damn high in the first place
 
These drives are becoming harder and harder to come by these days. Better than expected demand or low supply?
 
Philmatic said:
These drives are becoming harder and harder to come by these days. Better than expected demand or low supply?
Click to expand...

I think it's the "NEW NEW" hype.

I got a few of them. Their fine. They do their job but are way too expensive for the lack of warranty (only 3 yr)
 
tangoseal said:
I think it's the "NEW NEW" hype.

I got a few of them. Their fine. They do their job but are way too expensive for the lack of warranty (only 3 yr)
Click to expand...

We have 36 of them that have been running in test arrays for about 7 weeks now with zero problems (other than 2 SIDS failures) on 1880 and 1882 hba's, I am going to put 24 of them into a production box next week, and I am comfortable enough with them at this point to start buying them as cheap nearline SATA for bulk storage. When we see what Toshiba releases in Q4 we'll see, but for now in cheap 3TB I will go with the Reds.
 
tangoseal said:
I think it's the "NEW NEW" hype.

I got a few of them. Their fine. They do their job but are way too expensive for the lack of warranty (only 3 yr)
Click to expand...

Considering the average consumer warranty is 1 year, 3 years is a godsend.
 
Compared with most of the drives that we use for production arrays that have 5-year warranties, the 3-year warranty on the WD reds is a bit weak.
 
Magma said:
Compared with most of the drives that we use for production arrays that have 5-year warranties, the 3-year warranty on the WD reds is a bit weak.
Click to expand...

Well, you get what you pay for. Most of the enterprise drives we use have 5 year warranties, and cost almost double (bare Seagate/Hitachi) drives, or triple or more for manufacturer branded what the Reds do.
 
Magma said:
Compared with most of the drives that we use for production arrays that have 5-year warranties, the 3-year warranty on the WD reds is a bit weak.
Click to expand...

They are only desktop-class drives with nearline-like features.
The warranty WD has for it is understandable.
 
I'm in the process of getting a new HDD or two.
With regards to checking a HDD for errors I was hoping for input. Install windows first then use the WD program or somehow test through the dos prompt before installing the OS. I was planning on installing the HDD, installing an OS, then running the HD diag tests: quick (SMART) then extended. Good?

Thank you.

Edit: Can't reply for the next few hours. Got some "errands" to do.
 
Last edited:
i'm reading mix reviews about these, although i'll go with seagate/wd green as i'm not planning on using any of them ever in raid array. hopefully they'll come down on price so us poor people can afford them. (had bought 2x2TB green at $75 and 2TB black at $90 before the flood)
 
these drives seem like a gimmick. if anything, they should have just fixed the massive problems with green drives and sold those instead of introducing a new line of drives.

selling drives that don't work in raid arrays is just stupid. greens should work in raid. blues should work in raid. black should work in raid. if they don't work in raid, fix them until they do.

red shouldn't even exist, they're nothing more than some ridiculous green/blue combo that isn't broken.
 
As a guy who only has 600gb of storage total, what exactly do you guys fill the terabytes of space with?
Ripped Blurays?
There seems to be a consensus that people like massive multi-platter drives (4tb+)
Just genuinely curious.
 
i don't know about others, but i've about 500GB of data, which is spread across over and over to 7 different drive filling up about 8TB of 10TB i've. i'm just too lazy/too scared to delete them from one drive/keeping them in just one drive.
 
gjs278 said:
these drives seem like a gimmick. if anything, they should have just fixed the massive problems with green drives and sold those instead of introducing a new line of drives.

selling drives that don't work in raid arrays is just stupid. greens should work in raid. blues should work in raid. black should work in raid. if they don't work in raid, fix them until they do.

red shouldn't even exist, they're nothing more than some ridiculous green/blue combo that isn't broken.
Click to expand...

Its called niches. If all those drives would work on hardware RAID, why bother paying more for the real RAID disks. Why doesn't intel just provide all CPU's with 6 cores and VT-D and ... .

RAID is still something that isn't used by everybody. Your everyday OEM computers generally dont need RAID. My aunt couldn't care less whether she has RAID, as long as she can play Tetris. The audience is way bigger than enthousiasts who want hardware RAID. (get software raid anyway :p)
 
scbjmshpv said:
i don't know about others, but i've about 500GB of data, which is spread across over and over to 7 different drive filling up about 8TB of 10TB i've. i'm just too lazy/too scared to delete them from one drive/keeping them in just one drive.
Click to expand...

7drives for 500gb?
jesus!

I hope they aren't all plugged in at once. Voltage spike could render your 'insurance policy' useless.

I'm probably naive because I haven't had a drive ever die on me.
Also I don't really have anything much the internet doesn't have, kinda making reliability a non issue. I can see stuff like baby photos being important to be backed up or company projects. None of that would use up much space though.
 
Cbshahji said:
i don't know about others, but i've about 500GB of data, which is spread across over and over to 7 different drive filling up about 8TB of 10TB i've. i'm just too lazy/too scared to delete them from one drive/keeping them in just one drive.
Click to expand...

While there is nothing wrong with backups (and multiple generations of backups) I hope you have them in separate locations (geographically) .
 
gjs278 said:
these drives seem like a gimmick. if anything, they should have just fixed the massive problems with green drives and sold those instead of introducing a new line of drives.

selling drives that don't work in raid arrays is just stupid. greens should work in raid. blues should work in raid. black should work in raid. if they don't work in raid, fix them until they do.

red shouldn't even exist, they're nothing more than some ridiculous green/blue combo that isn't broken.
Click to expand...

There aren't "massive problems" with the green drives. They serve a particular purpose as a general, single drive per volume(s) 8 hour a day low power drive. If you want something more than that, you buy it. If you want 24/7 guarantees in an enterprise environment, you buy enterprise drives. If you have want of interoperability with a particular use, you buy drives that are specified that way. If you want to chance it, you can always read accounts of what have and have not worked for others with particular hardware and particular drives here and elsewhere. None of this means that a green drive (and I am not referring to just WD Greens here, I am talking about any 5x00 drive with low power draw) is broken and like anything else, you buy what you need for your particular application. A Ford Escort won't do nearly as well in the desert and mountains compared to a SUV, that doesn't mean it is broken.
 
JayJapanB said:
As a guy who only has 600gb of storage total, what exactly do you guys fill the terabytes of space with?
Ripped Blurays?
There seems to be a consensus that people like massive multi-platter drives (4tb+)
Just genuinely curious.
Click to expand...

I'm using about 4TB of my 6TB storage (and have back-up on-top of that).

2.5TB = Blu-ray images/encodes, 350ish movies
1TB = DVD images/encodes/TV shows
200GB = mp3/FLAC collection
100GB = personal photo collection
200GB = misc incoming/temp files

then a 256GB SSD for OS/apps/games.

Serving movie images/encodes to my TV is so much easier than dealing with discs, and easier to back-up.
 
mwroobel said:
There aren't "massive problems" with the green drives. They serve a particular purpose as a general, single drive per volume(s) 8 hour a day low power drive. If you want something more than that, you buy it. If you want 24/7 guarantees in an enterprise environment, you buy enterprise drives. If you have want of interoperability with a particular use, you buy drives that are specified that way. If you want to chance it, you can always read accounts of what have and have not worked for others with particular hardware and particular drives here and elsewhere. None of this means that a green drive (and I am not referring to just WD Greens here, I am talking about any 5x00 drive with low power draw) is broken and like anything else, you buy what you need for your particular application. A Ford Escort won't do nearly as well in the desert and mountains compared to a SUV, that doesn't mean it is broken.
Click to expand...

I am referring to WD greens specifically.

which part specifically makes it so that a green drive, or hell, even a blue or black drive, is not acceptable for a raid array?

is it their hardware? is there really a specific hard drive part that makes or breaks a drive in a raid array?

or is it software and firmware, and it's a firmware issue that makes or break a drive in a raid array?

what do red drives have in them that is nas optimized. do they just last longer? do they have specific software features that make them work better in a nas? do they have different physical parts that make them work better in a nas?
 
SantaSCSI said:
Its called niches. If all those drives would work on hardware RAID, why bother paying more for the real RAID disks.
Click to expand...

you're right, but I'm still not sure what the difference between real raid disks and green drives when it comes to just being in an array and not dropping out. I understand they will have different lifetimes, but why does a green drive drop from an array, where a red drive would not? is it software or hardware?

if it's software, that would mean WD is holding onto the changes that would allow green drives to work fine in raid arrays, but just refuse to do so, so that you have to pay more for reds. if it's hardware I can understand, but I will not understand if it is purely software.
 
gjs278 said:
you're right, but I'm still not sure what the difference between real raid disks and green drives when it comes to just being in an array and not dropping out. I understand they will have different lifetimes, but why does a green drive drop from an array, where a red drive would not? is it software or hardware?

if it's software, that would mean WD is holding onto the changes that would allow green drives to work fine in raid arrays, but just refuse to do so, so that you have to pay more for reds. if it's hardware I can understand, but I will not understand if it is purely software.
Click to expand...

"Green drives" and desktop-class drives in general do not have TLER, which is almost essential to hardware RAID array HDDs; TLER is in the drive, but at the firmware level, so yes, it is software, and WD is holding out, mainly to sell their more expensive RE4 drives, which, although better, are very costly.
One can obviously use disk drives in a hardware RAID array without it, but at an increased risk of dropping the drive, down-time, and the loss of data.

Anything above a desktop-class drive will have more robust and heavy-duty motors, designed for 24/7 usage, high workload, many-user environments, higher IOPS, and has additional features like RAFF allowing them to be used in servers/systems with high-vibrations.
Though enterprise-grade drives are better in every way, except cost, it doesn't mean they need to be in everyone's RAID arrays, that's entirely up to them, their data, and storage/uptime needs.

This is why, for the price of these Red drives and lack of warranty, individuals wouldn't be more apt to get actual nearline-class drives that actually have RAFF and a five-year warranty. :confused:
I guess the Red drives are a bit cheaper, but you get what you pay for.
 
Red Falcon said:
"Green drives" and desktop-class drives in general do not have TLER, which is almost essential to hardware RAID array HDDs; TLER is in the drive, but at the firmware level, so yes, it is software, and WD is holding out, mainly to sell their more expensive RE4 drives, which, although better, are very costly.
One can obviously use disk drives in a hardware RAID array without it, but at an increased risk of dropping the drive, down-time, and the loss of data.
Click to expand...

this is kind of what I figured. Obviously the motors and better reliability you pay for through physical parts, but firmware only things like TLER is just kind of stupid.

does hitachi have any drives they don't enable TLER or TLER features? do they do the same thing with their ultrastar series (intentionally make deskstar without TLER features but then give it to ultrastars through firmware)?
 
Just documenting my user experience with the WD reds.

I have 8 of the WD red 3TB drives connected to an LSI SAS 9201-16i and no problems to report. I did have to update the firmware of the LSI HBA, but other then that, they perform flawlessly under Solaris 11.

One thing to note:
They drives seemed finicky on the backplane of the Norco 4220 case, but I suspect that my cheap chinese SAS cables are at fault here. I have ordered a new cable, and will update when it arrives.
 
rsq said:
Just documenting my user experience with the WD reds.

I have 8 of the WD red 3TB drives connected to an LSI SAS 9201-16i and no problems to report. I did have to update the firmware of the LSI HBA, but other then that, they perform flawlessly under Solaris 11.

One thing to note:
They drives seemed finicky on the backplane of the Norco 4220 case, but I suspect that my cheap chinese SAS cables are at fault here. I have ordered a new cable, and will update when it arrives.
Click to expand...

You could also have a bad backplane. How did your drives manifest as finicky? Did you try swapping cables you already had around? Did the problem travel with the cable?
 
mwroobel,

One of the drives was not recognized by the HBA. I tested the drive suspecting a DOA but it was fine. It worked fine in another slot of the backplane.

I called them finicky because a SATAII drive worked well in that slot. Perhaps there is a bit of bad shielding in the cable that does not allow the link to work at the higher speed. It could also be that the WD reds are less tolerant of crapy cables then the seagates they are replacing.

I could test more if you are interested, but not now because the server is resilvering...
 
JayJapanB said:
7drives for 500gb?
jesus!

I hope they aren't all plugged in at once. Voltage spike could render your 'insurance policy' useless.

I'm probably naive because I haven't had a drive ever die on me.
Also I don't really have anything much the internet doesn't have, kinda making reliability a non issue. I can see stuff like baby photos being important to be backed up or company projects. None of that would use up much space though.
Click to expand...

Well, if you go [H]ard on the baby photos, it can take lots of space : 20-25MB per RAW file and 330MB/minute of 1080p video for a Canon 650d.
 
mwroobel said:
We have 36 of them that have been running in test arrays for about 7 weeks now with zero problems (other than 2 SIDS failures) on 1880 and 1882 hba's, I am going to put 24 of them into a production box next week, and I am comfortable enough with them at this point to start buying them as cheap nearline SATA for bulk storage. When we see what Toshiba releases in Q4 we'll see, but for now in cheap 3TB I will go with the Reds.
Click to expand...

I haven't seen this mentioned yet, but Toshiba's desktop class consumer drives will ship with a 2 year warranty. This could be a concern for a number of people. Even as DT01ACA100 are available in channel, I haven't seen reports about Toshiba's compatibility in parity RAID environments. Most people are assuming that they will function similar to Hitachi's previous desktop offerings. Have you seen or obtained any information about Toshiba's in RAID?
 
I have read here somewhere that the firmwares were still the Hitachi ones, even reporting the drives as Hitachis.
 
Hi guys;

Just noticed although the product page for the WD Red drives shows a 3 year warranty, the WD Warranty Policy Page shows a 5-year warranty as they are classed as Enterprise Drives.

And a screenshot for posterity:

WD_Red_5Yr_Warranty.png


Yes, I am in Australia so it shows my region, but all regions come up the same on the Policy Page. Could be a mistake by the WD site maintainers, or could be that they are taking them to 5 years and if so they are definitely worth the extra coin for the extra warranty coverage.
 
Last edited:
Mitsimonsta said:
Hi guys;

Just noticed although the product page for the WD Red drives shows a 3 year warranty, the WD Warranty Policy Page shows a 5-year warranty as they are classed as Enterprise Drives.

And a screenshot for posterity:


Yes, I am in Australia so it shows my region, but all regions come up the same on the Policy Page. Could be a mistake by the WD site maintainers, or could be that they are taking them to 5 years and if so they are definitely worth the extra coin for the extra warranty coverage.
Click to expand...

If this turns out to be true that the drives will be covered for 5 years, that is quite a game changer, and reason enough to justify the extra cost.
 
McTurkey said:
If this turns out to be true that the drives will be covered for 5 years, that is quite a game changer, and reason enough to justify the extra cost.
Click to expand...

No, if it turns out to be true it is true in Asia Pacific, India and Thailand. I don't see it happening in Europe and especially not the US.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top