Western Digital Red 8TB Video Review

SomeGuy133 said:
someone was mentioning it in another thread in the past. I think it had to do mostly with platters and how the drive performed but it was a while ago and i didn't pay close attention to it since it wasn't something important to me. I don't buy externals so.
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It sounds like an urban legend used to justify an apparent pricing discrepancy in the market to me. Because you know... If the same drive is being sold at two different price points, the cheaper one that also comes with and enclosure must be inferior in some way.
 
Stereodude said:
It sounds like an urban legend used to justify an apparent pricing discrepancy in the market to me. Because you know... If the same drive is being sold at two different price points, the cheaper one that also comes with and enclosure must be inferior in some way.
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I suspect that if there is anything inferior about them, it has to do with something easily controllable during manufacturing, specifically the control board.

WD has for quite sometime now shipped external drives that weren't simply a SATA drive inside an enclosure with a SATA->USB adapter. Many drives I've pulled out of these enclosures simply had a USB interface on them and no SATA. This was mostly true on the Passport series based on 2.5" drives where the actual enclosure was barely bigger than the drive itself, eliminating any room for an extra SATA->USB adapter.
 
I think the way that they are doing it is that they are manufacturing their main stream red drives and releasing them. I think that they also initially use the reds in the first runs of the My Books until they get production going on the other types of drives. The other My books have shown this pattern.
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
I suspect that if there is anything inferior about them, it has to do with something easily controllable during manufacturing, specifically the control board.

WD has for quite sometime now shipped external drives that weren't simply a SATA drive inside an enclosure with a SATA->USB adapter. Many drives I've pulled out of these enclosures simply had a USB interface on them and no SATA. This was mostly true on the Passport series based on 2.5" drives where the actual enclosure was barely bigger than the drive itself, eliminating any room for an extra SATA->USB adapter.
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Total bullshit, PCBs are easy to check if they work or not, and that's not the main failure point. WD qualifies each platter with various failure analysis techniques, could include surface roughness analysis, special readheads operated under various conditions that reveal various failure modes, and others. They then sort them into quality bins and various bins end up going to different products or orders.
 
Stereodude said:
How do you know that? What other 8TB drive does WD have that they could be stuffing in there?
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WD Reds are designed for NAS use. I have yet to hear of WD using a NAS grade drive for their external storage line. It's more than likely their Green line of HDDs, or slim possibility that's it's a Black.

Also, unless they are really trying to screw people, the warranty for that external drive you linked to would be 3 years, not two as stated. WD Red warranty is 3 years (5 years for the Red Pros).

Edit: If the following link is correct, I stand corrected. Now I'm curious and may buy one and open it up (need an external HDD for my Xbox One anyways). I don't get the reduced warranty period though if that's the case.

Amazon.com: Questions And Answers: What hard drive model is inside the 8tb usb version?
 
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EvilWays said:
WD Reds are designed for NAS use. I have yet to hear of WD using a NAS grade drive for their external storage line. It's more than likely their Green line of HDDs, or slim possibility that's it's a Black.

Also, unless they are really trying to screw people, the warranty for that external drive you linked to would be 3 years, not two as stated. WD Red warranty is 3 years (5 years for the Red Pros).
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WD - My Book 8TB External USB 3.0 Hard Drive - Black

its a 2 year warranty and the only 8TB drives made by WD are Reds and Purples (at least sold publicly) so the externals are probably purples unless they have a 3rd type of 8TB drives....

If you know of any other line thats 8TB let me know because the lines you listed are 6TB max.
 
SomeGuy133 said:
WD - My Book 8TB External USB 3.0 Hard Drive - Black

its a 2 year warranty and the only 8TB drives made by WD are Reds and Purples (at least sold publicly) so the externals are probably purples unless they have a 3rd type of 8TB drives....
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Purples are for surveillance use. I just updated my reply with something I found on Amazon's site for the same external drive. I may get one to tear it open. Now I'm curious.
 
EvilWays said:
Purples are for surveillance use. I just updated my reply with something I found on Amazon's site for the same external drive. I may get one to tear it open. Now I'm curious.
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if you do PM me what you find out. I am curious too...just cant drop the cash for an experiment...doing too many ATM lawls.
 
EvilWays said:
WD Reds are designed for NAS use. I have yet to hear of WD using a NAS grade drive for their external storage line. It's more than likely their Green line of HDDs, or slim possibility that's it's a Black.

Also, unless they are really trying to screw people, the warranty for that external drive you linked to would be 3 years, not two as stated. WD Red warranty is 3 years (5 years for the Red Pros).

Edit: If the following link is correct, I stand corrected. Now I'm curious and may buy one and open it up (need an external HDD for my Xbox One anyways). I don't get the reduced warranty period though if that's the case.

Amazon.com: Questions And Answers: What hard drive model is inside the 8tb usb version?
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Well they have this dual external drive:

My Book Duo - Premium RAID Storage

They specifically say and show that it has WD Reds inside it.

Looks like the 16TB one is $550.

http://store.wdc.com/store/wdus/en_...600/parid.13092300/catid.13092800/My_Book_Duo

So you could buy that and take out the 2 8TB Reds which cost you $275 each. Seems like a good deal.
 
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SirMaster said:
Well they have this dual external drive:

My Book Duo - Premium RAID Storage

They specifically say and show that it has WD Reds inside it.

Looks like the 16TB one is $550.

http://store.wdc.com/store/wdus/en_...600/parid.13092300/catid.13092800/My_Book_Duo

So you could buy that and take out the 2 8TB Reds which cost you $275 each. Seems like a good deal.
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Not to mention you still should keep the warranty with those since you can put them back into the enclosure and play dumb. They sell it as user replaceable drives.
 
I picked one up today & as far as I can tell it has the HGST hE8 in it. I haven't popped it apart yet but this thing is fast. Way faster than the Red 6TB's that I have even when they are plugged directly into the SATA 3 ports on my motherboard. The drive also has the signature sounds that the He8 makes.
 
kandrey89 said:
Total bullshit, PCBs are easy to check if they work or not, and that's not the main failure point. WD qualifies each platter with various failure analysis techniques, could include surface roughness analysis, special readheads operated under various conditions that reveal various failure modes, and others. They then sort them into quality bins and various bins end up going to different products or orders.
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I wasn't talking about the quality of the PCB's, I was talking about the part choice itself. In other words, the pcb's for USB might cost less to produce, easier firmware to develop, less cache, etc. I realize I could still be wrong on this. My point was that if there was anything cheaper about them it wasn't quality, but part choice.
 
tikiman2012 said:
I picked one up today & as far as I can tell it has the HGST hE8 in it. I haven't popped it apart yet but this thing is fast. Way faster than the Red 6TB's that I have even when they are plugged directly into the SATA 3 ports on my motherboard. The drive also has the signature sounds that the He8 makes.
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Where did you get yours from?

Other people are reporting finding a WD80EZZX in the case of their My Book 8TB. Apparently it's a He8 running at 5400 RPM.

I haven't picked mine up yet...
 
Stereodude said:
Not to mention you still should keep the warranty with those since you can put them back into the enclosure and play dumb. They sell it as user replaceable drives.
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Eh, I'll pay the extra to get the 5 year warranty with the Red Pros. Whether I ever need to exercise the use of a warranty is another matter.

But for those that don't "need" the "extras" with the Red Pro, this might work.
 
EvilWays said:
Eh, I'll pay the extra to get the 5 year warranty with the Red Pros. Whether I ever need to exercise the use of a warranty is another matter.

But for those that don't "need" the "extras" with the Red Pro, this might work.
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When I'm paying extra I buy actual enterprise drives, not wannabe / sort-of / pretend drives like the Red Pros. I bought Toshiba enterprise 7200RPM drives the last go around.
 
Checked it out. The one that I picked up today is a HGST He8 identical to this one on PCPer.
 
tikiman2012 said:
Checked it out. The one that I picked up today is a HGST He8 identical to this one on PCPer.
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so whats the specs of that drive? is it a good deal than? Sorry in the middle of a ton of encryption and stuff and cant google around.
 
The WD My Book 8TB I got from BB does this over USB 3.0.

WD_mybook_8TB_CDM.png


WD_mybook_8TB_ATTO.png


AFAIK, it has to be a 7200 RPM drive to bench like this. I'll open it up later after I "beat" on it a bit.
 
Stereodude said:
When I'm paying extra I buy actual enterprise drives, not wannabe / sort-of / pretend drives like the Red Pros. I bought Toshiba enterprise 7200RPM drives the last go around.
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If I'm going to go enterprise drives, I'm probably going to use something other than a DS1815+ with them.
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
I imagine it has more to do with the steel casing the HDD's are made from. It's a helluva lot thicker than your average mylar balloon. Since the Helium isn't under too much pressure, it's not likely being forced out and looking for leaks, I suspect it will take longer than than the mechanical lifespan of the drive to leak out all the helium. Since oxygen and nitrogen can't really leak in (their molecules are bigger than helium), you're left with almost a vacuum which wouldn't necessarily too bad.
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Actually a vacuum would be a Very Bad Thing for a hard drive.
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
Why? I would think zero air friction would be a good thing.
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Because the heads ride a cushion of "air" to stay off the platters. Obviously that can't happen if there was a vacuum in the drive. A vacuum also doesn't transfer heat very well. And the drive's housing would have to resist being crushed by the outside atmospheric pressure.
 
Stereodude said:
Because the heads ride a cushion of "air" to stay off the platters. Obviously that can't happen if there was a vacuum in the drive. A vacuum also doesn't transfer heat very well. And the drive's housing would have to resist being crushed by the outside atmospheric pressure.
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The part about the heads riding a cushion of air makes sense. Those damn things are fragile and vibrate with the slightest touch.

The part about heat transfer does not make sense to me. Without air of any type, there is no friction and thus no heat generated by the platters. The only heat would then be that coming from the motor, which is already attached to the steel case for heat dissipation from outside air. Helium seems to do well in heat transfer, but the steel case should be able to dissipate the motor's heat. I guess its a bonus to help the drive stay cool, but I doubt it's really needed unless the spindle is transferring heat from the motor to the platters. I'd be interested to know if that actually happens.
 
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CaptNumbNutz said:
The part about the heads riding a cushion of air makes sense. Those damn things are fragile and vibrate with the slightest touch.

The part about heat transfer does not make sense to me. Without air of any type, there is no friction and thus no heat generated by the platters. The only heat would then be that coming from the motor, which is already attached to the steel case for heat dissipation from outside air. Helium seems to do well in heat transfer, but the steel case should be able to dissipate the motor's heat. I guess its a bonus to help the drive stay cool, but I doubt it's really needed unless the spindle is transferring heat from the motor to the platters. I'd be interested to know if that actually happens.
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plus isn't air an insulator?

BTW those drives are fast. Nice.
 
Stereodude said:
I opened mine today and found the same. HUH728080ALE601

Tempted to pick up another one or two from BB. Not sure what I'd use them for, but I bet I could find something.
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i am kinda thinkling the same thng...use them as back ups of my future SnapRAID. Been encrypting everything with 2 copies before i leave the country because i haven't gotten the thing set up yet lol. Some stuff came up and i am a few days behind :/
 
The 1st rule is never get that much data in the first place.

Millstone round your neck.
 
daglesj said:
The 1st rule is never get that much data in the first place.

Millstone round your neck.
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Stereodude said:
Absolutely! Delete anything you haven't accessed in the past 30 days. You don't need it.
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That's not always possible. In my case, I need access to various files for projects that may go back as far as a decade and I don't always have the option to VPN in to the company's servers to get those files on the spot (moreso when on jobsites).
 
EvilWays said:
That's not always possible. In my case, I need access to various files for projects that may go back as far as a decade and I don't always have the option to VPN in to the company's servers to get those files on the spot (moreso when on jobsites).
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You clearly missed my sarcasm. :p
 
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