Western Digital 4TB WD Red Plus NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD - 5400 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, CMR, 64 MB Cache, 3.5 - WD40EFRX

Earlier this year, I took a chance purchasing Seagates new 3TB HD for media storage and it died 2 months later. Since then Ive purchased a 3TB Western Digital RED drive (I would have picked the WD BLACK, but the price difference was a deal breaker). Its not in a NAS (just in PC), and with only one month in service I can say that at this point Im pleased with the drive and its performance. Its not as noisy, and certainly runs cooler than the dead Seagate, but time will tell. UPDATE: 10-14-12 I didnt wait for the six month period to bump it to 5-star status. I didnt mention it before but the dead Seagate was in a USB external housing which is what I put this in. I almost never hear it, and while I havent been as scientific as some (holding a stop watch, etc.)I have moved many large files to/from it, and then to two other external drives (same file each time) and the RED is by far the fastest, making things less time consuming. The others leave me toe-tapping or playing solitare until the transfers are complete. I bought a 2TB, not too long ago and plan to get 2 more 3TB drives before the end of the year. Yes, the RED series has a 3-year limited warranty. UPDATE: 11-17-12 The 3TB RED and my 3, 2TB REDs are still very happy campers, on a 24/7 basis. I recently built a PC for a customer and put the 1TB RED in it (about 3 weeks ago) and they are very happy with the build, and the first comment I received was Its so quiet. Our distributor tried to sway us from using these in anything other than a NAS, remarking that they were too slow, so I did some digging around various tech sites and came up with additional info: Due to its variable speed, Western Digital upped the MTBF from 650,000 hours to 1,000,000 3 year warranty with dedicated 24/7 support WD doesnt state the actual spin-speed, merely saying its Intellipower (meaning less than 7,200rpm), and from what Ive seen most put it in the 5400 to 5900 RPM range. The Drives cache memory was upgraded from DDR to DDR2 In a test pitting RED against other brand hard drives which run at 7200 RPM, it came out in the middle of the pack on random data tranfers, however, when transferring large media files (in the 20+ GB range) the RED beat the Seagate Barracuda by 2 minutes. UPDATE 12/31/12 No problems, runs cool, streams media great. The same goes for the 2- 2TB RED label drives in use. UPDATE 02/26/13 8 months of 24/7 and still going strong (3TB), 6 months of 24/7 and still going strong (2TB). So far, everyone Ive recommended these drives to (and bought them) are also Happy Campers. Update 06/28/2013 Nothing Good, Bad, or Ugly to add to my review. The system is up 24/7 in non-desirable conditions (76-80 degrees F, usually at 60%+humidity) and quality and reliability hasnt changed a bit! I cant recall but it has to be at least a year Ive been using the RED label.

I purchased several of these hard drives to populate a NAS. I have been using Western Digital drives for decades and they have always been reliable and affordable. For my project, I under-estimated my drive requirements because I completely forgot about the dishonest business practice of drive manufactures counting 1000KB = 1MB. In real life, 1024KB = 1MB. The end result is that the consumer loses space and the manufacturer gets to advertise a larger capacity than what the hard drive can actually deliver. In a 4-bay NAS using 8TB drives, basic math says 4 drives x 8TB = 32TB of storage. In reality, you only get 29TB (4x7.25), which is a significant loss of 3TB over what the manufacturer advertises! Grrr!

Just bought 2 drives advertised as Used: Like New | Details Sold by TechnoDealsUSA These drive pass all the S.M.A.R.T test but they have both be run for 48,000+ hours virtually non stop. That is over 5.5 years. I would not exactly call them Like New. I only saved about 20% buying used over new. I hope I dont regret this.

Over the years Ive purchased several WD red drives for my Synology home NAS. I started with the 4TB, then moved up to 6TB and finally 8TB. I havent had a chance to try the 10TBs yet, since the price is still up there unless you REALLY need the space (time of writing is mid-2018). But Im sure Ill get there eventually. Prior to the reds being available, I purchased many of the WD green drives (at least 7 at last count). Unfortunately, the greens were not designed for NAS use, so you had to find a Linux system to plug the drive into to change a firmware setting to disable a 300 second idle timeout... the drives idling repeatedly in a 24-hour environment after many months of use would eventually add additional wear and tear on the greens that would reduce their overall lifespan significantly. The reds were definitely a nice addition to the WD lineup, as they were the first budget drive from WD that were specifically designed for (home) NAS use... no firmware tweaks necessary. OK, enough of the history lesson. I would rate the WD green drives as being very reliable, but not perfect. I believe I received one that was DOA, which was an easy process with Amazon to ship back and replace. During many years of operation (my first green was purchased in 2009 and is still going strong today after continuous use for almost 9 years), I only had 1 drive that failed in my NAS. It disconnected from the array, which immediately degraded the RAID. The drive that failed was not the oldest drive that I owned, so I ran the SMART tests and everything came back A-OK. I let the Synology rebuild the RAID array with the failed drive, and everything seemed to be working for a couple of months... until it disconnected again. This was a good indication that it was time to replace the drive, which I did. OK, so Ive had a pretty good history with WD drives. Getting back to the reds, I own at least 6 of them in various capacities. First, let me say that none have ever failed outright or caused any data loss in my system, so overall their track record is great. However, both of the 6TB reds that Ive purchased have had multiple disk re-identification events in my NAS. These re-identification events have not caused any data loss, nor do they require a rebuild of the RAID array. Synology says that re-identification events are an early warning sign that the drive could fail, so to keep an eye on these events to see if theyre increasing in frequency... if so its probably time to replace the drive(s) to avoid any potential data loss. On both of my 6TB reds, Im averaging about 1 disk re-identification event every 12 to 18 months, so Im not overly concerned. Ive never seen any strange events (re-identification, re-connection, bad sectors, etc.) on any of the 4TB or 8TB reds that I own, so this problem seems to be specific to the 6TB model (or its a huge coincidence). My 6TB reds were purchased in 2014 and 2015, so its possible that whatever was causing the issue was corrected. I have the 6TB reds loaded into a backup NAS, but I will personally not be purchasing any more of them. YMMV. Overall Im giving these drives 4 stars. If possible, Id give 3 stars to the 6TB reds (simply due to the anxiety factor), and 5 stars to the other reds (well, at least the 4TB and 8TB, which Ive had personal experience with), but Amazon does not allow for split review ratings.

I purchased 2 of the 3TBs - put them in a Synology DS713+, ran SMART tests (checked out OK) and then put them to use. They were significantly quieter than the WD Black 2TBs I previously had in the Synology. Approx 7 days later the Synology notified me that the volume had failed. The quick SMART test said OK for both. I then ran the extended SMART test, with one of the drives hanging up at 90% for several hours. I removed the HDD in question and re-ran the extended SMART test in a Windows PC using Western Digitals diagnostic utility that I downloaded from their website. The HDD subsequently failed testing with a bunch of bad sectors. I received my replacement drive 1 day after initiating the return process (gotta love Amazon). I tested the replacement HDD in a PC before before installing it in the NAS. The new HDD was fine and has been in service with no issues to-date. Ive had many WD HDDs (mainly Blacks) over the years and this is the first one Ive had go south on me within the warranty period...so I suppose Ive been very lucky in that regard. My two takeaways from this: It really does appear to be the luck of the draw with these particular HDDs if you going to get a good one vs a DOA. When I think about the rough handling (being tossed into back of trucks, etc) these HDDs are subjected to during the shipping process, it actually surprises me that their fail rate isnt higher. The low bang for the buck with these Reds makes them a gamble Im prepared to take (I wouldnt be quite so open minded if Id spent the $$ on the SEs or REs and this was happening). From now on I plan on using the WD diagnostic utility to run extended SMART tests on any new drive before putting them into service. This is especially imperative for NAS drives - use the WD util in a Windows PC before installing them into the NAS (in my case it was far quicker & accurate to do this vs using the NAS to do the SMART test). Ive also scheduled weekly extended SMART tests in the Synology (once bitten, twice...) Lesson learned and Ill continue to be a WD customer.

I have been a long term western digital customer for over 10yrs. This drive is aimed and marketed at NAS type devices however also very good in a regular desktop computer system as a storage drive, which is how I am currently using it for my personal desktop system . I have owned this red drive for approx. 10 days now. The sustained transfer speed is very good. the lower / variable spindle speed compared to normal 7200RPM drives doesnt impact its performance for my use . It performs better then my 4TB WD green drive. My Red drive was installed in a computer with many hard drives and it runs at a cool 84F (29 C ) at idle, the lowest temp. drive in the computer. Also according to the Red drive spec sheet uses the least amount of power as well. Time limited error recovery (TLER) is one of the benefits for the Red drives , outlined in the youtube video podcast below. A popular weekly hardware video podcast with storage editor at PC Perspective ( pcper) Allyn Malventano addressing uses of red model drives: https://youtu.be/WjjCMWZ0aDU?t=51m I included a start time for later in the podcast @ 51 minutes, the start of discussion of WD red drives and its use in NAS and non NAS systems Some valuable info on NAS / RAID design can be found in this video as well. plus other general server hardware info is addressed. At time 55:40 in the the video more info and insight regarding DIY home NAS and RAID stability, reliability and design is discussed as well. Potentially saving a DIY person some pretty decent cash and at least some calories reading conflicting information online. All of which for some buyers reading reviews on amazon for this product would find useful or at least interesting. For me, my drives in my personal computer for this review are used for pure storage via Linux based operating systems. In some computer systems ive built are media servers, again using linux with LVM and sometimes MDADM , other times using RAID cards such as IBM M1015 , a cheaper version, of more expensive promise model cards with SAS. HGST is another maker of hard drives with good reputation and within the same general price range for some of their models, however western digital now owns them, formally Hitachi Global Storage Technologies . Ive not taken the time while writing this to check if HGST drives feature some of the features the Red model line up offers. If you are going for a gaming system drive or require heavy I/O for a operating system drive, the red of course wouldnt be your best option. I use a WD Black drive, # WD3003FZEX for this . Steam games fill a drive quickly. With my budget and limited sata ports it makes a SSD fairly useless for storing games , or a media server gaming rig combo. Most of the time, once game is loaded , its mostly done , leaving the CPU and GPU left doing the work... . so for my needs esp dual booting , gaming on linux and windows using a Black model drive is my best option for my hardware , storage and requirements to have one type of operating system running most of the time. I do sometimes run Linux on a stand alone 120GB SSD , if I disconnect my optical drive , smaller ssd drives are quite inexpensive now and do make life a bit easier esp on aging desktop hardware. The cost per TB in a black model is still quite low for the performance level and the only high performance drive to offer a 5 year warranty standard. Especially when compared to a hybrid model drives cost and other drive makers of fast mechanical and hybrid solutions. Heavy gaming via steam would make a hybrid drives nand cache not very effective , fairly quickly iirc . Hopefully some of this info will prove useful , or at least give some starting ground to look into , research options deeper that may not have been considered before.

Our famaly TiVo kept getting filled quickly with all the holiday recording and other shows that everyone wanted to record. Was looking at upgrading the TiVo Roamio but the new TiVo software is not exactly great. Instead we opting in upgrading the hard drive. Process was simple and just needed torx screw driver. Removed original 500GB and replaced with 3TB. Once installed TiVo did it’s full set-up and had to configured again. If you have FiOS you will need to have the cablecard reloaded with host, prod, and card ID. Just do a chat and they can do it in about 5 minutes. Update: 12/5/19 So far it has worked with no issues and have so much recordings and only %22 full. Overall very happy with the purchase. On advise is when opening make sure to use a air duster to clean up the fan and inside of TiVo unit. It will extend the life as well ensure it runs cool. Update: 2/17/2021 The hard drive still going strong with no issues. It’s about nearly 75% full based on all the recording series set on TiVo. My 2nd TiVo with original 500GB died this week so will be replacing with 2TB. Overall very happy with purchase.

Cant go wrong with these drives if you have a home/small business NAS (1-8 drives). Purchased two 2-TB RED drives as used - very good from Amazon Warehouse Deals. These drives are specifically designed to function in NAS devices. Drives are to be installed in a QNAP TS-231 2-drive NAS - FYI please check the compatibility of your NAS device BEFORE you purchase drives for it. Most manufacturers have a list on their websites highly recommended to verif;y unless you buy a NAS with drives already installed. would leave five stars but not done with testing, even though I expect them to be great. Will revise once they are spinning for a while longer. WD sells RED drives in the following configurations: Model # Interface Form Factor Capacity Cache WD60EFRX SATA 6 Gb/s 3.5 Inch IntelliPower 6 TB 64 MB WD50EFRX SATA 6 Gb/s 3.5 Inch IntelliPower 5 TB 64 MB *WD40EFRX SATA 6 Gb/s 3.5 Inch IntelliPower 4 TB 64 MB *WD30EFRX SATA 6 Gb/s 3.5 Inch IntelliPower 3 TB 64 MB *WD20EFRX SATA 6 Gb/s 3.5 Inch IntelliPower 2 TB 64 MB *WD10EFRX SATA 6 Gb/s 3.5 Inch IntelliPower 1 TB 64 MB *WD10JFCX SATA 6 Gb/s 2.5 Inch IntelliPower 1 TB 16 MB *WD7500BFCX SATA 6 Gb/s 2.5 Inch IntelliPower 750 GB 16 MB •* Retailers may have existing product inventory of WD Red with NASware 2.0 for the specific capacities ranging from 1 TB – 4 TB. Please check with your retailer prior to purchasing for current inventory and product availability of WD Red with NASware 3.0 10-15- Update: Drives installed and running for about a week now. One drive was still in sealed bag and was new - the second one was run about 140 hours. All other S.M.A.R.T. data was perfect. Im not an advocate of used drives, but in this case, it seems to have worked out. Final note: WD makes a PRO version of this drive with a 5-year warranty, compared to three for this model.

These HDDs are excellent for use in a NAS, and preform very well in RAID configs. They are my go-to drives for any kind of backup or redundant storage option I need. HOWEVER... If you are looking to buy these drives, do NOT buy them from Amazon. Although it is convenient, the packaging is not on par. I bought 2 of them from here. When my drives arrived, I opened the box to see that there was a small piece of brown packing paper to protect my drives. Because of this, there was still at least 4 inches of space for the drives to rattle around in. Not only this, but one of the drives shipped with a box that had a broken seal, raising my suspicions even more. I thought nothing of it and attempted to deploy them into my NAS, only to find that my suspicions were correct, and both drives were dead on arrival. Returned with no problem, submitted a packaging review through Amazon, and bought them from a local computer store. Again, I highly recommend these drives (and any drive from WD), and they deserve 5 stars. However if you are planning on buying these, save yourself the potential trouble by physically going to a store and buying them, or at least buy them online from a computer store such as Newegg. Because of this experience, I cant recommend that anyone buy a mechanical hard drive of any brand, capacity, or form factor from Amazon.

I purchased 2 of these drives as a replacement for two standard WD Red drives for my new Synology ds220+ NAS. The NAS could not be found on the wired network. Did some research and they do not always play well with Synology. Replaced with the plus drives and setup was quick and easy. They are silent when not being written to and with small transfers of data (few Mb) They emit a sound when transferring large amounts of data >2-3 Gbs. It was easy to install in Synology but that is a Synology review. Currently have almost 50% of the drive used with parity drive so if one fails, I can just swap it out and rebuild the drive without loss of data.