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

Always looking for extra space? Yeah, me too. I had purchased an HP-MicroNAS server online, 8GB RAM but no HDs. So I added a pair of these 4TB RED disks. When they arrived, it was probably the fastest setup Id ever done. I utilized FreeNAS 11.2 (installed from a Thumb-drive) and a 750GB disk I had sitting around. The 750g was the system drive, and FreeNAS chose these two 4TB as a simple RAID1 Volume. The entire setup took about 10 minutes. Power - the whole unit uses less than 15-20w when idle, and scales up when needed. After replicating my data to this system, the drives were still inaudible, and the fan on the HP is whisper quiet too. Performance? Not the worlds fastest (at work I deal with close to 1GByte per second) but for daily archiving and storage, these are doing nicely on my 1gb LAN. Using LZ4 compression, they are doing nicely holding all of my photos and music. Additionally, my daughter is an artist and has LOTS of movie-editing files in her directory. Well see how it goes in 6mos, 1 year, 3 years. but by that time, Ill probably be using 20TB M.2 SSDs because they are $49. ;-) Bottom line, great performance and reliability for a good price.

I recently purchased four of these drives to make a new storage array in my workstation. I connected them in two pairs of Raid Mirror on a PCI controller board (with a backup controller) and then using windows to negotiate nightly backups between the two of them. Ive owned numerous western digital hard drives over the years and theyve hands-down been the most reliable. I was unsure about the Red Series of drives, however so far theyve been behaving well. Pros; Extremely high capacity-to-price ratio. Only exceeded by the Green series drives (which I would avoid due to performance issues) Sata 3 interface (not that this will saturate a sata channel, but its still nice) Large Cache 3 year Warranty Cons; I had been looking at using 2.5 drives due to heat, electricity and weight savings. WD doesnt make 2.5 drives anywhere near this large and they are prohibitively expensive per GB Theyre heavy. While normally not a huge consideration, for me it was, bear with me. It would be nice to have a 5 year warranty It would nice if they were fixed 7200 rpm drives, or at least if this was settable for those of us that want to keep out drives spinning all the time. Overall though; Unless you want to buy RE4 Enterprise level drives I would get these again. I will update this with any issues I have. NO MATTER WHAT THIS DOES NOT SUBSTITUTE A WELL THOUGHT OUT BACKUP SOLUTION. EVER. Seriously, go back your stuff up, RIGHT NOW.

The drive is old, manufactured 2017-Feb-05, but arrived quickly sealed in original packaging. At first power-on, SMART showed no errors and zero previous run time. The drive is relatively quiet - I did not take actual SPL measurements but it is more quiet (especially on head seek operations) than similar sized Seagate drives and about the same as similar sized Samsung and Toshiba drives. A full drive write and read completed without trouble. The drive is used in a hot-swap cage, powered up periodically to run backup operations, and is jostled and moved occasionally. So far no troubles.

I am an absolutely new user of this particular drive. I had five of the 3tB version in my Drobo 5N and, believe it or not, I was running out of protection space and the Drobo complained that the #1 drive should be replaced with something larger. I couldnt find a 5tB WD Red so I bought the 6tB and when the budget recovers Ill buy a second to actually gain a bit of actual storage space. For Drobo users, sticking one of these in the enclosure might be intimidating. 1) the hardware will be slow to recognize and initialize the drive so the indicator will stay red for some time -- be patient 2) even after the Drobo acknowledges the new drive it may be a few minutes before it starts the rebuild and 3) the most scary thing is the Drobos estimate of rebuild time; dashboard started out estimating 251 hours and then jumped to 299 hours(!) but then settled down to 20 hours after maybe 45 minutes of running and then quickly dropped to 17. Way more reasonable. (later) Well, after approximately 26 hours the data rebuild on the Drobo 5N completed with no complaints from the new 6tB WD Red drive. Of course this means that I will now need to buy a second equivalent drive to install because the Drobo, for its data protection scheme to work its magic, needs to have a #2 drive as large as the #1 to make use of the space. In other words, to gain 3tB of actual extra storage over what I had to begin with (5 X 3tB Red drives) I will need to expand to two 6tB drives along with three 3tB. Maybe I really should consider erasing some media files and keeping fewer hot backups... (later still) A month has gone by since I put the first of these 6tB drives into my Drobo 5N and my computer budget recovered enough to allow me to buy a second drive. With Drobos storage algorithms, adding the first drive didnt actually yield any increased storage but with the second addition I finally got an extra 3tB of storage. Again, the drive was thrashed pretty well in the 16+ hour data rebuilding process and everything went well. Im still impressed with WDs Red and Green drives with 10 or so of them in use the performance has been flawless. With two 6tB and three 3tB drives in the Drobo Im hoping that my server storage needs will be taken care of for a while. With all of these drives in the tiny Drobo 5N the operating temperature is good despite the small cooling fan and the fan noise is probably the loudest thing about the entire device.

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.

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.

Great drives. Ive got 4x 4TB Reds in a custom server i made that has been running for 2+ years pretty much 24/7. Had to replace a failing Seagate drive (my fault using a standard Desktop HDD in a build like this) and these just work, and well. Build: CPU: ................Intel Core i5-4430 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor Motherboard.......ASRock Z87E-ITX Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard Memory.............Kingston Blu 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory Storage.............Crucial M500 120GB mSATA Solid State Disk Storage.............4x Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive Case.................Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case Power Supply.....Rosewill Capstone 450W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply Running Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials and Pooled using Stablebit Drive Pool. I use it to serve up movies and TV shows via Plex, backup my other computers, and as a storage server. These Red drives work well as they are built for NAS usage and so they work well in situations where they are spun down frequently. I have considered the Seagate NAS drives too as they are sometimes cheaper but Ive had some issues with Seagate drives in the past (still use a 3TB one in my main desktop) and I have never in 20+ years had an issue with a WD drive. Others mileage may vary. For now and my needs 4x these are plenty of space with room to grow. Would be nice if they came out with 8+TB versions sometime soon though at an affordable price point. Seagate has had a 8TB drive out for a while and its generally cheaper than the 6TB Red, however im not sure how reliable the 8TB Seagate drive is.

I have two WD clouds. I have a WD EX4100 and a PR4100. Both units are 4 bays with 6 TB each. After several years of service Drive one failed in both units within a few months of each other. The model was actually WD60EFRX but I was sent WD60EFZX which is the Red Pro which is apparently WDs replacement for the older RX Red. I was skeptical but I put the disk into the bay and the rebuild went as advertised over the course of a day or so and it is as good as new and maybe a little faster as the cache is a little bigger if I am not mistaken. Interestingly, the packages I received were both labled as the RX but the actual drive was the ZX. Amazon was more than happy to do a return and made it easy as pie but I decided to keep the extra one I ordered as a spare. Although there was some mislabeling, it was not Amazons fault and all is well that ends well.

So far VERY GOOD. I actually just purchased this to use as a backup drive and I had a very specific mission that this helped me complete. From I dont know, 1999-Now Ive used close to 15 drives, going back to 16gb (or so) HDDs which were big back in the 90s up to 1tb drives of today, but I had a huge problem of missing files. Photos in particular. I was using drive bays to attach the old drives to the PC and try and search them all at once but Windows search really sucks. (Yes I should have booted into Ubuntu - shame on me), but I said, you know what, enough is enough, I know WD has these 6tb drives, let me literally copy the contents of ALL of the drives Ive ever owned onto it, and do one main search. Thanks to this drive, and some other creative methods *dusts self off* I did one big search of everything on this drive and found lots of old treasures, including the fountain of youth, just kidding. In recent weeks I realized, well, not that it would have helped with Windows not recognizing/initializing certain drives, but a freeware app like UltraSearch does things that windows explorer search refuses to, I guess Windows Explorer has dark moods, was tired of me playing Iggy Azalea on it, and went on strike when I tried to search for things; UltraSearch casts no aspersions with respect to my musical interests, so it just does searches for me regardless... Lo and behold, while I couldnt copy ALL the drives I own onto it, nor did I need to with respect to trying to find files from 10+ years ago, I was able to (with the help of Ubuntu), recover data off of drives that Windows 7 no longer read, but Ubuntu did, thanks Microsoft, and recover otherwise lost data onto this 6TB RED, and other newer drives from the 2000s. Its still got about 1.5tb free so Ill be using this as a third backup drive, keeping it disconnected from the PC not even in a NAS device, so I figure it will last ALOT longer. Perhaps putting it into a safe deposit box will ensure its survival in case of another Hurricane Sandy, or an Iggy Azalea attack of some sort.

Purchased 26 of the 4TB drives from Mar - May of 2015 for a small home build using FreeNAS and a 24 bay Supermicro chassis. All drives were purchased through Prime and Amazon.com Services, Inc, no 3rd party sellers. I registered every drive in May or 2015. These drives have been running 24/7 with over 35000 hours running with temps ranging between 23-26*C in a below-grade basement server room. During this time Ive had just 2 drives begin to fail with READ errors, 1 in 2017 and another in 2018. No data was lost and only a few warning errors popped up before removing. I filled out the online replacement forms, printed them off, packed up the drives after swapping out with a spare and shipped them off. WD send brand new replacement (not reconditioned) drives back to be both times. Iirc I had the replacements within 2 weeks or sending them in. Drives are now out of warranty of course but Really.. what more can one wish or hope for! Still have 3 brand new drives if any issues arise. Im currently in the process of ordering the newer 8TB WD Red drives now to begin replacing these aging (but still working 100%) 4TB drives. Couple of months I should have 26 of the 8TB drives to start replacing these ones. Looking forward to the increased drive space but also knowing I have the most rock solid drives one could hope for! Worked in the IT field before retiring and have dealt with both PC and Server hardware from end users in their home, to local and national service providers, to full on massive data centers. Have used pretty much every manufactures drive available over the years. Ive always been extremely happy with Western Digital products and service.