Features:

  • Specifically designed for use in NAS systems with up to 8 bays
  • Supports up to 180 TB/yr workload rate* |*Workload Rate is defined as the amount of user data transferred to or from the hard drive. Workload Rate is annualized (TB transferred times (8760 / recorded power-on hours)). Workload Rate will vary depending on your hardware and software components and configurations
  • NASware firmware for compatibility
  • Small and home office NAS systems in a 24/7 environment
  • 3-year manufacturer's limited warranty
Excelent NAS Drive!

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 I've 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. I'm 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. I've always been extremely happy with Western Digital products and service.

WD Always

I've never been let down by Western Digital. I actually have some 6 yr old drives still banging away as they should. In the past 15 years I had one return and it was rather painless. To avoid the "religious wars" of hard drives, particularly between Seagate and Western Digital, either will perform well for you. Yes, there are failures, and yes there have been some runs of both manufacturers that can let you down. On balance, I've been fortunate by standardizing on WD.

Excellent drives, good packaging from Amazon, and some potentially useful information.

Excellent Drives. I've been running a variety of WD Red, Green, and Seagate Archive Drives for the better part of several years, and I thought that I would share some useful advice for things to watch out for when buying new drives, and detecting infant mortality. First thing to look for is to observe the packaging the drive arrives in. It is industry practice to ship one or more drives in boxes that are made to perfectly fit the drive. Inside the box, the drive should be suspended with two plastic holders. These holders suspend the drive and dampen any drops the package may experience during transit. (Bulk orders (15+) may be shipped in a single larger box with foam cut-out arrays). Secondly, when installing the drives, make sure that your hands are clean. Give them a wash, or better yet, wear gloves. Avoid transferring finger/hand oil to the drives so that hot-spots aren't created. Thirdly, once the drives are installed, give them a full, long format. You can run 1, 3, 5, (or even more) passes on the disks. This ensures that every single sector of the drives gets written to. Once the format is complete, look up the SMART data, and check the values for anything alarming. If a drive suffered damage in shipping, now is when it may be noticeable. Compare the values to your other drives. Start-up times, head parks and so fourth may vary slightly so there's nothing to be worried about a little deviation there, but pay attention to failed reads, reallocated sectors, and RUEs. Granted, all of this advice should be taken with a grain of salt since SMART values are not the silver bullet to predict drive failure, but this testing should be a good indicator on whether or not a drive is ready for production use. Above all else, remember that backups are your friend.

5.9 years of error-free operation and still going strong

I recently went temporarily insane during a new NAS buildup and opted for 8TB IronWolf drives. I was seduced by marketing and the cool name. This choice was a mistake. The banging and clattering of the IronWolf drives during the resync was threatening to run me out of the room. After switching back to the WD 8TB Reds, the result was welcome relief from noise. Yes, I can hear them faintly, but at least I can't hear them in an adjacent room with the door closed. These were a bit more expensive than IronWolf, but truly worth it. These drives may spin a bit slower, but so far as I can tell the performance is very much the same. These are exceptional drives: quiet, capable, and cool running. Take note of this, if you will: My previous WD Reds have run continuously for 51,925 hours (5.9 years!) with no bad sectors or failed SMART status at all.

Great NAS drives

I run a project studio that deals with a LOT of media. From recording bands to full HD video editing, I need a lot of reliable storage. I started out with an EX4 Western Digital NAS unit that was loaded with 4 Western Digital Red drives. 4 drives at 4TB each for a total of 16TB of storage. After a year, I upgraded the Ex4 to a PR4100 unit as it was WAY faster then the EX4. I ended up moving the 4 drives from the Ex4 to the PR4100 and continued with them for another year; and they where in the NAS unit running 24/7 without any sleep mode activated on the drives. They where awake, on, and running 24/7. I just recently purchased 4 of these WD Red drives at 8TB each for a total of 32TB. I again, run the drives 24/7 in my NAS unit without any sleep modes enabled. There is no spin up/spin down time. I can not state how solid WD Red drives are. I have been using them for almost 3 years now. They're reliable, solid in speed when used in the right RAID configuration inside the proper NAS environments , and they are overall quiet (unless of course you are running a format on them for a new RAID setup, then they all get hammered on at the same time and make some noise). When I upgraded to the 4 new drives with 8TB on them, I took the older 4 drives with 4TB on them, and started using them in desktop PC as basic extra storage drives. No issues with any of them. They are still running solid after 3 years of use. All the drives run 24/7. I have never had a Western Digital drive die on me unexpectedly. Most of them run 3 to 4 years and I usually only replace them because I need bigger capacity drives, not because they die or fail. I highly recommended WD drives, and these red drives are fantastic!

Good upgrade for NAS

I bought two of these to replace 5 TB drives in an NAS device. The install was easy as you first install one drive and wait for it to be integrated into the RAID scheme. Once it is fully integrated you install the second and wait for it to integrate into RAID also. Both drives integrated as expected and they have been running 24/7 since then without a hiccup. I have had good experience with the WD Pro Red series for NAS devices. Over the past ten years not a single failure. Only one drive of several had some reallocated sectors but not enough for the drive to fail.

The drive you need for a NAS

I bought four of these (quadruplets) for my four disk NAS unit. Everything about them makes them a perfect drive. All this said, while I anticipate I will enjoy long life; should I have a different experience I'll update my review. I want to mention these are nearly silent.

Excellent NAS Drives

Can't go wrong with WD Red drives for always-on storage. I have two of these drives in a two-bay QNAP NAS server, they've been working for a year without hitch. The 5400 rpm spindle speed is no issue really, they max out my Gigabit ethernet network connection with write speeds of 112 MB/s. The drive temperature is always within operating range from WD. They worked so well I bought 4 more of these drives for my new 4-bay QNAP NAS device using a RAID 1+0 array. Same great performance, I primarily use these for Plex media server, desktop backup and other storage. For the price of these drives it's hard not to recommend them, the warranty is great also (on paper, not sure if WD really honors it).

Western Digital WD Red Pro 6TB NAS Hard Drive

+1 - Item arrived on time, and not damaged +1 - Item is as described +3 - 6TB of storage for under $250, NAS rated, and WD reliability Thoughts: This is not my first WD NAS drive I've bought. I've come to appreciate the reliability of WD, as I've only 1 in 20 fail me over time. Luckily I have a RAID and backups, and I have SMART notifications that identified the failing drive before it failed. While it is cheap, always wish it was cheaper :)

Great reliability

I don't like to review things until they have had some use on them. I purchased 2 of these drives a year ago, as replacements for a RAID that had a couple Seagate drives in it. The Seagates did out live their warranty, barely. These 2 Red drives join 4 other Red drives already in use, in another array, which has been active, non-stop, for the last 4 yrs (when Red drives were first introduced). I have bought over 100 hard drives over the last 25 years (way back to MFM on an EISA bus!), from every manufacturer out there, and many that are no more. I have had drives fail from every manufacturer, but in my experience, Western Digital spinning disks seem to fail the least. Can't beat Red drives for storage on spinning platters.

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