WD Release Red Series NAS Drives

[iphex]

Originally Posted by aokman

your point being? they still have had full "compatible" NAS drives for many years in both high performance and low power versions without the need for this marketing segmentation BS that WD insists on doing.

Last time i checked they were still in operation aswell just acquired by WD unfortunately.

And whats your point exactly? the 3tb and 4tb Hitachi drives are EOL, i supplied a link in the HDD thread not long ago. No point basing your argument on end of life drives.

Originally Posted by Bismar

Surprised no one has mentioned this, but this drive has 3 years of warranty rather then the two on the green drive.

To me that gives me more confidence in a drive.

Its just marketing as already mentioned, from all reports they are the exact same drive as the green, but with different firmware and warranty. Done purely so it doesnt intrude into the WD Blacks (5 year warranty) and the RE drives (which is where the majority of their profits lay)

[dr_deathy]

if its totally true then WD just cut back settings just to up-sell we are VERY lucky they are the ONLY company which does this....

im glad intel has never done it thats for sure.

[C0ncrete]

Originally Posted by aokman

i mean that WD has to bring out yet another model with the usual marketing speils etc... you dont need this specific model crap in the real world. WD just like neutering their products so you have to pay a premium for the more desirable features. They make it out like they have parted the sea by releasing a HDD for NAS's when Hitachi have covered all bases for years even seagate have to some extent.

I think there has been good separation between the different colours. Each one is clearly made for a different segment and have performance/features to match.

I think it has been good.

[aokman]

Originally Posted by C0ncrete

I think there has been good separation between the different colours. Each one is clearly made for a different segment and have performance/features to match.

I think it has been good.

all it does is tell the nub users which ones they need to buy without thinking. All you really need is 2 models, one targeted at performance and one targeted at power savings with similar feature sets. Its funny as it would be costing WD more in the long run maintaining 4 separate consumer product lines over just dropping the prices of their higher end products and consolidating, as said already im glad the other companies haven't gone down this road.

[Kurosaki]

Originally Posted by aokman

all it does is tell the nub users which ones they need to buy without thinking. All you really need is 2 models, one targeted at performance and one targeted at power savings with similar feature sets. Its funny as it would be costing WD more in the long run maintaining 4 separate consumer product lines over just dropping the prices of their higher end products and consolidating, as said already im glad the other companies haven't gone down this road.

yeah mean like how Seagate has Bara/SV35/Pipeline HD/Constellation product lines and Hitachi has the 5K4000, 7K4000 deskstars, ultrastars and cinestars

What WD is doing is hardly different, a least its nicely color coded.

[aokman]

Originally Posted by Kurosaki

yeah mean like how Seagate has Bara/SV35/Pipeline HD/Constellation product lines and Hitachi has the 5K4000, 7K4000 deskstars, ultrastars and cinestars

What WD is doing is hardly different, a least its nicely color coded.

you are talking about corporate / mainstream / consumer segments. I am talking about mainstream segments only. Hitachi have 2 models, coolspin and high performance... thats it.

Seagate are similar except the constellation drives which are actually a different type of hdd not just a hdd with a different sticker and firmware locks. All WD do is rehash the same crap in a different wrapper.

But hey, people believe it so their marketing works, unfortunately. Funny thing is these drives are still 4kb cluster so people will be eating them up for their DIY nas's and wondering why the speeds suck. Im sure it will be fine for the mainstream synologys etc though.

[dr_deathy]

so you have opened them up?

end enterprise in 3.5" 7200RPM is a load of shit they are all consumer grade.

[garry]

I am thinking about grabbing a couple of 2TB in these drives,are these drives suitable for just using as single data drives,I know there saying there made for nas but would they be good for a reliable data drive.

I didn't have much luck with the 2TB black drives 2 out of the 5 I own died over the last couple of months.

Also how would they compare to the black drives in performance.

[Kurosaki]

Originally Posted by aokman

Seagate are similar except the constellation drives which are actually a different type of hdd not just a hdd with a different sticker and firmware locks. All WD do is rehash the same crap in a different wrapper.

Only one drive within the current Constellation range in a SAS drive (Directly taken from Seagate production matrix as off July 2012, I'll pic when I get back to work tomorrow). All others are 7.2K RPM SATA, with capacity aligned with what you expect from 1Tb platter drives. So unless your telling me they use different heads or motors then they are the same as bara except with different firmware.

SV35/Pipeline HD, please explain to me how they different to the Bara Green before them?

So you seem to fail to grasp the concept there are different market segments with different needs. Its like saying Holden should just make a Commodore Omega and the SS, everything else is just marketing BS.

[aokman]

Originally Posted by Kurosaki

So you seem to fail to grasp the concept there are different market segments with different needs. Its like saying Holden should just make a Commodore Omega and the SS, everything else is just marketing BS.

ffs i am talking about the mainstream segment, not enterprise, not security, or consumer integration.

Of course there are different needs, you either need performance or low power. You dont need 4 different models just to cover desktops alone and yes it is marketing BS (anyone with half a brain who reads their product description can see it), im betting 95% of the features are already in the green hdds and are just disabled via firmware.

But hey go for it, im sure its the best NAS drive out there now i mean comon it has NASware technology! oh and 3D Active Balance Plus!

[rowan194]

Originally Posted by garry

I am thinking about grabbing a couple of 2TB in these drives,are these drives suitable for just using as single data drives,I know there saying there made for nas but would they be good for a reliable data drive.

Going on what has been stated in this thread there would be little point - the Red seems to be a Green with some firmware tweaks to support TLER (for hardware RAID) and do away with incessant head parking. Neither of those differences are really necessary when using the drive standalone, in fact, you definitely do NOT want TLER enabled on a standalone drive!

In answer to your other question: Red/Green are 5400RPM, Blue/Black are 7200RPM. The latter will have better seek times and maximum transfer speeds simply because of the faster rotational speed.

[iphex]

Originally Posted by rowan194

Going on what has been stated in this thread there would be little point - the Red seems to be a Green with some firmware tweaks to support TLER (for hardware RAID) and do away with incessant head parking. Neither of those differences are really necessary when using the drive standalone, in fact, you definitely do NOT want TLER enabled on a standalone drive!

In answer to your other question: Red/Green are 5400RPM, Blue/Black are 7200RPM. The latter will have better seek times and maximum transfer speeds simply because of the faster rotational speed.

Rotational speeds doesnt really effect seq reads so much, makes a big difference in writes though (IOP's) and seek times.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1704476&page=6

Id hold off getting some though, a few people on there testing them in large scale are having issues.

[rowan194]

Originally Posted by iphex

Rotational speeds doesnt really effect seq reads so much, makes a big difference in writes though (IOP's) and seek times.

You think that spinning 33% faster won't make a difference? I just did a quick bench of two drives that were purchased at around the same time. I know this isn't very scientific, just pointing out that they were both current and similar models in their respective classes at the time.

Hitachi HDS5C3020ALA632 (5400RPM): 129Mbytes/sec
Hitachi HDS723020BLA642 (7200RPM): 156Mbytes/sec

Not quite a 33% increase in read speed at the fastest part of the platter (more like 21%), but a difference nevertheless.

[Vladdo]

I just bought a 3tb for $219 from CPL.. I don't mind paying another $40 for 1 more year of warranty..

[mitsimonsta]

Anyone locally able to give some reports on the Reds yet?

Most of the [H] are talking about the failures being caused by a single point of reference: NewEgg.

Probably too early to hear of RMA rates from our sponsors just yet, but I would be surprised to hear of the same failure rate that we are hearing from the US.