WD Red Pros vs Blacks

[fx24]

Hey guys,

I will be upgrading my FreeNAS soon, and want to know your thoughts.

From what I have read, it seems that WD Blacks would do just fine, and this is what I have been leaning towards for awhile. WD Red Pros came out recently, and while ZFS does just fine without TLER, I am under the impression that it would still benefit from it.

Using 4TB drives, I am going to set up a 11-drive RAIDZ3. Do you think $30 extra per drive is worth the added RAID/NAS features?

My chief concern is the stability of my data.

 

[cyberjock]

I'd never do Blacks for one reason.. they are 7200RPM. That means they are going to be hotter and potentially fail more frequently. If RAIDZ3 isn't enough redundancy to let you use the "cheaper" Reds then you have much much bigger problems.

 

[fx24]

I have never been a fan of WD Red because of the short 3yr warranty. Red Pros just came out. They run at 7200RPM and also have a 5yr warranty, so now I am finally looking at Reds.

I dont know at what temps they run. I had been planning to install Blacks in a desktop tower which provides two 140mm front case fans, but even with that I imagine they would hover between 45-48c. Is that a range that you would be uncomfortable with?

 

[cyberjock]

The comfort range per Google's white paper is <40C for longevity. So no, that's very hot and shouldn't be allowed to occur.

 

[Ericloewe]

Regular WD Reds support TLER, so that's a non-issue.

Plenty of people here are running WD Reds and they're the default recommendation, so there's nothing to worry about, safety-wise. Like all HDDs, just test them thoroughly first.

 

[diehard]

I'd never do Blacks for one reason.. they are 7200RPM. That means they are going to be hotter and potentially fail more frequently. If RAIDZ3 isn't enough redundancy to let you use the "cheaper" Reds then you have much much bigger problems.

The Red Pro's are 7200 RPM also.

 

[Yatti420]

I believe blacks have proven worth versus red at this point in time.. The green/red debacle is still in its infancy.. For all we know the greens/red and maybe even blues are all the same drives relabled with different firmware..

Blacks on the other hand have been around along time and are pretty much proven.. Atleast I believe so.. Unless WD has now changed them aswell.. I haven't been keeping up much on hdd specs etc since my last purchases..

 

[cyberjock]

The Red Pro's are 7200 RPM also.

Then I guess the Red Pro's aren't going to me on my recommend list either.

 

[cyberjock]

Yeah, so I just looked at the Red Pros. Very very disappointing. Price is somewhat absurd ($250 for a 4TB) and there seems to be more reasons to not want it than to want it.

As for the Reds that's what *many* users use and I'd say they've done very very well. I just bough 10 WD Reds (6TB) and for 2 weeks they've been amazing. iX uses Reds in some of their systems, so they can't be that bad, can they?

 

[fx24]

I believe blacks have proven worth versus red at this point in time.. The green/red debacle is still in its infancy.. For all we know the greens/red and maybe even blues are all the same drives relabled with different firmware..

Blacks on the other hand have been around along time and are pretty much proven.. Atleast I believe so.. Unless WD has now changed them aswell.. I haven't been keeping up much on hdd specs etc since my last purchases..

I love WD Blacks, but I have never ran 11 disks, and certainly never managed that many in FreeNAS. When you say proven, do you mean that you know how well they perform in a FreeNAS setup?

I only just found out about the 37-40c ideal temps for drive longevity so I now realize I would need to ditch Noctua fans for something a little better. I know that Blacks have anti-vibration technology, but it sounds like the Reds have even more.

 

[Yatti420]

I wold say proven as in reliable and aren't gonna be questioned.. I understand 7200rpm drives run hotter but I haven't had any fail yet.. However I've had greens die before.. Greens do require more work for a NAS setup.. I've never used reds we're gonna have to see how long they hold up.. Noctuas are good fans.. Maybe they don't have the CFM to push alot of air?

I run powerful fans in my case due to my setup.. The top 2 drives in 5.25 bays run hot.. They shouldn't be there but it works.. I may take off the plastic protectors 2 see if that helps a bit..

 

[fx24]

Yeah, so I just looked at the Red Pros. Very very disappointing. Price is somewhat absurd ($250 for a 4TB) and there seems to be more reasons to not want it than to want it.

As for the Reds that's what *many* users use and I'd say they've done very very well. I just bough 10 WD Reds (6TB) and for 2 weeks they've been amazing. iX uses Reds in some of their systems, so they can't be that bad, can they?

I am looking at those too right now. How hot do they run, and what kind of cooling do you have on them? Are you happy with their speed performance?

I wold say proven as in reliable and aren't gonna be questioned.. I understand 7200rpm drives run hotter but I haven't had any fail yet.. However I've had greens die before.. Greens do require more work for a NAS setup.. I've never used reds we're gonna have to see how long they hold up.. Noctuas are good fans.. Maybe they don't have the CFM to push alot of air?

I run powerful fans in my case due to my setup.. The top 2 drives in 5.25 bays run hot.. They shouldn't be there but it works.. I may take off the plastic protectors 2 see if that helps a bit..

I haven't had one fail either, but I have never used them in any type of RAID so I am primarily concerned about them not having TLER. Not so much temperature or vibration. What kind of FreeNAS setup are you running with Blacks?

 

[cyberjock]

The 6TB Reds have worked pretty well. Of course I don't consider 2 weeks of use to be a good indicator of how well they will perform long-term. dd tests of my zpool of 10 disks in RAIDZ2 gives me just over 1GB/sec throughput. dd tests of the individual disks gives throughput of 170MB/sec at the beginning of the disk and something like 130MB/sec at the end.

SMART long tests take almost 12 hours (!!). Overall they seem to be fine for me.

My WD Greens have been extraordinary though, which is one reason why I stuck with WD. I've only had 3 or 4 failures in the almost 4 years I've owned all of these disks (24 disks total). That's pretty amazing if you ask me. ;)

 

[joeschmuck]

12 hours to run a SMART long test, that is quite a bit of time for a drive. I hope those drives don't give you any grief and it will be nice to see how well they work for you Mr. Cyberjock.

 

[fx24]

Yeah, so I just looked at the Red Pros. Very very disappointing. Price is somewhat absurd ($250 for a 4TB) and there seems to be more reasons to not want it than to want it.

As for the Reds that's what *many* users use and I'd say they've done very very well. I just bough 10 WD Reds (6TB) and for 2 weeks they've been amazing. iX uses Reds in some of their systems, so they can't be that bad, can they?

The Reds are rated for 1-8 setups. Doesn't this concern you?

 

[diehard]

The Reds are rated for 1-8 setups. Doesn't this concern you?

This is mostly marketing speak for "buy our more expensive ones if you are a business".

 

[joeschmuck]

The Reds are rated for 1-8 setups. Doesn't this concern you?

I think I can speak for him... No.

 

[cyberjock]

^^^ What he said. Absolutely not.

 

[fx24]

Thanks guys.

 

[hungarianhc]

One thing I suggest is actually mixing drives. I know plenty of people who bought N drives from one vendor at the same time. Because they were from the same batch, they actually started failing around the same time. That was a huge pain to deal with. When I bought the 5 x 4TB drives for my system, I chose drives with long warranties, and I got a couple Reds and a few Samsungs, I think.