Western Digital Black or Red for Media?

[MatthewBowker]

I have recently discovered Plex and I have now started to rip my CD's and Blu-ray movies onto my desktop computer so I can watch and listen to my large library of stuff whenever I like where ever I like. My desktop is located in my home office and is a mid tier gaming computer which I also use for doing office work at home. I currently have a 256GB SSD which I have my OS stored on along with my programs and documents and a 1TB hard drive which I store my games on. Since ripping my media onto my PC to take advantage of Plex I am now getting to the point where I need more storage on my PC. Now I know that building a NAS would be the best option for storing my media on but I don't have enough disposable income yet to be able to buy the parts for one so instead I am thinking I'm going to buy two new hard drive to fit in my desktop, most likely two 3TB hard drives for now and set them up in RAID 1 so that if one of the drives dies then I will have a backup of the many hours of work that is going to go into ripping my media to my desktop.

 

The only thing I am not quite sure about however is which drives to go for? I have been looking at Western Digital's coloured drives, more specifically red and black drives, probably with the black drive as the one I read and write to and the red drive being the identical backup? I want something that going to last and keep my media secure but that the same time I don't want my media to be bottled necked if the read speeds are not fast enough for Plex's services. Can someone please advise me as to which drives I should get?  

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

Hey there MatthewBowker Welcome to the community! 

 

WD Black is a great performance drive designed for durability, extensive and heavy workloads and high speeds. It has a long 5-year warranty and is great for game builds and workstations. However, what you are looking for is a NAS/RAID drive that is designed for RAID array usage. That would be WD Red. It has additional features such as TLER that reduce the chances of a drive dropout or data corruption. Any drive would work but for safe and more stable performance I would recommend going for the WD Red drive.  

 

Feel free to ask if you happen to have any questions! 

 

Captain_WD.

[MatthewBowker]

Thanks @Captain_WD for welcoming me to the forums. 

 

So you advise going for two red drives for my movies and music in RAID 1?

 

Another thought I had when writing my initial question though was about upgrading my current 1TB hard drive as that's getting quite old now. If I were to buy two new drives to put them into RAID 1 for my media like movies and music as well as gaming then getting a black drive and a red drive is probably a better option isn't it? It would give me the benefits of performance for gaming along with reliability, surely? 

 

Matt

[dalekphalm]

Thanks @Captain_WD for welcoming me to the forums. 

 

So you advise going for two red drives for my movies and music in RAID 1?

 

Another thought I had when writing my initial question though was about upgrading my current 1TB hard drive as that's getting quite old now. If I were to buy two new drives to put them into RAID 1 for my media like movies and music as well as gaming then getting a black drive and a red drive is probably a better option isn't it? It would give me the benefits of performance for gaming along with reliability, surely? 

 

Matt

I agree with @Captain_WD, WD Red drives are the ones to go for in your usage scenario. The additional performance of WD Black Drives would be wasted on a large media storage drives. The sustained write speed of Black vs Red won't be big enough to make more than a minor difference, and the read performance will literally not matter at all, since either will be able to read fast enough for playing HD or even 4K content.

 

As for your second question. If you are using RAID 1, then Do not mix drive types. Either use 2x Blacks or 2x Reds. The array will basically wait on the slowest drive anyway.

Do not think of RAID 1 as a "operating" drive and a "backup" drive. Think of RAID 1 as two identical drives.

 

In your scenario, I would suggest the following:

1x HDD or SSD for your operating system. I would strongly suggest that you consider getting an SSD, since the performance for your OS is out of this world faster.

2x WD Red HDD's in RAID 1 - this can be your mass storage drive, where you keep media files, etc. You can even install your games here if you'd like.

[MatthewBowker]

Thank you @dalekphalm 

 

I will get two red drives then for storage in my PC. 

 

If I am to set up a RAID 1 with two red WD hard drives for storage and keep my 256GB SSD as my OS drive, will I need to format my PC in order to set up the RAID or can I do it without interrupting my current set up? 

[dalekphalm]

Thank you @dalekphalm 

 

I will get two red drives then for storage in my PC. 

 

If I am to set up a RAID 1 with two red WD hard drives for storage and keep my 256GB SSD as my OS drive, will I need to format my PC in order to set up the RAID or can I do it without interrupting my current set up? 

You can setup the RAID 1 2x WD Red drives without interrupting your current setup.

 

If you're doing it via the Motherboard, you'll have to enable RAID mode, add the 2x WD Red drives to the RAID, and configure as a RAID1/Mirror. The specific instructions will depend on your motherboard model number. I'd consult the user manual for detailed information.

[braneopbru]

Neither. 

 

For storing media on a dektop, save your money and get a green drive.

 

Save even more money and get a single drive. Do not waste time or money in RAID 1 to store media that you already own a hard copy of anyway.

[techguru]

Thank you @dalekphalm 

 

I will get two red drives then for storage in my PC. 

 

If I am to set up a RAID 1 with two red WD hard drives for storage and keep my 256GB SSD as my OS drive, will I need to format my PC in order to set up the RAID or can I do it without interrupting my current set up? 

I wouldn't raid it for speed...to many problems with raids crashing..and if the media is very important...you wanna duplicate all media...1 drive for reading off....1 drive as a backup to the first...basically raid 1

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

@dalekphalm explained it perfectly. 

RAID1 enables one of the drives to function as a regular one and the other to be its exact "Mirrored" copy which can be used in case the initial one fails. There may be some speed benefits during the reading process but not significant. 

 

Also as @braneopbru suggested, if you don't want to sped too much on your storage and prefer not to ahve redundancy, a simple WD Green drive would work just as well. Here's some info on them: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=I9Pgkw

 

Captain_WD.