NAS vs consumer drives?

[pyrojoe34]

So I presume NAS drives are slower (5400rpm) but more reliable and rated for continuous use? Are there any other differences? (specifically WD Red)

 

I'm trying to decide on a drive for my personal server/NAS built out of old parts and they are not any more expensive than desktop drives. Reliability is most important to me for this system, speed is secondary since my UL/DL speeds are the bottleneck anyway.

[Enderman]

WD reds are good because they are almost as fast as a WD black but last longer and run cooler/quieter

also cost about the same

[Electronics Wizardy]

9 hours ago, pyrojoe34 said:

So I presume NAS drives are slower (5400rpm) but more reliable and rated for continuous use? Are there any other differences? (specifically WD Red)

 

I'm trying to decide on a drive for my personal server/NAS built out of old parts and they are not any more expensive than desktop drives. Reliability is most important to me for this system, speed is secondary since my UL/DL speeds are the bottleneck anyway.

They have firmware that is built for raid cards. Unlike other drives, they are desinged to make them happy and not faill out of a raid like a greeen would.

[leadeater]

10 hours ago, pyrojoe34 said:

So I presume NAS drives are slower (5400rpm) but more reliable and rated for continuous use? Are there any other differences? (specifically WD Red)

 

I'm trying to decide on a drive for my personal server/NAS built out of old parts and they are not any more expensive than desktop drives. Reliability is most important to me for this system, speed is secondary since my UL/DL speeds are the bottleneck anyway.

NAS and server disks have as part of their firmware what is called Time-Limited Error Recovery (TLER) in Western Digital speak, other brands use different names. This is important for multi disk storage pools or arrays, whether it is hardware RAID or a software solution such as ZFS.

 

What TLER does is when the disk encounters an error it will abort and report back the error within 7 seconds rather than continuously try and read the problematic sector. This prevents the disk being marked improperly as failed by a RAID card or storage software when it is not failed due to it not responding, the system will then go get the data off of a different disk. For single disk usage this is not ideal, if the disk gives up reading the sector this equates to data loss/corruption. In this situation try forever is better.

 

The other advantage of NAS disks is they are designed to run in a system with many disks very close together so they have vibration compensation features.

 

Basically single disk systems should use WD Blues/Blacks and multi disk systems should use WD Red/Red Pro/Se etc.

[Captain_WD]

19 hours ago, pyrojoe34 said:

~snip~

Hey there pyrojoe34

WD Red is indeed designed for NAS devices and RAID arrays. As such it has some additions to the firmware such as the NASware which makes the drive perform much more stable in RAID arrays and takes care of the data while the drive is under the stressful workload of a RAID array. Features such as TLER reduce the chances of a drive dropping out of an array and thus improve data security and safety. 

The drive is also mechanically designed to work in denser environments with more drives in the same enclosure without decreasing the drive's performance or lifespan from the increased heat and vibrations. 

 

Performance isn't tightly related to the drive's design. WD Red Pro offers great performance as it is a 7,200 rpm NAS/RAID drive.

 

If you have any other questions I'd be happy to help! 

 

Captain_WD.