WD Red for RAID 0?

[Hulk]

Hello! I'm finally upgrading my HDD and was considering 2x WD20EFRX [2TB Red] HDD in RAID 0. One thing that caught my eye is that it does not support TLER. Is it still a good option? Its one of those few drives that has a note saying its meant for RAID use. My current storage setup is a single 500GB RE4. What should I do?

 

PS- In addition to that, what kind if performance will I be looking at? I looked up online but I could find no results with only 2x of these drives. I plan on running them off the SATA 6GB/s ports on my P8Z77 V Pro. What kind of read/ write speeds can I expect? I plan on doing a lot of video recording off a 1080p panel using MSI Afterburner or Shadowplay once it becomes available. 

[KamiKatze]

If you want more speed get an SSD. Hard drives should usually be configured in Raid 1, since the extra speed you get through Raid 0 is neglibigle compared to an SSD.

[Hulk]

If you want more speed get an SSD. Hard drives should usually be configured in Raid 1, since the extra speed you get through Raid 0 is neglibigle compared to an SSD.

I already have a SSD and need something for storing games and media. I don't think getting a 1TB SSD is really that optimal...

[alpenwasser]

What's your budget and how much additional storage space do you need?

If you're really after speed I would recommend 7.2k rpm drives, or even 10k

(such as WD's Velociraptors). You are going to have some performance benefit from

putting the Reds in RAID0, but it's still not going to perform very impressively.

[Alex(PlayMedium)]

I have 2 reds in raid 0.

The two main resons for that are:

1. I record 1080p@60fps with fraps at times and afaik one red drive isn't fast enough.

2. I want my PC to be as silent as possible

 

red drives are the quietest HDDs I have ever used, even when I'm just trashing them with raw fraps footage they are whisper quiet. With open headphones on VERY low volume I can not hear them at all.

Unless you really need the speed, just go for either more HDDs and put them in RAID5 or get 2 big ones and do a raid1.

I do daily backups of my raid to an external 2tb green hdd.

[Hulk]

What's your budget and how much additional storage space do you need?

If you're really after speed I would recommend 7.2k rpm drives, or even 10k

(such as WD's Velociraptors). You are going to have some performance benefit from

putting the Reds in RAID0, but it's still not going to perform very impressively.

I've not included the price since I am not from the States or Canada, but instead from India. Down here, a 500GB RE4 is retailing for 90$ and the 2TB Red is retailing for 130$. My total budget is around 300$ for the final HDD setup.

[Hulk]

I have 2 reds in raid 0.

The two main resons for that are:

1. I record 1080p@60fps with fraps at times and afaik one red drive isn't fast enough.

2. I want my PC to be as silent as possible

 

red drives are the quietest HDDs I have ever used, even when I'm just trashing them with raw fraps footage they are whisper quiet. With open headphones on VERY low volume I can not hear them at all.

Unless you really need the speed, just go for either more HDDs and put them in RAID5 or get 2 big ones and do a raid1.

I do daily backups of my raid to an external 2tb green hdd.

Thanks for the reply! What read/ write speeds are you getting with the Reds?

[Alex(PlayMedium)]

Thanks for the reply! What read/ write speeds are you getting with the Reds?

I think they are getting slower due to the ammount of data on them.. I need to upgrade lol

[wpirobotbuilder]

I already have a SSD and need something for storing games and media. I don't think getting a 1TB SSD is really that optimal...

I'd recommend a Seagate Desktop drive, just pick the size you need. RAID will help with loading times, but only by a little bit, and you're putting yourself at risk of a failure which will require you to restore all your games installs.

 

You could get a high-performance drive like a WD black or velociraptor and you'll see improvement, but they're relatively loud.

 

To answer your original question, two Reds in RAID 0 will certainly be fast enough to load games and play them reasonably well. It's just not recommended.

[Hulk]

Thanks for the replies! I just had one last question- how will the absence of TLER affect the drive if I were to set it up in a RAID 0 configuration? Is it more prone to failure without this feature?

[BYOGamingPC]

I'd also recommend going with the Seagate Barracuda 1 TB or larger. Mine are in a RAID 1 setup and I have the 3TB drives and am thoroughly satisfied with them.

[Eric1024]

Thanks for the replies! I just had one last question- how will the absence of TLER affect the drive if I were to set it up in a RAID 0 configuration? Is it more prone to failure without this feature?

WD reds DO have TLER support. Where did you read that they didn't?

[Hulk]

WD reds DO have TLER support. Where did you read that they didn't?

Its not mentioned on their webpage and there are a few speculations that WD disabled them via a firmware update.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=810

[Eric1024]

Its not mentioned on their webpage and there are a few speculations that WD disabled them via a firmware update.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=810

I highly doubt that... one of the main selling point of reds is their TLER support

[Eric1024]

Here: WD Red NAS Storage – What is NAS?

 

Error recovery controls - Desktop drives are not traditionally designed for RAID environments and have controls that prevent the RAID controller from assisting in the event of an error which can cause the hard drive to drop off the RAID after a period of time. Rebuilding a RAID often requires several hours and can have a significant impact on downtime and productivity.

 

They're not explicitly calling it TLER or ERC or whatever, but this is pretty concrete imo

[Madspec]

I have 4 x 3Tb Red drives in Raid5 and I love them. Quiet as hell and fast enough for media storage.

[Hulk]

Here: WD Red NAS Storage – What is NAS?

 

 

They're not explicitly calling it TLER or ERC or whatever, but this is pretty concrete imo

I did not see at all! Thanks a lot!  I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but is the error recovery tool built into the firmware or is it a seperate downloadable utility altogether? Also, will it be allright to run 2x HDDs off the SATA 2 ports + a SSD off a SATA 3 on a Z77 board?

[Hulk]

I'm updating this with the answer I got from WD which may be quite suprising- 

 

WD Red drive's error recovery can only been taken use of when in a NAS; for standard desktop users there is no error recovery whats so ever in a RAID environment. In other words- only if you get a one of those WD approved NAS's can one make use of any error recovery; this is non existent for desktop users. I hope this helps! 

[Eric1024]

I'm updating this with the answer I got from WD which may be quite suprising- 

 

WD Red drive's error recovery can only been taken use of when in a NAS; for standard desktop users there is no error recovery whats so ever in a RAID environment. In other words- only if you get a one of those WD approved NAS's can one make use of any error recovery; this is non existent for desktop users. I hope this helps! 

I'm not sure I believe that. I would venture a guess that they only validate it for NAS environments, and they don't want to deal with desktop use. TLER/ERC is just a timing setting in firmware; the device that the drive is connected to has no bearing on that.

 

Tl;DR: seems like WD support is covering their asses and WD is trying to segment their products.