When building a NAS in the past, the consumer generally had two choices: dip into hard drives that weren't really built to be stacked next to each other in a cramped environment and run for 24 hours, or splash out for an enterprise drive that cost the world.
Those who opted for choice one and bought "green" drives, for the fact that they were cheaper, ran slower and were therefore cooler, often found themselves in the bind of drives dropping from their arrays, as TLER or whatever equivalent either shipped as disabled or simply wasn't there.
So it's nice that Western Digital has spotted a niche to tackle: that of the NAS drive. Its new Red drives are built specifically to live in that tiny box in the corner of your room, including shipping with TLER on by default, technology to minimise vibration and the adjustable spindle speed of the green drives to keep heat, and technically energy bills, down.
It's also backed up with a three-year warranty, which while not extraordinary is always nice to have.
They're technically SATA 6Gbps drives (not that it'll get anywhere near saturating that like an SSD will), and has 64MB of RAM on-board. At this point in time, they come in 1TB, 2TB and 3TB capacities, going for around AU$95, AU$155 and AU$210, respectively.
So, how about performance?
Performance is quite excellent, and, surprisingly, the drive remained next to silent throughout our whole test.
Sequential read speeds (in MBps)
- 197.6
Western Digital Velociraptor (1.0TB, WD1000THZ)
- 161.8
Western Digital Red (1.0TB WD10EFRX)
- 160.4
Western Digital Red (2.0TB WD20EFRX)
- 157.4
Western Digital Red (3.0TB WD30EFRX)
- 117.30
Western Digital Blue (2.5-inch, 500GB, WD5000LPVT)
- 70.54
Western Digital Green (1.0TB, WD10EADS)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
Sequential write speeds (in MBps)
- 190.7
Western Digital Velociraptor (1.0TB, WD1000THZ)
- 161.8
Western Digital Red (1.0TB WD10EFRX)
- 158.3
Western Digital Red (2.0TB WD20EFRX)
- 153.7
Western Digital Red (3.0TB WD30EFRX)
- 116.70
Western Digital Blue (2.5-inch, 500GB, WD5000LPVT)
- 70.15
Western Digital Green (1.0TB, WD10EADS)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
4K random read speeds (in MBps)
- 1.079
Western Digital Velociraptor (1.0TB, WD1000THZ)
- 0.592
Western Digital Red (3.0TB WD30EFRX)
- 0.587
Western Digital Red (1.0TB WD10EFRX)
- 0.575
Western Digital Red (2.0TB WD20EFRX)
- 0.538
Western Digital Blue (2.5-inch, 500GB, WD5000LPVT)
- 0.379
Western Digital Green (1.0TB, WD10EADS)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
4K random write speeds (in MBps)
- 3.705
Western Digital Velociraptor (1.0TB, WD1000THZ)
- 2.017
Western Digital Red (1.0TB WD10EFRX)
- 1.875
Western Digital Red (2.0TB WD20EFRX)
- 1.764
Western Digital Red (3.0TB WD30EFRX)
- 1.081
Western Digital Blue (2.5-inch, 500GB, WD5000LPVT)
- 0.884
Western Digital Green (1.0TB, WD10EADS)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
4K QD32 random read speeds (in MBps)
- 3.593
Western Digital Velociraptor (1.0TB, WD1000THZ)
- 1.867
Western Digital Red (3.0TB WD30EFRX)
- 1.765
Western Digital Red (2.0TB WD20EFRX)
- 1.762
Western Digital Red (1.0TB WD10EFRX)
- 1.380
Western Digital Blue (2.5-inch, 500GB, WD5000LPVT)
- 0.923
Western Digital Green (1.0TB, WD10EADS)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
4K QD32 random write speeds (in MBps)
- 3.996
Western Digital Velociraptor (1.0TB, WD1000THZ)
- 1.926
Western Digital Red (2.0TB WD20EFRX)
- 1.909
Western Digital Red (1.0TB WD10EFRX)
- 1.706
Western Digital Red (3.0TB WD30EFRX)
- 1.476
Western Digital Blue (2.5-inch, 500GB, WD5000LPVT)
- 0.901
Western Digital Green (1.0TB, WD10EADS)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
The Red drive performs exceptionally well, especially when seen in the context of the Green drive. While the 10,000rpm Velociraptor of course streaks ahead, it's also quite a noisy and expensive drive. The 6Gbps interface also helps a little, with burst speeds of around 330MBps recorded, as opposed to around 180MBps when attached to a 3Gbps interface.
If you need to stack your NAS, the Red drive makes a good choice — good speeds, quiet operation and some intelligent technology make it the go-to drive.
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