WD Red 8TB 3.5 Inch NAS Internal Hard Drive - 5400 RPM - WD80EFAX

Price purchased £127.07 The drive information on Amazon the drives are described as only tested for NAS with 1-5 drive bays. However, on a support page it clarifies that the Red series are tested for 1-8 bay NAS and there is also a link to a NAS compatibility list [Amazon won't allow this link]. To find it search for "Compatibility list for the WD Red NAS Hard Drive id=9758" in Google without the quote marks. This appears to have been tested for the latest drives with NASWare 3.0 although I have been using 4 mirrored pairs of NASWare 2.0 drives without any issues. In NAS systems with 24x7 operation vibration is a factor in terms of reliability which is why NASWare 2.0 drives were recommended for drive enclosures of no more than 5 drives. NASWare 3.0 drives improved on the ability to manage the effect of vibration on the drives and this is why they increased rated these newer drives for up 8 drives per NAS enclosure. I had the opportunity to purchase the retail drive at the same price as the OEM drive so I was able t compare what you get in comparison to buying the OEM version of the drive. Looking at reviews of the OEM version of this drive there has been some confusion about whether the extra cost is worth it. To clarify what the differences were I rang Western Digital support. They told me that different countries have different warranty periods. Red series drives in the USA have a 12-month warranty and then you pay a little extra to add the extra warranty. I have bought more than 10 of the Red series of various sizes 3TB, 4TB and 6TB OEM. Each of these drives have registered for 3-year warranties. WD support suggested that Amazon sourced their OEM drives from different countries and that about 50% of them would register as OEM and only have 12 month’s warranty. Amazon identifies that the drives only come with a 12-month warranty unless you pay for more, (not an option for the 4TB drive), so if you register one and it only gives you a 12 -month warranty you have no grounds to complain. So in summary spending the extra £14.00 for the retail version gives you the peace of mind of knowing that you definitely have a three-year warranty. It also comes with drive screws and standard retail packaging. The OEM drives generally come with plastic mounts, on either end, to isolate them from damage to the containing boxes. The retail version plastic support mounts are on the side running the full length of the drive see photos. I think whether you purchase this retail version or opt for the OEM version depends on whether you need a set of screws to mount the drive and more importantly whether you are willing to take the risk that you may end up with a drive which only registers a 12-month warranty. I would suggest that buying OEM drives directly from Amazon, as opposed to buying from a Market Place seller, might increase the chance of getting a three-year warranty and a safely packaged drive. In terms of performance these drives run quietly and quickly. They have a variable speed between 5,400-5,900rpm. So these are not the fastest drives, which are the black series, but seem to perform quickly in everyday use for Desktop (Windows 10 & 8.1), and NAS (Network Attached Storage).

Although I haven't had access to the full range of Western Digital's colour-coded drives, I am able to compare the Caviar Reds to Caviar Greens. Both are aimed to have minimal power draw with good capacity, and both deliver with a tiny 4-5W typical, both are available in 3tb capacities, and both will deliver solid transfer speeds for large files of around 150mb/sec for a continuous transfer of a single large file (no fragmentation). However, the Reds are intended more specifically for NAS use, and while the justification for the extra cost is no immediately apparent when looking at the numbers, the big difference with the Red drives is that they are far more responsive (much lower average seek time) than Greens, making them ideal for accessing lots of small files, or for working in a shared environment, which will bog down the Green drives. Also, unlike the Green drives the Reds are designed to spin continuously and avoid parking the read/write heads, while still retaining the same low power consumption, while the greens will attempt to rest components in order to achieve the same results for lower cost. The result however is that a Green drive will be less efficient if it is actually under heavy load, and will suffer greater wear on its components in such cases. Which brings me neatly to the final factor, and the one that truly convinced me; the three year warranty. If you're going to be using as a backup device then the last thing you want is a drive with a poor warranty, for something so sensitive I believe it's better to spend the small amount of extra cash for the extra peace of mind, even if it's just to know that you won't have to shell out if the drive does fail. So to conclude; even for non NAS use I would probably spring for more Red drives so long as they remain only slightly more expensive, however the difference in price does waver, so your choice may not be as easy, but if it's close enough, or you know you need reliability under heavy use, then the Reds are the drives to get.

I was deeply perturbed by the recent bad reports of Amazon's frustration free packaging, and of the apparently high incidence of drive failures. Decided to risk it anyway, and all has gone well so far. I bought two drives from Amazon (not a reseller), and am pleased to say Amazon appears to be learning. The package was delivered in an Amazon box by Royal Mail Parcelforce, although it lacked the old "shrink-wrap" internal containment, and used scrunched up brown paper to secure the drives in the big box. The drives themselves were still in WD's boxes, with their plastic supports isolating them from damage. So perhaps Amazon has learned about jiffy bags not working. The drives themselves are simply the best I've ever had. Fast, responsive, very little waiting time, even when the drives are "parked". And best of all, they are so quiet, I have to strain to hear them spin up. They've been running for two weeks now, so no sudden death experiences either. They are used as regular drives in a PC, but as the PC is often on for 12 hours a day, I figured these would be a better bet than WD "green" drives (my 3 year old 1Tb green drives were still running fine, but I needed the extra space). I'm cautiously optimistic they will run for many years, but as always, backups of important data is the only way to guarantee not losing it. EDIT: almost 18 months later, and both drives are still running perfectly. No glitches, no errors, no failure to respond. These remain the best drives I have ever bought. 2nd EDIT: OK, it's getting on for 3 years now, with my PC in use eight hours a day, every day, on AVERAGE. That's 8,000 hours-ish. And all is well. Relieved to have bought a good pair. Touch wood...

I've been running a NAS server with 6 x 1tb green drives and I've been quite pleased with both performance and energy efficiency of these drives. I'm now in the process of building a second array of drives for backup purposes, but wanted extra assurance over the reliability and these seemed to tick the boxes, well mine, being: PERFORMANCE : Slight performance increase over green drive (very slight) EFFICIENCY : Similar energy efficiency as the green drives WARRANTY : three year warranty (most important factor; the extra year over the green) Western Digital, are absolutely brilliant with their warranty service and replace failed drives within a couple of weeks with new drives labelled as re-certified. I've done this for both my business and personal drives and can say the customer service alone is brilliant! I've had dealings with the Samsung warranty service and was so appalled I vowed never to own another Samsung again! On multiple occasions they sent me a second hand drives back with uncorrectable sectors to replace failed drives! So failed for failing! BUYING : I haven't got much else to add to what hasn't been mentioned already, other than to make sure you pick your seller carefully if it isn't Amazon. Fulfilled by Amazon isn't enough. My drives arrived in separate deliveries and each time they were all inadequately packaged. I don't believe that simply placing the drive in a thin coating of bubble wrap is enough (single layer). The other drives came in their own boxes but again a thin coating of bubble wrap and absolutely no air between the outer box and drive (other than what was in the bubbles!). I've always received drives in the proper hard drive cardboard boxes with plastic inserts. !!WARRANTY ISSUES WITH QUANTUM WIRELESS DRIVES!! Amazon were great regarding my complaint over the inadequate packaging but as a precautionary check, in-case I had to warranty any of them, I discovered the drives aren't even registered as European; therefore potentially not warranted! This has happened to me before and it takes a couple of weeks to fix; exchanging receipts with Western Digital, it's just rare and extremely annoying and shouldn't happen with UK drives. You can check the warranty status at any point in time by simply entering in your drives serial number. [...]

Firstly, to address the warranty issue raised by many reviews/questions: I ordered this drive in the "Standard" packaging which is listed as an OEM drive but also listed as having a 3-year warranty. Unlike many other reviewers however, on registering the product's serial number (with the drive being bought in October 2015) with Western Digital they have quite happily labelled the drive as "IN WARRANTY" and remaining in warranty until October 2018, ie the full 3 years. Given that other reviews which are also fairly recent are stating that their drives can't be warranty registered this doesn't seem to be so much that Amazon have sorted out the warranty issue properly, as different batches of drives presumably being sourced from different places and with different warranty statuses. This is obviously appalling service from Amazon if true, however this review and rating is based on the drive I received, which does correctly have the 3 year warranty that was advertised. On to the drive itself, it is excellent. I've been using WD Reds for a number of years (we have dozens of them at work) and the failure rate has been very low so I expect this disk will have the legs to keep going - Performance-wise they're strictly middle-of-the-road but this leaves them more than ample for most NAS uses which is the intended purpose of the drive, and for that use-case you're getting large disks at a relatively low price which are generally robust and reliable, so the halfway decent performance they provide is also a nice bonus.

Having been a WD Drive customer for years, it is with regret that I post this review just to advise other customers to take caution. Sadly, despite contact with their customer services department, Western Digital feel that only 800 days or 21500 hours is normal and perfectly acceptable for their product and are not prepared to recognise a premature failure under any form of goodwill policy. I recognise that the timeframe involved means my drive is factually out of warranty due to its age, 4 years, but I can’t help being very disappointed at the quality of this drive. Ultimately, instead of a claimed life of 1,000,000 hours it lasted only for 2.5 % of this and I can’t afford to keep replacing drives due to poor quality components which results in low usage failures, so my decision for future purchases for both myself (I need to purchase 4 4tb drives for a 4bay Synology NAS I have just purchased) and as a company director responsible for IT procurement within our business an easy one. It does look like I will be buying a different make of drive from now on. One should not have to replace drives that only last for this long and so am forced to seek a more durable reliable alternative. Consequently, WD have lost a lifelong drive purchasing customer due to the handling of this particular failure. I just want to raise awareness to make other consumers aware that the drives may not last as long as they hope for or anywhere near the claimed service life before they make a similar mistake to me. Drive life can be as little as 2.5% of the claimed life and this is not recognised outside of the warranty period. Just bad luck, or just poor quality, I’m not sure, but I would never recommend a WD Drive or their customer services retention to anyone again. PLEASE UPDATE COMMENT BELOW AS A SUPPLEMENT TO THIS ONE.

I have used the drive for other 30 days now and its working great. I checked the the load cycle count and its normal at just 10 this was an issue with earlier drives but has been fixed in firmware on the drive now so you don't need to do anything to the drive. The drive is in a Startech Caddy attached to a PC running RAID1 drives and is on all the time. I use the drive for storing an incremental backup of all my work and data everyday. So it gets regular write use but nothing very taxing maybe a few GB a week. The only issue I have had was no fault of WD but the seller on amazon i bought the drive from. When I went to register the warranty from me living in the UK the drive was SN was for USA. So instead of getting the 3 years I would only get the 1 year maybe. So I contacted WD and just a few straight forward emails with Lukas at WD support and sending a png image file attachment of the amazon order and it all now sorted with 3 years warranty. Excellent. It took longer to write this review but its worth doing when a company gets stuff right. Old Review: Part of the reason you are buying this drive is because of the Warranty. But I went to register it at WD website and was informed that it was Out of region and had no warranty. The drive might be perfectly good and just the same as sold the world over but if the Warranty is not valid then you are not buying what you expect. I will have to return it and buy a drive elsewhere that does have a 3 year warranty for the same price.

The first two examples I purchased were via Amazon but supplied by a third-party retailer. I had previously purchased numerous internal hard drives of various brands and capacities, some supplied directly by a retailer and often in OEM anti-static envelopes, others in various 'Retail' packages but many more on-line. Some were supplied in the same OEM packaging but a few have been nested in similar types of boxes as were those. The packaging used here was certainly fabricated by the retailer and could probably accommodate 4 drive units if each was less well protected. Both individual cartons for the two drive units ordered were contained within a much larger outer and was filled with a reasonable amount of packing paper. The outer carton was slightly damaged on arrival but the inner cartons were well isolated from the point(s) of contact and were completely pristine when extracted. I have seen similar damage to other external packaging used for some hard drives ordered in the past but have yet to have one that was D.O.A. due to transit damage that penetrated to the internal containers and to the drive(s) within. The Western Digital Red drives are intended for any usage that is more intensive than 'normal'. Hence, if employed in any form of server that is 'on' 24/7 and for long periods at a time, in NAS devices or even in a desktop PC where usage demands and expectations are high, they are ideal. They offer an MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) far higher than is offered by WD's other drives which should translate to higher reliability over longer periods of time. Sometimes offered at much higher prices than are currently available, they are currently sold for little more than a comparable lower-spec alternative of the same capacity. Another feature is a claimed improvement to the spindle bearing design which results in a very low noise engagement. However, if employed in an enclosure that is fan-cooled, the fan(s) may themselves be sufficiently noisy to be noticeable in a quiet environment. A direct alternative to other products which they could replace if their higher reliability or lower noise is essential and where the price premium can be overlooked. They have now been in use for about 2 weeks in a NAS enclosure. I have not been aware of any noise emanating from the drives or the enclosure but I have other RAID/JBOD enclosures quite close by which are in simultaneous use and where there is an active fan within each enclosure. Although not completely silent, there is a slightly audible hum from those fans and an occasional mechanical vibration that can also sometimes be heard from one which would mask any sounds that may emanate from these drives. However, placing my ear close to the enclosure, I have yet to hear anything. POSTSCRIPT @ 08-2013 I have since purchased several more directly from Amazon for RAID use. All arrived in WD-branded packaging, with each drive contained in a small carton and nested between two plastic moulded sleeves that hold them safely and securely. The individual cartons were contained within a much larger outer and surrounded by yards of packing paper. Subject to two separate orders, all the drives arrived safely and there was no damage to either of the outers.

Long story short, Amazon for some reason limits the purchases of these drives to 1 per customer, which confuses the hell out of me because NAS drives (the type these are) are designed specifically to be purchased in sets of 2, 4, 5, 8, 10? Why do they have this limit. After talking to customer service about it I was told that I could make additional orders as long as they were outside 7days, so these means to replace my NAS (4 Bay QNAP system) with these drives It will take my 4 weeks to order them. Well at least I can get the drives now, unfortunately the time it took me to work this out caused be to miss a slight reduction (sale $13 ish) on the price. As for the drives, well they are very quiet and replacing the drive (one at a time because of issue above) was a snap. They seem to run substantially cooler than the WD Green drives I was originally using. Many told me not to use them (green) but they've lasted 3 years (3 years UPTIME) with absolutely no issues until a week ago when one of the drives dropped out. Hopefully these new RED drives will give me years of prolonged service. Amazon.ca - please change the maximum order number on these drives.

It’s a solid unit, but it needs some extra air flow to keep it cool.

HD funcionando bem, baixo ruído durante sua operação.

After about six months of searching for the perfect drive, I finally settled on two of these Western Digital Red 2TB WD20EFRX hard drives. I was ready to purchase HGST enterprise drives, the former Hitachi, but WD came out with these drives just in-time. I wanted to get the 3TB WD30EFRX version for my Synology DS212 NAS , but the price difference didn't make that much of a sense, and 2TB drives are more than enough for a few years of my home office use. I am very happy that these drives MTBFs are rated at 1,000,000 hours, they use less power, and they are cheaper than other enterprise drives. Upon receiving, I immediately installed them in my NAS. It took about 15 minutes to install DSM 4 and begin the inspection process. I neither chose Raid 1, JBOD, or SHR, and I took some online advice and created two separate volumes, one on each disk, to have two independent file systems. In this case, you don't have to worry about rebuilding disk arrays if any drives fail, and you always have a backup present. I was planning on using Folder Sync feature to sync all folders from Disk 1 to Disk 2 every other hour, but I found out this feature only works on two independent Synology Disk Stations; however, you can use automated backup feature to backup data from Disk 1 into Disk 2, and it produces about the same result as Folder Sync does, and it gives you a few more options for backing up system and application files as well. Synology volume creation took about 7 hours for each drive with automatic bad sector reallocation feature. I later tested each drive with S.M.A.R.T extended test--each took about 4 hours--and I am happy to report that I did not have any bad sectors on either of the drives. That is, the "Reallocated Sector Count" reads zero in S.M.A.R.T report. The drives are surprisingly quiet. I had an enterprise RE2 500GB in my NAS, and it was thunderstorm loud compared to these. The temperature is also very reasonable. When the drive is resting it is about 31C/88F, and under heavy usage it rises up to 35C/95F. Although these drives speed are only 5000 rpm, I don't see any difference in file transfer speed. The only downside that I could sense was the startup time from sleep. I feel that compared to my old WD RE2 drive, it takes a good 2 to 5 seconds more for the NAS to come out of sleep each time. Not a deal breaker, but something to consider when you invest in these drives. I think WD has done a good job with these drives, and they are currently the best on the market for home or home office use. That being said, I still think WD RE4 drives are the best enterprise drives and ultimate in performance; however, if you are looking for a good set of drives for your NAS, and the power consumption and noise are important to you, these WD Red drives will work just fine. Compared to desktop drives, these come with a few enterprise features that come in handy and will save you some time and money down the road.

Ho acquistato 2 di questi hard disk da 4TB ciascuno insieme ad un nas della Zyxel per archiviare la mole di dati presenti su diversi pc, smartphone e tablet sparsi per la casa. PICCOLA PREMESSA Se anche voi avete un quantitativo consistente di foto, video (del vostro matrimonio, dei vostri figli, del vostro viaggio di nozze, o di viaggi in generale, delle serate con i vostri amici ecc) ma anche di documenti digitali, film, ecc.. a cui tenete particolarmente e che per nassuna ragione volete perdere, il NAS è a scelta ideale. Questo dispositivo è importantissimo perchè da un lato provvede a fare quello che dovremmo fare noi regolarmente, ovvero fare il backup regolarmente (fa costantemente una copia di tutto, i maniera automatica) e dall' altro consente di condividere tutti questi file tra tutti i dispositivi presenti in casa (se avete delle foto sul cellulare, le potete vedere anche su un pc o sul tablet e viceversa). L' HARD DISK Anche se apparentemente gli hard disk da 3,5" appaiono tutti uguali fra loro vediamo come rimanendo in casa western digital, di hard disk da 3,5" ne esistono diverse serie; la blue (da utilizzare nei comuni pc desktop), la black (sempre per pc desktop ma che offre prestazioni migliori possedendo un maggior quantitativo di cache e un maggior numero di giri 7200 rpm vs i 5400 rpm della serie blue, quindi un disco più veloce e performante), la serie purple (adatta per sistemi di videosorveglianza) e la serie red (ideale per i NAS). Perchè gia soltanto all' interno di una stessa azienda, ci sono così tante possibilità di scelta? Perchè ogni hard disk è progettato per funzionare in un determinato ambiente di lavoro. Da un pc fisso, ci si aspetta velocità e reattività, magari sacrificando i consumi, l' affidabilità, la rumorosità, mentre da hard disk progettati per un NAS o un apparato di video sorveglianza ci si aspetta affidabilità, consumi ridotti, minor rumorosità, essere utilizzati contemporaneamente da più utenti, sacrificando la velocità. D' altra parte un pc lo si accende lo si utilizza diverse ore al giorno e si cercano le prestazioni migliori, ma un NAS o un sistema di videosorveglianza sta acceso ed attivo per 24h/24 e 7 giorni su 7. In pratica funziona continuamente. Se compro un hard disk non adatto ad essere utilizzato sul NAS avrò consumi maggiori, senza che ve ne sia una reale necessità e rischio che tra un paio di mesi l' hard disk si rompa, perchè messo troppo sotto stress. La serie RED della Western Digital da 4TB con 64mb di cache e 5400 rpm, velocità max di trasferimento dati di 175 Mb/sec, un consumo max di 4 watt, una vita media di circa 1 milione di ore (oltre 100 anni..) è adatta proprio all' utilizzo su NAS. Io ne ho acquistati 2 da 4TB ciascuno, installati su un NAS in raid 1 (su ciascun hard disk c'è la copia speculare dell' altro). CONSIDERAZIONI PERSONALI. Ottimi hard disk, molto silenziosi (ovviamente il nas non va messo in camera da letto) e almeno sulla carta molto affidabili, ma Western digital è una delle aziende leader nella produzione di hardware per storage. Io li ho utilizzati con massima soddisfazione (non la serie red) su pc desktop, e da circa 6 mesi sul NAS (la durata sarà da testare). Il prodotto è arrivato BEN IMBALLATO (a prova di qualsiasi corriere), SPEDIZIONE RAPIDA con PRIME, e GARANZIA di 3 anni. Spero che la mia recensione vi sia stata UTILE.