3TB Western Digital Red WD30EFRX SATA HDD $149.99 + Free Shipping!

Quote from jmr2198 : can anyone recommend a NAS for a complete newbie? I haven't even ever setup a RAID on a pc. thanks!

Synology DS213 is what I'm looking to buy by the end of the year and fill with two of these Red 3TB drives. That's a really solid setup for a noob that has a lot of functionality.

Quote from pbmpharmacist : I agree. I've had the greens and the reds and they are not the same at all. The reds are WAY better if you ask me. I returned all of my greens.

please explain how the reds are better than greens in your experience.

Quote from blahblahyoutoo : please explain how the reds are better than greens in your experience.

Maybe they got a red sticker instead of green, surely that is worth the price premium, lol.

Quote from blueiedgod : I think you are right. I don't know what these red are, but after finding out the hard way that WD Greens (EARS) can't be RAIDed, I gave up on WD. Who in their right mind would put 2 Tb of data without redundancy. Even if it is useless piratebay movies, it still takes time to re-download the stuff.

RAID is not a backup! Stop using it as such or your ass is going to get burned. WD Green are awesome for masses of data. If it fails, and you don't have a backup, how is WD at fault? RAID is designed for uptime, ie. drive fails, my data is still available right now, it is not meant to replace a true backup.

Quote from pbmpharmacist : These work great in a desktop PC or an HTPC. I have 4 of these drives. But beware, Newegg does a lousy job of shipping mechanical hard drives and you could easily get a dud from them. I got mine from US NCIX and they were packed with love and care and all of my drives are fine.

Nothing beats the Superbiiz fiasco when they shipped my 2TB Samsung drive. It was shipped just in the cardboard clamshell that usually sits inside the multipack OEM shipping boxes. No padding whatsoever. Needless to say I ran the ESTool from Samsung and it had read errors. I got my RMA without much hassle though.

Does anyone one know if this would work in the Time Capsule (Apple)? I want to upgrade my 1TB drive.

Quote from mage182 : Synology DS213 is what I'm looking to buy by the end of the year and fill with two of these Red 3TB drives. That's a really solid setup for a noob that has a lot of functionality.

thanks for your guys input.. I found a good review on another thread here on SD... I think I am going to order two of these WD RED drives, and set it up to give me 3TB of storage(mirrored incase one drive fails).. these things don't use much energy. I was always afraid of having these run all the time 24/7, but it has a fairly lower power consumption, the Synology 213+.

Here is the link I was referring to reviewing the Synology 213+:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/foru...tion-DS213

I know this isn't meant to be a true backup... but for me, it is just movie and music storage. I tend to keep movies I will keep on a separate external drive down the road. But the drive mirroring is great for not loosing stuff on there.

Quote from travathian : RAID is not a backup! Stop using it as such or your ass is going to get burned. WD Green are awesome for masses of data. If it fails, and you don't have a backup, how is WD at fault? RAID is designed for uptime, ie. drive fails, my data is still available right now, it is not meant to replace a true backup.

I honestly don't need to back up all of the movies and TV recordings that we have, as they are readily available elsewhere. Yeah, important stuff that can not be replaced is backed up, but to back up terrabytes upon terrabytes of literally digitized crap (movies, TV recordings, ect) is not necessary in my view.

However, if I sacrifice 25% of capacity to not to have to back it up, it is fine with me. In the worst case scenario where more than 1 drive fails, yeah, I am going to have to get all that digital crap back up, but chances of that happening are significantly lower than chances of 1 drive failing.

In other words, 25% loss in capacity is redundant enough for me to not to have back up and maintain a back up for stuff that can be replaced, however, I would rather not to have to replace it if I can minimize (not eliminate, but minimize) chances of that.

Hope that makes sense.

Quote from blahblahyoutoo : please explain how the reds are better than greens in your experience.

Well, I bought 4 3 TB Reds and they were all defect-free. They I bought 2 3 TB greens and 1 had dead sectors. I also had 2 3 TB Seagate drives and although neither were dead 1 was making a clicking sound.

I also felt that the Reds were quieter, which is huge for HTPC use, and a little quicker.

Someone always pops up in these threads defending Greens. That's because they bought Greens and they resent that fact that the Reds are a little better, have full RAID supports, are certified for 24/7 operation, have a longer warranty and have a dedicated 24/7 phone support option.

I was in the position to have either, I installed all of the drives above in my HTPC and I was only satisfied when I got the Reds.


Here are some reviews.
http://www.storagereview.com/west...w_wd30efrx

http://www.tomshardware.com/revie...248-9.html

Quote from stettin : Nothing beats the Superbiiz fiasco when they shipped my 2TB Samsung drive. It was shipped just in the cardboard clamshell that usually sits inside the multipack OEM shipping boxes. No padding whatsoever. Needless to say I ran the ESTool from Samsung and it had read errors. I got my RMA without much hassle though.

You are lucky then that Superbiiz took them back. They have the worst return policy on the planet.

Quote from dvdapex : Is it just me or is this a bunch of marketing BS? I've had several drives (Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate, Maxtor, WD Green, WD, etc) both SATA and IDE in file servers that ran 24/7/365 and never had a drive fail. Unless they're purposly making drives that don't last more than HHH hours in order to require buying a "special" drive that lasts longer.

I installed two 3TB drives on my surveillance computer, running 24 hrs. Both drives died, I am not sure how long maybe, 2 years but both died within weeks of each other. It had read and write errors and failed,so I assume the read heads must have worn out or the platter.

Quote from grumblegrumble : I believe the REDs are the cheapest you can get that have TLER (and a few other features) that make them great for 24/7 NAS /RAID use. They probably won't outperform the WD RE drives but def outperform the greens. Also they don't spin down so often so the response time is notably better for initiating transfers and /or reads and this leads to a longer life because of fewer spin down/spin up cycles. NOTE: Be sure to verify that your motherboard will support the 3TB disks before you buy this though. Many older boards don't especially those that have been popular for HTPC and NAS builds. Some have released new bios that allow for the 3TB drives but I wouldn't assume - look it up before you buy.

Thanks for the info. one point of clarification, as long as you're using a a recent OS version (Windows 7, Linux, Mac OS X) all computers will be able to use a 3TB drive. I believe the issue is if you want a 2TB or higher driver as a boot drive, this is where the BIOS/mb not having support is the issue.

Quote from Robert95z : Kinda new to all this, but im building 2 computers.. a HTPC for the living room, and a desktop for the office.. Im going to have the HTPC stream movies from the desktop. So my desktop is going to play as a office computer/gaming/NAS (light gaming btw)... Does that sound ok?

Sure, but it all depends on your home setup, you might not even need the living room computer.

Quote from pbmpharmacist : Well, I bought 4 3 TB Reds and they were all defect-free. They I bought 2 3 TB greens and 1 had dead sectors. I also had 2 3 TB Seagate drives and although neither were dead 1 was making a clicking sound. I also felt that the Reds were quieter, which is huge for HTPC use, and a little quicker. Someone always pops up in these threads defending Greens. That's because they bought Greens and they resent that fact that the Reds are a little better, have full RAID supports, are certified for 24/7 operation, have a longer warranty and have a dedicated 24/7 phone support option. I was in the position to have either, I installed all of the drives above in my HTPC and I was only satisfied when I got the Reds. Here are some reviews. http://www.storagereview.com/west...w_wd30efrx http://www.tomshardware.com/revie...248-9.html You are lucky then that Superbiiz took them back. They have the worst return policy on the planet.

Thanks for those reviews. It seems the 3TB seagate might be better for people wanting speed, i just hate idea of buying seagate...

Quote from blahbooboo2 : Thanks for those reviews. It seems the 3TB seagate might be better for people wanting speed, i just hate idea of buying seagate...

I don't think there is any reason to get a 7200 rpm drive for storage. 5400 rpm or 5900 rpm is plenty fast enough.

I also hate Seagate! Join the club!