WD Red 6TB hard drive WD60EFAX - $125.99 or less

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12-02-2019 at 09:24 PM #2

This seems like a great deal. If you're looking for something a little bigger, the WD Store also has a good deal on the Red 10TB for $215.99:
https://shop.westerndigital.com/p...#WD100EFAX

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12-02-2019 at 09:25 PM #3

Picked some of these up earlier. They are the 2019 WD60EFAX models, which are the newer versions of their 6TB Reds with a 256MB cache (their old WD60EFRX version has a 64MB cache).

It's worth noting these new drives are Helium drives, and they use SMR now, similar to the newer SeaGates and HGST Helium drives. The old Reds used PMR. Don't mix SMR and PMR drives in your RAID, people!

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12-02-2019 at 10:44 PM #4

is this confirmed? that WD REDs are now SMR? If that's true, I may have to go the Ironwolf drive route.. which seem to be CMR.

a quick "google" seems to say it's unclear.. that WD is now hiding from the consumer whether or not the newer REDs are SMR. interesting.

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12-03-2019 at 12:05 AM #5

Quote from BrutalSeverity :

Picked some of these up earlier. They are the 2019 WD60EFAX models, which are the newer versions of their 6TB Reds with a 256MB cache (their old WD60EFRX version has a 64MB cache).

It's worth noting these new drives are Helium drives, and they use SMR now, similar to the newer SeaGates and HGST Helium drives. The old Reds used PMR. Don't mix SMR and PMR drives in your RAID, people!

Search Res
SMR hard disks are very slow for random read / write. so if you dont write or read in sequential chunks the performance you will get is very bad compared to normal disks. while if you do sequential read and write then you will get good performance. What happened to wd? They used to be the best, now all of their products are just overpriced crappy harddrives that are no better than the Segate harddrives which are known to fail alot. https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoar...f_caution/

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12-03-2019 at 12:10 AM #6

Quote from GeorgeMcFly :

is this confirmed? that WD REDs are now SMR? If that's true, I may have to go the Ironwolf drive route.. which seem to be CMR.

a quick "google" seems to say it's unclear.. that WD is now hiding from the consumer whether or not the newer REDs are SMR. interesting.

It's true......... I cannot believe it myself, I had to do a google search and i found this. It talks about how they use helium and smr to reduce noise. But what they forget to tell you is that this process causing jittering and this happens with all the 5400 rpm harddrives of all of their brands. They are using helium and smr in all of their models now to "make it quiter" well, I want a harddrive that isn't throttled unless you own the 7200rpm or faster harddrives from wd. It basically saying " hey dummy, pay extra to not get the crappy model derp derp derp"https://documents.westerndigital....nology.pdf

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Last edited by EddieDaThird December 3, 2019 at 12:16 AM.

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12-03-2019 at 12:12 AM #7

Quote from GeorgeMcFly :

is this confirmed? that WD REDs are now SMR? If that's true, I may have to go the Ironwolf drive route.. which seem to be CMR.

a quick "google" seems to say it's unclear.. that WD is now hiding from the consumer whether or not the newer REDs are SMR. interesting.

So do not get a wd red, unless you choose the wd red pro version.

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12-03-2019 at 01:39 AM #8

Quote from EddieDaThird :

So do not get a wd red, unless you choose the wd red pro version.

I also read that the regular Red 8TB and 10TB drives are (still) PMR, so replacing a current defect 6TB SMR by one of these might also be an option. If, at one point, you replaced all you drives you should also end up having more storage available if your NAS supports it. Of course I don't know if future versions of these drives will also change to SMR :-(

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12-03-2019 at 05:28 AM #9

Quote from TSLH :

I also read that the regular Red 8TB and 10TB drives are (still) PMR, so replacing a current defect 6TB SMR by one of these might also be an option. If, at one point, you replaced all you drives you should also end up having more storage available if your NAS supports it. Of course I don't know if future versions of these drives will also change to SMR :-(

if the 8tb and 10tb were released after 2018, they are now going to be SMR if ran at 5400rpm.

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12-03-2019 at 11:11 AM #10

can this just be plugged internally in a computer and not be used as a NAS?

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12-03-2019 at 03:06 PM #11

Quote from pennywaltz :

can this just be plugged internally in a computer and not be used as a NAS?

Yes -- but these drives are manufactured to be run 24/7/365, as starting and stopping them can wear them out faster. That is why they are NAS-rated, so just keep that in mind. You would be better off getting a Blue or Black drive.