WD Red Pro 6 TB Review - High Performance NAS HDD Gets a Capacity Bump
by Ganesh T S on September 7, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- NAS
- Storage
- HDDs
- Western Digital
Concluding Remarks
The Western Digital Red Pro is the latest addition to our 6 TB drives evaluation set. We have taken a look at how it compares against the other 6 TB drives that have been evaluated before in both DAS and NAS scenarios. It is hard to recommend any particular 6 TB drive as the clear cut choice unless the particular application is known. The various hard drives in the comparison lot were launched targeting different markets and their resulting performance varies accordingly. At the most, the Seagate Enterprise NAS HDD and the WD Red Pro fall under the same category. However, they each win out on different workloads, with the Seagate drive enjoying a slight edge.
Thanks to the 7200 RPM speeds, the WD Red Pro does manage to acquit itself well in the overall performance category. Though it is not the absolute best, it performs admirably well in the sequential access patterns segment of the multi-client evaluation.
The WD Red Pro doesn't deliver the lowest power consumption. Those were recorded, as expected, with the 5400 RPM WD Red and the HelioSeal-technology based HGST Ultrastar He6. However, the WD Red Pro provides a good balance between speed and energy efficiency.
The WD Red Pro 6 TB version is priced at $300. At this price, users can also purchase the HGST Deskstar NAS 6 TB (though Newegg has reduced pricing for multiple disks in this case). The Seagate Enterprise NAS HDD comes in at $305, while the Enterprise Capacity v4 version comes in around $450. The choice at the $300 price point for 1-16 bay NAS units comes down to the WD Red Pro and the Seagate Enterprise NAS HDD. As mentioned earlier, the choice depends on the expected workloads.
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Impulses - Tuesday, September 8, 2015 - link
My 75GB 75GXP failed slowly, I dunno if it was related to the main source of failure everyone was seeing... It made for some interesting surprises, like waking up to an empty Desktop because the directory had been mysteriously renamed Desotop (amazingly everything within was intact).MHz Tweaker - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link
Yes, I think I remember those GXP-Deathstars "click click clickety click"Samus - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
I prefer HGST drives, but really just the older ones like the 2TB and 3TB 5400RPM Deskstar Coolspins. They were nearly as fast as most 7200RPM drives of the day.The He6 is just too expensive, although they seem to be very reliable and that was the real concern at the beginning for that technology.
And until recently, Hitachi/HGST didn't have a 6TB non-Helium model available. They are clearly behind Seagate and WD on density, but ahead of them on reliability. Sometimes keeping it old-school is the best path. Look at Mazda with Skyactive. No turbo charging, no fancy dual-clutch or CVT transmissions, just a modern lightweight engine with as much friction removed as possible mated to a tweaked slushbox and it still beats every single competitor in fuel economy, aside from Hybrids, while also being among the few vehicles manufactures that have not had transmission or engine related recalls.
Adul - Tuesday, September 8, 2015 - link
Not to mention taht they are great to drive cards :)Adul - Tuesday, September 8, 2015 - link
Cars! should not reply from phone.yeeeeman - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
When do these ancient objects go extinct? And why didn't you include at least an ssd for comparison?damianrobertjones - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
When you and I can afford to buy a 6TB SSD version. That probably means when we're dead.FunBunny2 - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
I wonder if it's possible to stuff 6TB of NAND, at any node size, into 2.5" form factor?KateH - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
Yes.http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/samsung-unv...
FunBunny2 - Tuesday, September 8, 2015 - link
Zoweeeeee.