WD Red Pro 6 TB Review - High Performance NAS HDD Gets a Capacity Bump

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.