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
Specifications and Feature Set Comparison
Prior to getting into the performance evaluation, we will take a look at the specifications of the WD Red Pro 6 TB and see how it compares against the other NAS-specific hard drives that we have looked at before.
The WD Red Pro 6 TB sports a SATA III (6 Gbps) interface. As is customary for the high capacity drives in this market segment, it can only emulate 512-byte sectors (natively 4K). The interesting aspect is the presence of a 128 MB cache similar to the Seagate and HGST drives, and unlike the WD Red. The obvious selling point for its price target is the 7200 RPM speed, which should easily give it the lead in most benchmarks over the WD Red. The other aspects (such as the URE ratings, MTBF, warranty etc.) are as expected for a drive targeting SMBs and SMEs. The table below presents the data for the drive against the others in our evaluation database.
| Comparative HDD Specifications | ||
| Aspect | ||
| Model Number | WD6001FFWX | WD6001FFWX |
| Interface | SATA 6 Gbps | SATA 6 Gbps |
| Sector Size / AF | 512E | 512E |
| Rotational Speed | 7200 RPM | 7200 RPM |
| Cache | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Rated Load / Unload Cycles | 600 K | 600 K |
| Non-Recoverable Read Errors / Bits Read | < 1 in 1014 | < 1 in 1014 |
| MTBF | 1 M | 1 M |
| Rated Workload | ~ 180 TB/yr | ~ 180 TB/yr |
| Operating Temperature Range | 5 to 60 C | 5 to 60 C |
| Acoustics (Seek Average - dBA) | 34 dBA | 34 dBA |
| Physical Parameters | 14.7 x 10.16 x 2.61 cm; 750 g | 14.7 x 10.16 x 2.61 cm; 750 g |
| Warranty | 5 years | 5 years |
| Price (in USD, as-on-date) | $299 | $299 |
A high level overview of the various supported SATA features is provided by HD Tune Pro.
We get a better idea of the supported features using FinalWire's AIDA64 system report. The table below summarizes the extra information generated by AIDA64 (that is not already provided by HD Tune Pro).
| Comparative HDD Features | ||
| Aspect | ||
| DMA Setup Auto-Activate | Supported; Disabled | Supported; Disabled |
| Extended Power Conditions | Supported; Disabled | Supported; Disabled |
| Free-Fall Control | Not Supported | Not Supported |
| General Purpose Logging | Supported; Enabled | Supported; Enabled |
| In-Order Data Delivery | Not Supported | Not Supported |
| NCQ Priority Information | Supported | Supported |
| Phy Event Counters | Supported | Supported |
| Release Interrupt | Not Supported | Not Supported |
| Sense Data Reporting | Not Supported | Not Supported |
| Software Settings Preservation | Supported; Enabled | Supported; Enabled |
| Streaming | Not Supported | Not Supported |
| Tagged Command Queuing | Not Supported | Not Supported |
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MHz Tweaker - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link
My findings are that Backblaze statistics are RIGHT on target. In fact they may be too kind to Seagate. I threw 12 Seagate drives in the trash this spring that were 1.5, 2 and 3TB capacities with 3tb drives being the worst drives I have ever come in contact with. I would say that my 3TB Seagate drive failures are higher than 75% in 24 months. I own a service and repair company and observe Seagate drives fail in droves, particularly the 3TB ones. Seagate 4tb drives are vastly more reliable so far but I stopped buying Seagate drives PERIOD because of the thousands of dollars I lost dealing with them. My primary drive is HGST now. I have a couple dozen of their 4, 5 and 6TB NAS drives in a pair of Win 2012R2 servers and a X99 Workstation. I also use them in client servers and workstations for backup images. In 3 years I have yet to have a HGST drive fail or even receive a D.O.A. Great drives.Wwhat - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
Formerly know as 'deathstar' when still owned by IBM due to consistent early failure, I don't get that they didn't change the name.Personally I don't trust 'consumer reviews' blindly, because there is massive cheating with paid fake reviews on the internet, and because each person has its own usage pattern and perhaps a good experience with a brand is based on a use quite dissimilar to mine.
melgross - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
I only recall IBM having one particular drive that had a problem. Long time ago, and I don't remember the model, but it was a 75GB unit.bigboxes - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
I had 6 of those 60GB "Deathstar" drives and each and every one of them eventually failed with the "click of death". I was able to RMA them under warranty and every one failed except for one which is sitting in a box somewhere.bigboxes - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
75GXP and 60GXP were the bad models.Samus - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
^ this. The first-generation giant magneto resistant (GMR) heads were not reliable. This hasn't been an issue for a decade. IBM/Hitachi/HGST-Toshiba has changed hands so many times (not owned by WD) that very little IBM technology, if any at all, remains in these new drives.Wwhat - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link
I posted my deahtstar remark as a reply to a comment about the deskstar, and am aware it's not a WD company.I have no idea why it did not show up as a reply, probably the poorly codedantiquated comment system to blame?
And my primary point is that it's odd that the company changed name twice but they kept that name with which people had bad memories, it's simply a weird thing to do.
Samus - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
It's a pretty good name. The same reason Ford brought back the Taurus nameplate. Even though it was associated with a crappy product at the end of its run, it still has good history behind it.Kjella - Tuesday, September 8, 2015 - link
The IBM Deskstar 75GXP series, but it had six models with 15/20/30/45/60/75GB capacity. Personally I had a 45GB drive die to the "click of death".Souka - Tuesday, September 8, 2015 - link
I think I had a number of these drives....they were the fastest around (or most performance per$$)