WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

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Lawrence Lee
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WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by Lawrence Lee » Tue Sep 02, 2014 10:14 pm


bastiaan
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Re: WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by bastiaan » Thu Sep 04, 2014 1:30 pm

Another great review!

It seems that WD have a clear technological advantage over Seagate with an incredible 1.25TB platter density, whereas Seagate is still at 1TB. That WD have achieved such a capacity increase without altering the power draw (or, really, anything else about the Red series) significantly is very impressive.

The 2.5" drive is another story. WD faces more serious competition there. Most notably, Samsung (or should I say Seagate?) already has a 2TB model that fits into the slim 9.5mm package: the Spinpoint M9T 2TB. WD has some catching up to do there. I wonder if WD is the first to release a 2.5" drive intended for NAS usage, though.

torp
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Re: WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by torp » Fri Sep 05, 2014 1:14 am

The problem with the Spinpoint M9T is... where can you buy it?
I want a PS4 for Christmas... and I want one of those inside it before I start installing games. I have a feeling I'll have to do with the 500 Gb hard drive :(

bastiaan
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Re: WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by bastiaan » Fri Sep 05, 2014 1:25 am

torp wrote:The problem with the Spinpoint M9T is... where can you buy it?
This shop ships to Romania, for instance.

Abula
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Re: WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by Abula » Fri Sep 05, 2014 5:27 am

Thanks for the great review, good to see the higher platter/capacity reds are still decent for a quiet build, when they reach $200, Ill buy some for my server.

Offtopic, talking about the M9T, i Just bought 2, one for the PS4 and one for external enclousure, i hope they are not loud.

eclipsevv
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Re: WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by eclipsevv » Fri Sep 05, 2014 6:48 am

Idle noise is really excellent on the 6TB drive (much lower than I expected); I wonder if it's possible to use AAM to reduce seek noise.

Abula
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Re: WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by Abula » Sun Sep 07, 2014 9:21 am

Just for reference, even though its going offtopic some.

I just received my 2x Samsung M9T and its a superb 2.5, very quiet and very little vibration, runs cool, imo the best 2.5 mechanical hdd on the market, better than my past favorite Hitachi 5k1500. I just ran a CDM3 on it, in case someone is interested,

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MikeC
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Re: WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by MikeC » Sun Sep 07, 2014 9:59 am

Thanks for the Samsung M9T info, Abula. Am trying to get review samples of the 2tb version.

toronado455
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Re: WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by toronado455 » Tue Sep 09, 2014 11:51 am

Thanks to Lawrence Lee for reviewing these. Can anyone verify that the 2.5" Red does not have the instant spindown issues that myself and others experienced with WD Blue 2.5" drives? The instant spindown on the Blue made it unusable for me.

Lawrence Lee
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Re: WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by Lawrence Lee » Wed Sep 10, 2014 9:36 pm

toronado455 wrote:Thanks to Lawrence Lee for reviewing these. Can anyone verify that the 2.5" Red does not have the instant spindown issues that myself and others experienced with WD Blue 2.5" drives? The instant spindown on the Blue made it unusable for me.
I'm not familar with that issue. No spin-downs that I noticed, just head-parking. And the head-park delay is quite long by comparison.

Telstar
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Re: WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by Telstar » Fri Oct 03, 2014 4:22 pm

A bit pricy still (the 6 TB drive) and according to the datasheet 1 to 3 TB are the quietest.
I have a pair of 3TB reds and they are as quiet as the greens but should have a longer life without that dumb head parking.

toronado455
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Re: WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by toronado455 » Sat Oct 04, 2014 10:17 am

Lawrence Lee wrote:No spin-downs that I noticed, just head-parking. And the head-park delay is quite long by comparison.
Telstar wrote:I have a pair of 3TB reds and they are as quiet as the greens but should have a longer life without that dumb head parking.
I'm confused. The reds park heads but have a long delay before doing so? (So they park heads less frequently?)

Telstar
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Re: WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by Telstar » Sat Oct 04, 2014 12:50 pm

Yes, much longer. But IIRC on the 3TB model (and some smaller one perhaps) they don't park at all.

toronado455
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Re: WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by toronado455 » Sat Oct 04, 2014 4:42 pm

Telstar wrote:Yes, much longer. But IIRC on the 3TB model (and some smaller one perhaps) they don't park at all.
Thanks.

Hrafn
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Re: WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by Hrafn » Sun Apr 24, 2016 6:19 pm

I recently bought the WD Red 1TB 2.5". I've been having trouble with it going through an extended period of periodic 'ticking' after booting up, before settling down. I have since discovered that this may be due to excessively-aggressive autoparking of the heads, and am currently backing it up prior to running WD's 'WD Red SMART load/Unload utility 2.5" Drive' on it. The drive gets light but fairly continuous use.

toronado455
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Re: WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by toronado455 » Wed Apr 27, 2016 2:11 pm

Keep us posted.

Hrafn
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Re: WD Red 6TB and Red 1TB (2.5-inch) HDDs

Post by Hrafn » Thu Apr 28, 2016 6:11 am

I got a "drive update not needed" response from the program, and initially the ticking continued. But after a reboot or two it seems to have gone away. I recently ran the DOS-only wdidle3 program, which actually allows you to interrogate the settings, and it shows an autopark time of 5 minutes.

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