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tugatosmk · 2016-06-30, 10:56

Can I create a NAS RAID5 of up to 5 drives using WD Green drives like the 6TB I already own, or do I have to buy the more expensive WD RED?

Renegade334 · 2016-06-30, 11:06

WD RED is specifically tailored for RAID (the name is practically a phonetic giveaway), and it should be, if the last word through the grapevine is still relevant, up there in terms of quality with WD Black (i.e. top-of-the-line), which means it has better resilience than WD Green.

WD Green is meant to spin at lower speeds and have shorter parking times to increase its longevity (which makes up for its cheaper build); it's not supposed to be an always-spinning drive. It's best used as a (non-NAS) storage point accessed rather occasionally, sleeping 90% of the time and only woken up when you decide to access its contents. What makes WD Green attractive, however, is the price point, but if you want better warranty and quality, get WD Red and prepare to make some financial sacrifices.

In the end, it depends on what you do with your NAS. If your rig is meant to see some heavy duty, get Red, otherwise, well, you could always consider going for Green.

tugatosmk · 2016-06-30, 11:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Renegade334

WD RED is specifically tailored for RAID (the name is practically a phonetic giveaway), and it should be, if the last word through the grapevine is still relevant, up there in terms of quality with WD Black (i.e. top-of-the-line), which means it has better resilience than WD Green.

WD Green is meant to spin at lower speeds and have shorter parking times to increase its longevity (which makes up for its cheaper build); it's not supposed to be an always-spinning drive. It's best used as a (non-NAS) storage point accessed rather occasionally, sleeping 90% of the time and only woken up when you decide to access its contents. What makes WD Green attractive, however, is the price point, but if you want better warranty and quality, get WD Red and prepare to make some financial sacrifices.

In the end, it depends on what you do with your NAS. If your rig is meant to see some heavy duty, get Red, otherwise, well, you could always consider going for Green.

I forgot to mention that the NAS I was thinking was a hardware one like this:http://www.globaldata.pt/armazenamen...-raid-box.html

My NAS was meant to be a "giant archive" kind; I'd only use the NAS for as long as the computer was turned on, and I wouldn't necessarily acess the drives all the time, only when I wanted to sporadically copy, access or change something, just like I'm doing with my current WD 6TB Green that is getting filled. Basically it was going to be a NAS giant archive without a 24/7 workload. After some calculations, the disk space I require for future video projects and lots of old DVD backups would mount to more than 10TB, and HSGT 10TB drive is just too expensive; not to mention I could just add the drives in the NAS as I needed.

What I'm worried is the reliability with the WD Green, like you pointed out in a way. You did say "could" in a way that worries me... Is is really "dangerous" as in the drives will fail after 6 months?

EDIT: I was planning a 24 or 25TB archive NAS in RAID5, resulting in 16,7 TB of usable disk space, but I'd have other drives in my PC like a SSD for the OS and a WD black for fast access of lots of small files (music, images...) and video work, for example, the Black would be my "drive to go", not this NAS.

Basically, the hardware NAS (that can be powered off independently from the PC, I believe) would only be on during the time the PC is also on, which when I'm working with it.

Renegade334 · 2016-07-01, 03:01

When I said "could", I wanted to emphasize that WD Green was not expressly built for that kind of task like WD Red and as such, I can't say what its SMART values and mechanical health will be a year from now. The cheaper build means it could wear out faster than a WD Red if both were to be put under identical stress for the same amount of time. That's all I'm saying. My own WD Greens are used as non-RAID, occasional-access storage and they sleep 95% of the time unless I want to access some of the stuff I put in them, so I know they're going to last me a long time simply because they're not subjected to big constant workloads and have never been truly stress-tested. Some of them are almost three years old and have yet to show their first reallocated or uncorrectable sector. #fingerscrossed

I would maybe sleep a bit better if I had WD Red, but WD Green should be good as long as you don't make it sweat too much. It's like using a Renault Twingo for the Paris-Dakar: it can certainly do the job, it's just that the engineers who designed it just didn't have that task in mind when they built it. XD

Alas, there is no true way to gauge the lifespan of a certain drive aside from looking at public numbers published by server farms on the performance of their own hardware; experience has taught me that some HDDs of the same model can fail two years after mounting, while others will simply die or start developing defects half a year later. Every HDD ships out of the factory with microscopic defects that'll go worse with time; that's something every customer must accept before opening his/her wallet, and put up with. There's just no guarantee or predictable behavior across the line.

demonix · 2016-07-01, 06:01

While you could put WD greens into a RAID array, they aren't designed for running 24/7 in something like a NAS which is why there are drives available that are designed to run all day and night.

Depending on what you want you could get the RED variant, or you could get NAS capable hard drives from either seagate or HGST (if you want standard desktop fare (that being 7200 RPM) then HGST is going to be the only option for cost since the WD RED pro drives are more expensive).

tugatosmk · 2016-07-01, 06:34

I did say:

"I was planning a 24 or 25TB archive NAS in RAID5, resulting in 16,7 TB of usable disk space, but I'd have other drives in my PC like a SSD for the OS and a WD black for fast access of lots of small files (music, images...) and video work, for example, the Black would be my "drive to go", not this NAS.

Basically, the hardware NAS (that can be powered off independently from the PC, I believe) would only be on during the time the PC is also on, which when I'm working with it."

BUT I did find out that, at the store I usually buy computer products, the price between the WD Green and the WD Red (both 6TB) is "only" 15€ more for the Red... I think when I bought the 6TB Green 8 months ago the difference was bigger. Now I'm kinda upset I didn't get the Red at the time...

Renegade334 · 2016-07-02, 01:28

Well, if you're willing to dish an extra 75€, put the debate to rest and get the Reds.

P.S. Either way, make sure to get the retail (packaged) version of the WD drives and not the OEM ones: apparently, the latter ones have no warranty attached to them and can't be RMA'ed in case they fail.

2016-06-30, 10:56	Link #1
tugatosmk 1982 tuga Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Portugal	NAS RAID5 with Western Digital Green drives Can I create a NAS RAID5 of up to 5 drives using WD Green drives like the 6TB I already own, or do I have to buy the more expensive WD RED? __________________ "Nous dirigeons vers un système planétaire inconnu..."

2016-06-30, 11:06	Link #2
Renegade334 Sleepy Lurker Graphic Designer Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Nun'yabiznehz Age: 38	WD RED is specifically tailored for RAID (the name is practically a phonetic giveaway), and it should be, if the last word through the grapevine is still relevant, up there in terms of quality with WD Black (i.e. top-of-the-line), which means it has better resilience than WD Green. WD Green is meant to spin at lower speeds and have shorter parking times to increase its longevity (which makes up for its cheaper build); it's not supposed to be an always-spinning drive. It's best used as a (non-NAS) storage point accessed rather occasionally, sleeping 90% of the time and only woken up when you decide to access its contents. What makes WD Green attractive, however, is the price point, but if you want better warranty and quality, get WD Red and prepare to make some financial sacrifices. In the end, it depends on what you do with your NAS. If your rig is meant to see some heavy duty, get Red, otherwise, well, you could always consider going for Green. __________________ << -- Click to enter my (dead) GFX thread.

2016-07-01, 03:01	Link #4
Renegade334 Sleepy Lurker Graphic Designer Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Nun'yabiznehz Age: 38	When I said "could", I wanted to emphasize that WD Green was not expressly built for that kind of task like WD Red and as such, I can't say what its SMART values and mechanical health will be a year from now. The cheaper build means it could wear out faster than a WD Red if both were to be put under identical stress for the same amount of time. That's all I'm saying. My own WD Greens are used as non-RAID, occasional-access storage and they sleep 95% of the time unless I want to access some of the stuff I put in them, so I know they're going to last me a long time simply because they're not subjected to big constant workloads and have never been truly stress-tested. Some of them are almost three years old and have yet to show their first reallocated or uncorrectable sector. #fingerscrossed I would maybe sleep a bit better if I had WD Red, but WD Green should be good as long as you don't make it sweat too much. It's like using a Renault Twingo for the Paris-Dakar: it can certainly do the job, it's just that the engineers who designed it just didn't have that task in mind when they built it. XD Alas, there is no true way to gauge the lifespan of a certain drive aside from looking at public numbers published by server farms on the performance of their own hardware; experience has taught me that some HDDs of the same model can fail two years after mounting, while others will simply die or start developing defects half a year later. Every HDD ships out of the factory with microscopic defects that'll go worse with time; that's something every customer must accept before opening his/her wallet, and put up with. There's just no guarantee or predictable behavior across the line. __________________ << -- Click to enter my (dead) GFX thread.

2016-07-01, 06:34	Link #6
tugatosmk 1982 tuga Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Portugal	I did say: "I was planning a 24 or 25TB archive NAS in RAID5, resulting in 16,7 TB of usable disk space, but I'd have other drives in my PC like a SSD for the OS and a WD black for fast access of lots of small files (music, images...) and video work, for example, the Black would be my "drive to go", not this NAS. Basically, the hardware NAS (that can be powered off independently from the PC, I believe) would only be on during the time the PC is also on, which when I'm working with it." BUT I did find out that, at the store I usually buy computer products, the price between the WD Green and the WD Red (both 6TB) is "only" 15€ more for the Red... I think when I bought the 6TB Green 8 months ago the difference was bigger. Now I'm kinda upset I didn't get the Red at the time... __________________ "Nous dirigeons vers un système planétaire inconnu..."

2016-07-02, 01:28	Link #7
Renegade334 Sleepy Lurker Graphic Designer Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Nun'yabiznehz Age: 38	Well, if you're willing to dish an extra 75€, put the debate to rest and get the Reds. P.S. Either way, make sure to get the retail (packaged) version of the WD drives and not the OEM ones: apparently, the latter ones have no warranty attached to them and can't be RMA'ed in case they fail. __________________ << -- Click to enter my (dead) GFX thread.

2016-07-01, 06:01	Link #5
demonix Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Hayes, Middx UK Age: 44	While you could put WD greens into a RAID array, they aren't designed for running 24/7 in something like a NAS which is why there are drives available that are designed to run all day and night. Depending on what you want you could get the RED variant, or you could get NAS capable hard drives from either seagate or HGST (if you want standard desktop fare (that being 7200 RPM) then HGST is going to be the only option for cost since the WD RED pro drives are more expensive).