Anyone see there are WD Red "Pro" drives coming out?

[Fraoch]

I'm surprised I haven't heard too much about these on the forum.

I'm still learning about them and trying to cut through the rather heavy WD marketing to get to the facts, but from what I can see, the differences between the original Reds are:

• 7200 vs. 5400 RPM
  
• Intended for 8-16 drive arrays instead of 1-8 drive arrays (1-5 drive arrays with NASware 2.0)
• Vibration reduction
• Vibration compensation
• 5-year warranty vs. 3

Probably a lot more differences but I've just started looking at them plus I'm unlikely to use 8+ drives, maybe ever. Interesting though.

They're not available here yet, not sure about elsewhere.

What are your thoughts on these?

 

[cyberjock]

Well, most forum users are home users. As such, the "Red" drives are overkill for many users. I'm expecting the "Red Pros" to be even more of an overkill. No doubt there will be a few that will argue otherwise, and no doubt there will be a few that will have some other justification for the new "Red Pros", and I'm sure the price will be even higher than the Reds.

So yeah.. it's a "whatever" product from my perspective.

 

[9C1 Newbee]

A new religion.

 

[Ericloewe]

A new religion.

And the LORD spake saying: First shall thou remove the holy pin.
Then shall thou count to Three, no more, no less
Three is the number thou shall count and the number of the counting shall be Three.
Four shall thou not count, neither count thou Two, excepting that thou then proceeds to Three.
Five is right out.

Once the number Three, being the Third number be reached,
Then lobbies thou the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thine foes,
Who, using WD Red Pros in my sight, shall snuff it.

Amen.

 

[Arwen]

I've bought 2 WD Red 4TB drives, and 2 WD Red Pro 4TB drives. With ZFS RAID-Z2 I should be okay,
both when the non-pro drives fail. And later, when the Pro drives fail. Plus, since I could, I bought them
all separately. Hopefully, neither pair will be made at the same time, at the same place.

Basically I am designing a failure window for 1/2 of my drives.

I just want a to reduce disk problems for at least 3 years. Hopefully 5 years.

 

[9C1 Newbee]

How do you know the pro drives will fail later? What makes a pro drive a "pro drive"? This is why I am reluctant to spend more $(apply red vs green dead horse here). Having said that, it does come with a nice warranty. I am curious what kinds of load cycle numbers it churns out in stock form. And does wdidle work on them.

EDIT: With the additional 77% in price, they will certainly lighten your wallet.

 

[AlphaG]

And the LORD spake saying: First shall thou remove the holy pin.
Then shall thou count to Three, no more, no less
Three is the number thou shall count and the number of the counting shall be Three.
Four shall thou not count, neither count thou Two, excepting that thou then proceeds to Three.
Five is right out.

Once the number Three, being the Third number be reached,
Then lobbies thou the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thine foes,
Who, using WD Red Pros in my sight, shall snuff it.

Amen.

And so it is done ...

 

[pjc]

The Pros are higher RPM and consume more power, and thus generate more heat. They also only go up to 4TB.

I'd go for the plain Red even with the shorter warranty.

 

[Arwen]

How do you know the pro drives will fail later? What makes a pro drive a "pro drive"? This is why I am reluctant to spend more $(apply red vs green dead horse here). Having said that, it does come with a nice warranty. I am curious what kinds of load cycle numbers it churns out in stock form. And does wdidle work on them.

EDIT: With the additional 77% in price, they will certainly lighten your wallet.

I don't know the Red Pro drives will fail later. Just that they should have different
enough characteristics that even if I experience a double disk failure, my NAS should
stay stable long enough for me to buy replacements. (And re-sync them.)

As for the higher price, I bought the 2 x Reds locally and the 2 x Red Pros mail-order.
Thus, it was only a 25% difference or so.

As for the heat, I put 1 Red Pro at the top slot in my FreeNAS Mini. And the other in the
bottom slot. So nothing above one, and nothing below the other. Not perfect, but the
best I could do.