WD red plus vs. WD red pro vs. other options?

[Sokonomi]

My 6 x WD red plus 3Tb array has a faulting drive so I have to start replacement, but I'm not sure which drives to buy since I'm spoiled for choice.

My gut tells me to just grab some new 4tb WD red plus drives and avoid SMR, but before I do, I must ask; are there better options? There's a pro version which has the benefit of 5 year warranty, but its apparently also a bit noisier and costs about 50% more. So I'm wondering if that's worth it. There also appears to be some variation in cache sizes, is that something to look for? I also see people mentioning that its worth looking at enterprise drives, but I'm not sure what they mean by that.

So to summarize my questions;
- Is WD red pro worth the price hike?
- Is drive cache size a thing to consider?
- Are there better options still (enterprise drives)?

 

[sretalla]

- Is WD red pro worth the price hike?

Depends on your objective... performance and reliability, it should have an advantage, but at a cost of higher RPMs and therefore noise and power consumption.

- Is drive cache size a thing to consider?

Probably not... we're talking about spinning rust here, it's not going to make huge amounts of difference and manufacturers match it to drive sizes for reasonable performance.

- Are there better options still (enterprise drives)?

WD Gold (small enterprise)
WD Ultrastar (enterprise)

Both of those lines have around the same pros and cons as the Red Pro drives... perhaps a little more focus on warranty.

I would generally say for regular folks, the Red Plus is the right balance of price/capacity/performance.

 

[Sokonomi]

Its just a media NAS with a single user, so I'm not looking to win races.

Nice clearcut answer, thank you kindly!

 

[FlyingHacker]

There are also enterprise drives used on eBay. Might be an option with RAID.

 

[kherr]

`Given WD truth in advertising policies and marketing ....... I'll never buy another WD HD .... I used to buy them exclusively ....

 

[sretalla]

Given WD truth in advertising policies and marketing ....... I'll never buy another WD HD .... I used to buy them exclusively ....

Seagate did that too... what brand are you able to buy?

 

[Etorix]

Toshiba! N300 (NAS) or MG (Enterprise)

Joke aside

So to summarize my questions;
- Is WD red pro worth the price hike?

Not for a home NAS anyway.

- Is drive cache size a thing to consider?

Only in the sense that the largest cache betrays… WD SMR drives.

- Are there better options still (enterprise drives)?

Enterprise drives may no longer be available in the small capacitiy you're looking for. Other than that, the general advice for buying drives is to look around for NAS and enterprise drives (which may be cheaper) and pick whichever comes out with the best price per terabyte.
WD Red Plus|Pro / Gold (= former HGST Ultrastar)
Seagate Ironwolf (Pro) / Exos
Toshiba N300 / MG