Western Digital Red 3TB SATA NAS Drive – 310 days old

[ZemaTalon]

Western Digital has seen a future market demand and filled that void brilliantly. The new Red series offers outstanding throughput, dead-silent operation, and even some enterprise features at a cost only slightly above that of the lowest cost consumer drives out there. The ability to continuously and dynamically self balance is a feature unseen in even their own enterprise lines, and is a sure contributor to the 1 Million MTBF rating. I see the Red becoming the defacto standard for all bulk storage array applications. Given the recent push towards the home NAS concept, I think a bunch of folks are going to start seeing Red everywhere (in a good way).

Read the article, which includes benchmark comparisons between the red drive
and other WD drives, at PC Perspective.

[Grogan]

So basically, it's comparable to the Caviar Black drives for speed, with enterprise features to allow a bit of manhandling while in operation at only a slightly higher price than the Blacks.

That sounds like my next hard drive.

[Bad Haircut]

If that price is right when they start filtering through here then it's worth jumping on. You lose two years warranty over a black but touch wood things work out and you get a quiet performance drive. I might pull the trigger before the reviews start (and price adjustments).

[Grogan]

I don't care so much about the length of the warranty (though it does at least usually mean that the company expects their products to last), it's the time, aggravation and data loss that matters. The hundred bucks is the least of it. (In fact I can never wait for an RMA, I have to buy a drive and then I'll have an extra one when it finally goes through.)

I'll be quite pissed if I need to use the warranty.

I especially hate it when a drive I have installed in a customer system fails. All that work installing Windows and drivers, data transfers, updates and niggling bullshit software for nothing. It's pretty hard, in good conscience, to charge more than a nominal amount for the "warranty work". That's why I insist on only good quality drives (e.g. Caviar Black) even though more expensive.

[BitBender]

I avoid data loss by replacing the drives in two calendar years, regardless. I HATE losing an image. Cheaper to replace them before the three year marker - less labor, and aggravation. The old spares I sell to those who only want to pay 50 cents for a repair and don't care how long it lasts. Now, my spindles run 24x365, so, factor that into any rebuttal

[Bad Haircut]

I must admit these days I don't keep anything of value on an OS drive, it's all immediately dumped off to external. I can't really justify a 1TB OS HDD but I do like that red and silver combo

[MSUredux]

You're such a fashionista

[Bad Haircut]

I have actually accused other folk of being puffs and tarts for a lot less.

[ZemaTalon]

Wouldn't it look fabulous next to a red Radeon HD7970?

[Dark Angel]

I avoid data loss by replacing the drives in two calendar years, regardless. I HATE losing an image. Cheaper to replace them before the three year marker - less labor, and aggravation. The old spares I sell to those who only want to pay 50 cents for a repair and don't care how long it lasts. Now, my spindles run 24x365, so, factor that into any rebuttal

I understand your reasoning, though I've added years of 24/7 running to five year old hdds. Until I shut down some machines here to save power I had a couple running old 20GB Maxtor drives 24/7. I've seen nasty things happen to 1yr old drives too but laptop drives seem to be the "cannon fodder" of the storage business. No a lot of them around that out lasted their original machine.