WD Red Pro 6 TB Review - High Performance NAS HDD Gets a Capacity Bump
by Ganesh T S on September 7, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- NAS
- Storage
- HDDs
- Western Digital
Specifications and Feature Set Comparison
Prior to getting into the performance evaluation, we will take a look at the specifications of the WD Red Pro 6 TB and see how it compares against the other NAS-specific hard drives that we have looked at before.
The WD Red Pro 6 TB sports a SATA III (6 Gbps) interface. As is customary for the high capacity drives in this market segment, it can only emulate 512-byte sectors (natively 4K). The interesting aspect is the presence of a 128 MB cache similar to the Seagate and HGST drives, and unlike the WD Red. The obvious selling point for its price target is the 7200 RPM speed, which should easily give it the lead in most benchmarks over the WD Red. The other aspects (such as the URE ratings, MTBF, warranty etc.) are as expected for a drive targeting SMBs and SMEs. The table below presents the data for the drive against the others in our evaluation database.
| Comparative HDD Specifications | ||
| Aspect | ||
| Model Number | WD6001FFWX | WD6001FFWX |
| Interface | SATA 6 Gbps | SATA 6 Gbps |
| Sector Size / AF | 512E | 512E |
| Rotational Speed | 7200 RPM | 7200 RPM |
| Cache | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Rated Load / Unload Cycles | 600 K | 600 K |
| Non-Recoverable Read Errors / Bits Read | < 1 in 1014 | < 1 in 1014 |
| MTBF | 1 M | 1 M |
| Rated Workload | ~ 180 TB/yr | ~ 180 TB/yr |
| Operating Temperature Range | 5 to 60 C | 5 to 60 C |
| Acoustics (Seek Average - dBA) | 34 dBA | 34 dBA |
| Physical Parameters | 14.7 x 10.16 x 2.61 cm; 750 g | 14.7 x 10.16 x 2.61 cm; 750 g |
| Warranty | 5 years | 5 years |
| Price (in USD, as-on-date) | $299 | $299 |
A high level overview of the various supported SATA features is provided by HD Tune Pro.
We get a better idea of the supported features using FinalWire's AIDA64 system report. The table below summarizes the extra information generated by AIDA64 (that is not already provided by HD Tune Pro).
| Comparative HDD Features | ||
| Aspect | ||
| DMA Setup Auto-Activate | Supported; Disabled | Supported; Disabled |
| Extended Power Conditions | Supported; Disabled | Supported; Disabled |
| Free-Fall Control | Not Supported | Not Supported |
| General Purpose Logging | Supported; Enabled | Supported; Enabled |
| In-Order Data Delivery | Not Supported | Not Supported |
| NCQ Priority Information | Supported | Supported |
| Phy Event Counters | Supported | Supported |
| Release Interrupt | Not Supported | Not Supported |
| Sense Data Reporting | Not Supported | Not Supported |
| Software Settings Preservation | Supported; Enabled | Supported; Enabled |
| Streaming | Not Supported | Not Supported |
| Tagged Command Queuing | Not Supported | Not Supported |
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jragonsoul - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
I have used a few Red as storage drives before. Liking the 6TB bump.Samus - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
It's all I use for server storage drives. Haven't had one fail. All the models I've ever deployed are 1TB and 2TB drives. It's amazing how these modern hard disks are somewhat competitive with low-end SSD's (aside from access time)leexgx - Wednesday, October 21, 2015 - link
funny as i did not realize i had a backblaze HDD it is i accuity have the ST31500341AS drive in my system right now (1300 days power on time 7500 stop start count due to HDD power save spin down)and its failing slowly bad sectors are racking up and "reported uncorrectable errors" are now starting to happen (not gone up from when i started copying the data to a WD RED 4TB same 1607) don't think i lost any data itself as "read error rate" and "hardware ECC recovered" are still the same (not that the stuff on it is that important to lose any way) just 70 extra relocations in last day meant it was time to copy data to another drive
imaheadcase - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
Streaming Not Supported Not SupportedWhat does that even mean?
ganeshts - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
We covered the meanings of those table entries in a previous review: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7258/battle-of-the-4...A55A551N 11B2P - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
so you're saying that the WD Red PRO's wouldn't be good for a central media server with up to 6 clients?ddriver - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
Judging by consumer reviews, HGST Deskstar seems to have the upper hand when it comes to reliability.Souka - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
I've got a pair of WD 1TB Re drives in my NAS... full, so been wanting to put a pair of 4TB or 6TB drives in.... the WD Reds would be great, except I'm also seeing a lot of issues.Granted, not bad as the Seagate drives!
Source: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/
Samus - Monday, September 7, 2015 - link
I really don't recommend you follow backblaze statistics. They are collected under one use-case: cold storage. It's also important to note that all of their drives are consumer drives that lack firmware to change the harmonic vibration in cases with that many (72!!) drives. Most consumer drives are rated for installation in cases for 2-8 drives, with enterprise drives rated for up to 16 drives per chassis. Real data centers don't use pods like backblaze (who make their own) because no matter how you dampen the vibrations, these drives are not engineered to work in a large chassis together.All their data shows is Seagate drives suck as vibration resistance, with WD being slightly better and Hitachi cleaning the show. You know why? WD Red models and ALL Hitachi drives have the platter shaft locked at the TOP of the drive case; Seagate drives just have the shaft locked at the motor (bottom axis) which is for the most part adequate as long as vibration isn't an issue. This makes the drives cheaper, quieter, cooler and more efficient, and entirely adequate for consumer applications.
Souka - Tuesday, September 8, 2015 - link
Cool info, thanks!I'm not too worried though since my NAS is running Raid-1 Drive fails, RMA it. In 3-5years I'll likely either upgrade/replace the drives and/or get a new NAS+drives