The WD Red series has been around for awhile now. These drives were aimed at 24×7 use and offered performance and scalability to those who needed it. We took a look at pair of 4TB WD RED’s inside the My Boo Duo and you can check out the review of that here. A couple of weeks back Western Digital announced a new line up dubbed WD RED Pro. The new series of drives are available in 2 to 4TB capacities and include WD’s latest NASware 3.0. These drives are aimed at medium to large business’s and include support for eight to sixteen bay NAS systems. Let’s take a quick look at the specs before moving on.
- Storage for 8 to 16 bay NAS solutions
Joining the original color of NAS, WD Red Pro continues the formula of success that has led the WD Red product family by adding support beyond consumer, SOHO, and small business markets into medium and large 8-16 bay business storage systems. WD Red Pro hard drives integrate WD’s exclusive technology, NASware 3.0, to provide unparalleled support for drive compatibility, reliability, and performance. - Professional solutions
Designed specifically with SMB customers in mind the WD Red family has expanded with the addition of WD Red Pro, which is available for the 8 to 16 bay medium to large-scale NAS environments. With capacities up to 4 TB, WD Red Pro carries a 5-year limited warranty and was engineered to handle the increased workloads from your business. - Exclusive NASware 3.0 technology
Our exclusive advanced firmware technology built into every WD Red Pro drive, NASware 3.0 enables seamless integration, robust data protection and optimal performance for systems operating in the demanding NAS environment. - Vibration Protection
In combination with 3D Active BalanceTM Plus, WD Red Pro also features hardware vibration compensation technology which monitors the drive to correct both linear and rotational vibration in real time, further increasing drive reliability. - Enhanced Accuracy for NAS
For overall enhanced accuracy for NAS, WD Red Pro is also equipped with dual actuator technology which improves positional accuracy over the data tracks and head positioning. StableTracTM technology then secures the motor shaft at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize the drive platters for accurate tracking during read and write operations. Both technologies are important for larger 8 to 16 bay NAS environments. - 3D Active Balance Plus.
Our enhanced dual-plane balance control technology significantly improves the overall drive performance and reliability. Hard drives that are not properly balanced may cause excessive vibration and noise in a multi-drive system, reduce the hard drive life span, and degrade the performance over time. - Specifications
7,200RPM, 64MB Cache, SATA III – 6Gb/s
The 4TB WD RED Pro
Benchmarks
Since hard drives are really all about numbers, let’s take a look at some now. We ran through all of the most popular benchmarks available and this really gives us an idea of the type of performance the new WD Red Pro drives perform. Luckily WD sent us out two of their 4TB WD Red Pro drives, meaning we get to do some RAID testing. So below are the results for a single drive on its own, and then both RAID0 and RAID1 tests.
Single Drive
[accordion title=”AIDA 64″ id=”2″]
Read Test Suite
Average Write Access
Random Write Speed
Buffered Write Speed
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[accordion title=”Crystal Disk Mark” id=”3″]
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[accordion title=”ATTO Disk Benchmark” id=”4″]
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[accordion title=”Black Magic Disk Speed Test” id=”5″]
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[accordion title=”HD Tune Pro” id=”6″]
Read Speed
Write Speed
Random Access Read
Random Access Write
Extra Tests Read
Extra Tests Write
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RAID1
The RAID1 configuration is setup to give you some data protection in case one of your drives fail. Basically all data is written to both drives and if one fails, the other will still have the data secure.
[accordion title=”AIDA 64″ id=”raid02″]
Read Test Suite
Average Write Access
Random Write Speed
Buffered Write Speed
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[accordion title=”Crystal Disk Mark” id=”raid03″]
[/accordion]
[accordion title=”ATTO Disk Benchmark” id=”raid04″]
[/accordion]
[accordion title=”Black Magic Disk Speed Test” id=”raid05″]
[/accordion]
[accordion title=”HD Tune Pro” id=”raid06″]
Read Speed
Write Speed
Random Access Read
Random Access Write
Extra Tests Read
Extra Tests Write
[/accordion]
RAID0
RAID0 is similar to RAID1, but instead combines both drives and stripes the data between them. Basically, it can read/write from both drives at the same time. This allows for a combination of drive performance, but also allows gives us both drives full capacity. So here we have 8TB’s of space. Keep in mind that RAID0 means that if one of the drives fail, all of the data is lost.
[accordion title=”AIDA 64″ id=”raid12″]
Read Test Suite
Average Write Access
Random Write Speed
Buffered Write Speed
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[accordion title=”Crystal Disk Mark” id=”raid13″]
[/accordion]
[accordion title=”ATTO Disk Benchmark” id=”raid14″]
[/accordion]
[accordion title=”Black Magic Disk Speed Test” id=”raid15″]
[/accordion]
[accordion title=”HD Tune Pro” id=”raid16″]
Read Speed
Write Speed
Random Access Read
Random Access Write
Extra Tests Read
Extra Tests Write
[/accordion]
Comparison
Since the WD Red Pro series stems from the WD Red series, we thought it wise to put together a few comparisons between the two drives.
[accordion title=”AIDA 64 Comparison” id=”compare1″]
Read and Write Access
Random Read and Write
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[accordion title=”Atto Comparison” id=”compare2″]
Read and Write Speed
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[accordion title=”HD Tune Pro Comparison” id=”compare3″]
Read and Write Speed
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It’s obvious the new Red Pro drives have a significant performance boost over the standard WD Red drives. Since the Red drives were already solid performers, the WD Red Pro are even more impressive by taking a decent lead.
Conclusion
The WD Red Pro series include Western Digital’s latest NASware 3.0 and extended burn-in testing for support for NAS devices with 8-16 bays. The performance isn’t record breaking, but the drives don’t lack in any one area, and have a balanced offering. Other benefits for the WD Red Pro series come from their pricing and warranty. The current pricing for the 4TB drive sits around €220, which makes it around €60 more than the standard WD Red 4TB drive. That extra price includes, better performance, more features and a longer warranty. WD include a nice 5 year warranty period on WD Red Pro drives, which is up from the 3 years on WD Red drives.
As the name suggest, the new series is aimed at professionals looking for a more extensive storage solution beyond the standard 1-8 bays and guaranteed support for 16 bay devices. It also provides great peace of mind with the 5 years of warranty included. The WD Red Pro series are designed for more professional use, but are also tested more heavily for professional environments. Think of the Red Pro series as a cream of the crop over the standard Red drives, and with it WD are able to offer more support and longer lasting warranty. This is definitely something business users should be looking at, as the extra costs are nothing compared to the extra performance and warranty they provide, for that, we the WD Red Pro Series is awarded Gold.
