DX4000 uncompatibility with WD 4.0Tb RED drive

I recently bought a WD Sentinel DX4000 (2+2Tb HD) at the same time with 2 WD40EFEX WD red 4.0Tb hard drives. Knowing the DX4000 is sold also in 16 Gb configuration I was sure these 4Tb western digital hard drives would have been fully compatible with the DX4000. What I experienced instead is that the mounting the 2xTb HD in addition to the 2x2Tb already installed, the 4Tb HD are not recognized. Firmware version of the DX4000 is the latest one as shown on the web site 1.7.3.13. I would be surprised and un-satisfied to to learn that this NAS is not compatible with HD built by the same company and specifically devoted to NAS.

thanks

Davide

It does seem sad, but they will not work. While the Red Drives may be good NAS drives they may not be excelent RAID 5 drives.  Plus the box was built way before WD had Red drives and they set the bar firmly for Enetrprise Class Drives.

The new DX4200 will use Red Drives, but even it says it would prefer Black.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9443/~/list-of-compatible-hard-drives-for-wd-sentinels-dx4000,-rx4100-,-ds5100,

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Gramps wrote:

It does seem sad, but they will not work. While the Red Drives may be good NAS drives they may not be excelent RAID 5 drives.  Plus the box was built way before WD had Red drives and they set the bar firmly for Enetrprise Class Drives.

 

The new DX4200 will use Red Drives, but even it says it would prefer Black.

 

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9443/~/list-of-compatible-hard-drives-for-wd-sentinels-dx4000,-rx4100-,-ds5100,

 

Hi,

thanks for the answer. I admit I never came across such a bad NAS. Besides for not being compatible with WD drives (!!) I am experiencing a lot of problems.

We bought two DX4000, with the first one for some reason the Windows Storage Server 2008 installation failed, though there was access to the deafult folders, there was no way to run Dashboard as it reported the install was not finished. I opened a ticket with WD support and I got no answers in 48h. So I decided to start the recovery which not only is an extremely complicated process, but is now taking ages. I started recovery since 24h and it is still running, unbelievable for a serious NAS to think that in cases like this you have to wait for days before having a functional unit.

The second unit at least installed correctly but I already experienced two lock-ups for unknown reason which needed an hard reset as the dashboard was not connecting anymore and the switch off with the button was not working. The additional problem is that after the hard reset the disk check restarts and also this process takes lot of time.

And last point: is it correct there is basically no way to configure the RAID setting? Everything seems decided by the unit without any possibility to configure RAID configuration. A 5 years old Promise 4600 NAS is way way better than this.

My experience with this WD NAS could not be worse. I hope to find some compatible spare disks to use the two DX4000 as extremely expansive spare backup units.

Best regards

Davide

DTM

Correct.  if it has 2 drives it is raid 1, more than 2 raid 5

Hey on the first unit you say is taking a long time.  You never put another compatble drive in it did you?  I mean if you take drives setup for raid 5 and then try to go to raid 1, it will fail after 5 days.  When the restore is clicking along properly "performing restore"it takes 6 hours or less. (normally)

Initializing ddrives may take a longer time

Gramps wrote:

Hey on the first unit you say is taking a long time.  You never put another compatble drive in it did you?  I mean if you take drives setup for raid 5 and then try to go to raid 1, it will fail after 5 days.  When the restore is clicking along properly "performing restore"it takes 6 hours or less. (normally)

 

Initializing ddrives may take a longer time

I admit it was (partly) my fault as I discovered, by looking at some other messages in the WD community, that the software used to create the USB stick, shall be used also after having started the recovery process. So the DX4000 was just waiting for some further software instructions. This is written in the final four lines of the relevant chapter in the administration manual but I believe this should have been highlighted  more in detail with images and explanations also of the two or three choices to be performed.

regards

Davide

Gramps wrote:

Correct.  if it has 2 drives it is raid 1, more than 2 raid 5

I should have downloaded and read the administration manual first, but I would have never imagined that this DX4000 NAS does not allow to select the type of RAID nor to perform other basic RAID operations supported by any basic RAID card like RAID downgrade. If I had known this in advance I would just not have bought the units.

thanks and regards

Davide