Is WD6002FFWX a replacement of WD6001FFWX?

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
1

I have a 8-bay NAS, a RAID-5 volume is setup with 4x WD6001FFWX.
Now I am planing to expand this volume with more WD6001FFWX. Then there is WD6002FFWX.
Both of these driver are similar in term of performance and specification (mostly).

  1. Is WD6002FFWX a direct replacement of WD6001FFWX, which I can pop in WD6001FFWX in place of WD6001FFWX in RAID configuration?
  2. When will WD6001FFWX be discontinued ?
2

Hard drive revisions at times do not represent direct replacements. However, it is recommended for all hard drives within a RAID volume to be the same.

3

If possible, I of course will like to use the same HDD as much as I could.
But I’m afraid WD6001FFWX is no longer available for order.

4

The principle of keeping the same drive model in all the drives of an array has been ingrained in many of us for years. Now I find myself in the unfortunate position of having a partially (10 drives) populated 12 drive NAS array of WD6001FFWX drives. In case one drive fails and also to fully populate the NAS I would like to obtain more of these drives. However, it seems that they are now discontinued. I see like the OP that WD6002FFWX is available and some say it is a direct replacement, However, it seems to have a different firmware version than its predecessor and some better timings. Can this drive be used to replace/expand elements of my NAS as a direct replacement? What has been changed that might affect NAS performance/compatibility? It goes without saying that I would like to keep my existing $4500 investment and not have to replace all these drives after only 8 months of service.

5

It seems like nobody else has this problem ?
Or this is just too common a problem as “may God help you” type ?