I just upgraded my QNAP 6-bay NVR, replacing 6 3TB WD Red drives with 6 8TB Purple drives. I chose the surveillance drives because I was hoping they would be quieter and cooler. So far they are neither. They run much hotter, close to 114 degrees, 24/7 vs the 98 degrees of the 3TB. I can live with the higher temps, but the noise isn’t great. They are constantly “clicking”.
I am recording around 2.5 MB/sec across 8 cameras on 6 drives in RAID5. All drives are constantly making a clicking noise. I was wondering if this is related to head parking and if it is something I can adjust using a WD utility.
Would I be better off with the 6TB. This has been a disappointing upgrade.
Hey there S_Schaefer 
I’m sorry to hear about the bad impression of the WD Purple drives.
Could you specify the model of the NVR that you are using?
Did you run a full extended test on the drives before placing them in the NVR in order to verify that they are safe to use?
8TB WD Purple drives do have higher acoustic levels during seek time compared to 6TB WD Red drives.
Also, the 8TB WD Purple packs higher cache size, uses a bit more power and delivers better overall performance. higher performance usually comes with increased heat and vibration/noise output.
You can find this information in WD Red’s and WD Purple’s spec sheets.
Have you tested the drives outside of the NVR if they continue to make that noise and if they run as hot? I would recommend testing their health with WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic and see if these drives pass both the quick and the extended tests.
Let me know how the tests go and if you have any additional questions!
Captain_WD.
S-Schaefer, I was looking at setting up a QNAP NVR with WD purple NV drives but noticed that they were not on the supported drives list. I contacted QNAP pre sales and was told that the purple drives are not supported because they do not handle rack mount vibration conditions and I was better off with the Seagate SV drives. I have only bought WD for years and was surprised to hear this.
If you are using a rack mount this could be part of the issue.
Regards
David
