Hi,
I want to set up a media server at home using the synology DS418 play.
I plan to use 4 WD NAS drives. I want to use the 6TB WD RED PRO for the 5yr warranty.
The product page and brief for the red advises that I use the regular RED drives for upto 8 bays and the pro for anything over 8.
please refer WD Red Pro NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD 3.5" | Western Digital
Full specifications > compatibility. “WD Red™ Pro NAS hard drives are recommended for use in medium to large NAS systems with up to 24 bays. For systems that use 1-8 bays, please consider WD Red hard drives.”
Why should i consider the regular red drives?
Can i use a red pro with my regular caviar green drives for the time being in my pc till i set up the NAS?
Just my opinion and I am by no means an expert…I would go with the WD RED 5400RPM for a home NAS. I’ve used them for quite a while in mine and have had no failures yet. I know one of them is at least 5 years old and still cranking away. Keep your NAS in a cool spot (close to the floor is cooler) I have 3 NAS devices and all are on the bottom shelf of an open book case.
You can use the Red in a PC just remember to back it up before you install it in the NAS as it will be formatted to work with the NAS’s OS.
thank you for your input.
my caviar greens are about 8 years old now and haven’t failed me but things aren’t made as they used to be years ago. i guess if the regular red works for 3 years it’ll keep on working.
was just curious to know why WD is kinda down selling the red pro for smaller setups
when you will run just media server in the Syno DS418, then you can use low end disk drives. Reason:
streaming of high boosted 4k media to TV needs up to 60Mbs, then any HDD with 8MB/sec is useful for such purposes. WD Red Pro, even WD Red is over performing for such usage.
download of media from Internet is limited by your real speed of download, then when you have FTTx with 1Gbps, you can utilize your disk up to 128MB/sec, but in real life up to 100MB/sec. Then WD Red Pro is over performing for such purpose. When you have just 100Mbps download speed, you can also use low end HDD for such purpose.
more about NASes you can read in our independent forum SynoForum.com. You can find there also Disk recommendation section, an many useful helps from Pro grade power users.
