Using Nas drive in a non Nas job

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
1

Hello. My first post in this Community.:slight_smile:

I bought two 2.5" WD Red 1TB NAS Hard Disk Drives to use them for back up, in external usb box or as second internal disk in my laptop (in a disk caddy replazing the DVD drive).
I thought their 24x7 reliability was an extra benefit for long lasting/long term storage. Now I am realizing that NAS disks are designed to be used in hardware RAID environment that requires a different error control, not OS dependent, and therefore I am not sure if I made a mistake buying these NAS drives instead of Blue o Black ones.

What are the cons/potential problems of using them in external usb boxes or as internal/main (operating system) laptop disks? OS is Windows 10 64 bits
Thanks
Ignacio

2

Hi,

I havenā€™t tried this, but lets see if another user can share some information or tips on this matter

3

Hope so, thank you
Ignacio

4

I had this same question kind of. The redā€™s are promoted as very durable and so my thought was it would be a better option for non-OS based data storage even if it was not in a RAID configuration. I just donā€™t know, the information is a bit confusing. Checking the feedback/reviews a few are using a red in their computer or in an external data only enclosure. One review seemed to imply that a red could be used as a main OS based drive. One person that did have a red in a data non-NAS external enclosure had a failure, comment from WD was that the drive was being used outside of its intended design and would have been better using the blue or black drives.

As for myself; I bought a 2tb 3.5ā€ red to upgrade an older Lacie D2. Put it in and works fine so far. I bought another to upgrade another drive. (The reason for only 2tb and not more was the recommendation that as an upgrade on an older drive case there would less likely be problems with 2tb or less.)

In-between those two projects I kind of came to the realization that I just didnā€™t know if I was doing the right thing, and the reason I bought the second was because Iā€™m going to be getting a RAID drive soon and will use the pair in that. Would have gotten larger drives and a RAID enclosure to begin with if Iā€™d thought it out from the beginning, but Iā€™ll get a couple higher capacity drives at some later date probably.

The other need was as a second 1tb data storage drive for my MacBook Pro to be put in the optical bay (replacing the DVD drive). Originally thought it would be a red, but decided that with all the ā€˜ifsā€™, I would just play it safe and go blue (donā€™t need speed, low power is better, and hopefully its quiet and runs cool)

I would have liked to just go red if it truly is a better more dependable drive, but there is more to it, and I just donā€™t know if it will work as a non-NAS. Wishful thinking says 20% yes, and all the other voices just say it a specialty item for NAS/RAID use.