How do the noise levels of WD Red Pro compare to those of WD Gold? I am considering primarily 6 TB drives with 7200 rpm.
According to a spec sheet, the WD Red Pro are 31–34 dB in idle/seek, while the WD Gold are 29–36 dB in idle/seek. But I don’t think you can look only at the dB; the characteristics of the sound must be weighed in as well, so any personal/anecdotal experiences here would be great.
I currently have 4x new WD Gold 6TB drives in a Synology DS918+ NAS. My WD Golds have a “high-treble” and raspy noise which is very unpleasant. They sound very scratchy, which I haven’t heard in internal hard drive since the early–mid 90’s. That alone makes me consider alternatives, e.g. why I’m wondering how the WD Red Pro’s are.
Since before, I also own HGST DeskStar 4TB 7200 rpm drives. While their noise is definitely discernible, they have a very muted and chugged sound which doesn’t annoy me, they sound like a boiling tea pot.
For the NAS environment we recommend to use the WD Red drives. For more information about the drive noise you should have a look at the link given below.
Oh my. My 2 4TB WD Golds are terrible at night, I’m just laying there imagining what are they doing now with such sounds. Instead of sleeping. Ugh.
Thinking about swapping to 6tb Red for the system volume with all the background software. Afraid of losing performance-wise with slower drive, but Pros are a bit too expensive and I’m not sure if the speed doesn’t guarantee more noise… Cause certainly can’t rely on the dBs in the spec sheets.
If you end up buying Pros, please mention how do they compare to Gold for noise.
Also, why do you specifically need 7200rpm? Like, did you have Synology experience with 5400 before, and the slowdown is noticeable? I just want to know what I might lose, swapping noisy 7200 Gold for 5400 Red.
I have set my NAS to schedule a power-off each night, wouldn’t be able to sleep with it on.
To be honest, I don’t have any particular reason for using 7200 rpm drives – I just went with high performance when buying them because that’s kind of what I usually do when investing in hardware. I haven’t owned any 5400 rpm drives, so I’m not sure what they’re like.
I returned my WD Golds to the retailer. I’m still thinking of getting Red Pro’s and give it a shot, but like you mentioned, they are actually more expensive than the Gold drives right now. I will update here once I know more.
