WD 6TB Prod WD6002FFWX in TS-412

[dmierowsky]

I'm looking at upgrading my TS-412 from 3TH drives to 6TB. The compatibility chart shows that the WD RED 6TB WD60EFRX is compatible, but the WD RED 6TB PRO WD6002FFWX is not mentioned, nor is it on the incompatible list. The PRO is about $70 more expensive. My questions are:

1. Will the PRO WD6002FFWX work in the TS-412 ?
2. Is there any advantage in using the PRO WD6002FFWX over the WD60EFRX given the additional cost ?

TIA

David

[fbernard]

While it is most likely compatible, there is no real reason tu use a Pro drive in a 4-bay NAS, the standard Reds are intended for 1-8 bay NASes, while the Pros are intended for big NAS setups.
Differences between Standard and Pro Reds :
- Pros are 7200RPM, standard Reds are 5400 RPM.
- Unrecoverable Read Error rate is 1/10e15 for the Pro, 1/10E14 For the standard.
- 5-year warranty on the Pro vs 3 year on the standard Red.
- Pros are rated for a much higher transfer load (in the 500+ TB/year range ; I can't find this spec for the standard Red but competing consumer NAS drives are rated up to 180TB/y).

Also, judging from the specs, power consumption on the Pro drives is almost twice the consumption on standard Reds (at least for WD6002FFWX / WD60EFRX).

[dolbyman]

also keep the 16TB limit on your old NAS (412) in mind

unless your are doing raid6 or raid10 .. you will hit the limit with 6TB drives

[P3R]

Differences between Standard and Pro Reds :
- Pros are 7200RPM, standard Reds are 5400 RPM.
- Unrecoverable Read Error rate is 1/10e15 for the Pro, 1/10E14 For the standard.

Unfortunately you've fallen for a disgusting marketing trick from WD. If you look carefully you'll notice that the specification for Non-recoverable read errors per bits read for WD Red Pro isn't what you say but instead is <10 in 10E15, which is exactly the same as the <1 in 10E14 of the standard WD Red.

That awful swindle should in my opinion be enough for a huge consumer boycott of all WD products until they publically apologize for trying to deceive their customers in this way.

Unfortunately most people haven't even noticed this fraud that have been going on for many years and they still think WD is a great company and Red Pro is a great product...

Seagate Enterprise NAS and Ironwolf Pro, that are the direct competitors of WD Red Pro have a true 1 per 10E15 specification and also a better MTBF than WD Red Pro. They're also often less costly. In my opinion that's a no-brainer...

- 5-year warranty on the Pro vs 3 year on the standard Red.

A 5 year warranty makes a huge difference as those disks are often less expensive per year with warranty (the time where you will get a new disk for free if the one you have fail). Also the disks with a 5 year warranty are normally of better quality than the 3 year warranty disks.

Also, judging from the specs, power consumption on the Pro drives is almost twice the consumption on standard Reds (at least for WD6002FFWX / WD60EFRX).

Yes less power usage, less noise, lower temperatures and the lower initial price can be reasons to choose WD Red or Seagate NAS/Ironwolf over the 5-year warranty Pro models.

[dmierowsky]

Thanks for all the feedback. I'll stick with the WD Red.

[dmierowsky]

also keep the 16TB limit on your old NAS (412) in mind

unless your are doing raid6 or raid10 .. you will hit the limit with 6TB drives

I saw that limit - my understanding was that it was a volume limit - so each volume you create can't be more than 16TB.
I'm running with RAID-5 so 3x6TB useable would be 18TB which I'd have to split into 2x9TB volumes (or some other split).

[P3R]

I saw that limit - my understanding was that it was a volume limit - so each volume you create can't be more than 16TB.

True.

I'm running with RAID-5 so 3x6TB useable would be 18TB which I'd have to split into 2x9TB volumes (or some other split).

Here's the bad news: you can't split or create multiple volumes on a RAID in a cat1 model like the old TS-412.

4*6 TB RAID 5 will end up at about 16.2 TB uasble storage so just above the 16 TB limit

RAID 6 or RAID 10 works but will give you 50 % less storage capacity,
10.8 TB.

Actually 5 TB disks are a much better fit for RAID 5 in a 4-bay cat1 model as 4*5 TB RAID 5 will become a 13.5 TB volume.

[Johnno72]

Unfortunately most people haven't even noticed this fraud that have been going on for many years and they still think WD is a great company and Red Pro is a great product...

WD Red Pro is a great product. Can't speak for the company behind the product though, however I have in the past decades RA'd WD HDD's without any issues so that is another + for WD I guess.

In a recent discussion with P3R who is very happy with his Seagate HDD's just like I am with my WD HDD's. From this discussion I will implement the other 12 bays of my NAS with Seagate Ironwolf HDD's and do a comparison of the two products. Not really keen on mixing and matching HDD's though, just my thing.

- 5-year warranty on the Pro vs 3 year on the standard Red.

Remember when it comes to Warranties in todays world with the new laws passed that a product is no longer just covered by the "standard" warranty, the product now has "to be fit for purpose" and if the item fails even outside of warranty (fairly recent failure, not 3 years old etc.) then the manufacturer has to replace that product for free if it is determined that the product failed this fit for purpose test. This new law is good and does work as I used this on my washing machine that was out of warranty by eight months, saved me paying for a $400 repair.

Every single consumer in this world needs to be aware of your consumer legal rights.

[P3R]

WD Red Pro is a great product.

It probably is. You're right, that was a bad statement from me.

I should have said that WD Red Pro isn't the excellent choice so many customers think and above all it isn't the only choice when looking for the next step up from low end NAS disks. WD Red Pro clearly have worse specifications and are marketed with disgusting methods yet cost the same or more than Seagate Enterprise NAS/Ironwolf Pro.

Seagate have had (and probably still have somwhere) questionable marketing buth this numbers trick from WD in my opinion stand out as an obvious attempt to decieve the customers.

Every single consumer in this world needs to be aware of your consumer legal rights.

I agree and that's a good reminder. The problem in a global forum like this is that most consumer laws are national and don't apply worldwide. Also (at least on my market) consumer laws only apply to individual consumers, not when businesses do their shopping. Therefore what I think is easiest to compare here is only the lowest common denominator, which is the manufacturer warranty.

[storageman]

WD Red Pro is a great product.

It probably is. You're right, that was a bad statement from me.

I should have said that WD Red Pro isn't the excellent choice so many customers think and above all it isn't the only choice when looking for the next step up from low end NAS disks. WD Red Pro clearly have worse specifications and are marketed with disgusting methods yet cost the same or more than Seagate Enterprise NAS/Ironwolf Pro.

Seagate have had (and probably still have somwhere) questionable marketing buth this numbers trick from WD in my opinion stand out as an obvious attempt to decieve the customers.

Every single consumer in this world needs to be aware of your consumer legal rights.

I agree and that's a good reminder. The problem in a global forum like this is that most consumer laws are national and don't apply worldwide. Also (at least on my market) consumer laws only apply to individual consumers, not when businesses do their shopping. Therefore what I think is easiest to compare here is only the lowest common denominator, which is the manufacturer warranty.

I think "disgusting methods" is a bit excessive.
It doesn't unduly concern me the stats. We've found Red Pro very reliable and they are the best selling mid-price NAS targeted 5 year drive in the market.
Seagate's Ironwolf Pro are playing catch-up in terms of overall sales.
Against WD's HGST and Sandisk, Seagate are in a much weaker position in my view.
I notice you don't comment on Seagate's DM/DL drives that caused ontold damage to NAS devices a few years ago.

But competition is good, we need WD, Seagate and Toshiba to keep prices and specs keen.

[Johnno72]

WD Red Pro is a great product.

It probably is. You're right, that was a bad statement from me.

I should have said that WD Red Pro isn't the excellent choice so many customers think and above all it isn't the only choice when looking for the next step up from low end NAS disks. WD Red Pro clearly have worse specifications and are marketed with disgusting methods yet cost the same or more than Seagate Enterprise NAS/Ironwolf Pro.

Seagate have had (and probably still have somwhere) questionable marketing buth this numbers trick from WD in my opinion stand out as an obvious attempt to decieve the customers.

Every single consumer in this world needs to be aware of your consumer legal rights.

I agree and that's a good reminder. The problem in a global forum like this is that most consumer laws are national and don't apply worldwide. Also (at least on my market) consumer laws only apply to individual consumers, not when businesses do their shopping. Therefore what I think is easiest to compare here is only the lowest common denominator, which is the manufacturer warranty.

I think "disgusting methods" is a bit excessive.
It doesn't unduly concern me the stats. We've found Red Pro very reliable and they are the best selling mid-price NAS targeted 5 year drive in the market.
Seagate's Ironwolf Pro are playing catch-up in terms of overall sales.
Against WD's HGST and Sandisk, Seagate are in a much weaker position in my view.
I notice you don't comment on Seagate's DM/DL drives that caused ontold damage to NAS devices a few years ago.

But competition is good, we need WD, Seagate and Toshiba to keep prices and specs keen.

Nah not a bad statement at all. Up until I installed the QNAP I ever only used desktop drives and I did spend considerable time researching, pricing etc. HDD's. I did originally go to Netgear for a NAS but when they provided the quote it said it is mandatory to use HDD's supplied by Netgear, marketing pitch was: we tweak the HDD's to maximise performance, they came with a $1,000 premium price tag, I said no, wasn't buying into that BS, decided then and there to remove Netgear products off my recommended / preferred products.

P3R has had great performance and reliability so far with his Seagate Ironwolf HDD's just as I with my WD Red Pro's.

I agree about competition with HDD manufacturers.

[P3R]

I think "disgusting methods" is a bit excessive.

Can you give me a legitimate reason to write the metric for Non-recoverable read errors per bits read differently for WD Red Pro than the rest of the industry and what WD do themselves for all their other disk models?

I think the only reason they do that is they know so many just look for the 10E15 (as it is on almost every other SATA disks above the desktop/NAS category) and think they've found a higher specified product with WD Red Pro. If you deliberatly write someting in an unorthodox way to trick the customer, that's in my opinion disgusting.

...and they are the best selling mid-price NAS targeted 5 year drive in the market.

Ehh, yes partly due to fradulent marketing.

But to be honest, it was the very impressive move by WD marketing when they created the new NAS disk market niche with WD Red that have later paved the way for WD Red Pro. There's nothing wrong with building on a strong name but that's the explanation to why so many people still think WD Red Pro is the only alternative above WD Red and why WD Red Pro still sell well despite the competition having had better specifications for almost 2.5 years now.

Seagate's Ironwolf Pro are playing catch-up in terms of overall sales.

So are you saying this is the reason we should continue buying the more expensive and lower specified WD Red instead of the competition?

I notice you don't comment on Seagate's DM/DL drives that caused ontold damage to NAS devices a few years ago.

Correct. I also didn't mention WD Green (that was as bad as DL/DM, only a few years earlier) and IBM/Hitachi/HGST Death Stars (that was an even bigger failure) as neither of those 3 product lines are relevant in this thread.

If you search the forum you'll find that I've bashed Seagate for DL/DM in the threads where they've been discussed. I've also gone against when people bring that up as a reason not to buy other Seagate products or when people made warnings about WD enterprise disks because of WD Green, as I find that wrong.

But competition is good, we need WD, Seagate and Toshiba to keep prices and specs keen.

Absolutely. And to help that competition along we as customers need to keep up with what's available on the market and not only have a favourite brand and keep on buying that no matter what.

Above all, I think we shouldn't reward marketing lies...

[storageman]

All I would say is we see a reliability difference between Red and Red Pro, and that there is a justifiable price difference in paying more for Red Pros:

66% more warranty
Vibration control (none on Reds)
7200rpm vs 5400rpm on Reds (higher speed important on racks/business environments)

Definitely don't recommend Reds or Ironwolf in anything other than max 8 bay desktops. Seen too many stability issues

We sell Seagate, WD and Tosh. I'm not going to dismiss any of them.

Personally I think they're all up to clever marketing.

If you want I can pass on your comments to WD?

[P3R]

All I would say is we see a reliability difference between Red and Red Pro, and that there is a justifiable price difference in paying more for Red Pros:

The discussion wasn't about if the price difference between WD Red and WD Red Pro was justifiable.

You thought I was being too harsh when I was disgusted by their marketing trick and instead of answering my question and giving a legitimate reason for using a different metric for one single product, you start to talk about something else...

Definitely don't recommend Reds or Ironwolf in anything other than max 8 bay desktops. Seen too many stability issues

Ok, but that also wasn't the issue here.

If you want I can pass on your comments to WD?

If you think that can make them change this single metric into what the rest of the world use and what they use themself on all other disks then go ahead. Somehow I doubt they care about my opinion, especially since they have "the best selling mid-price NAS targeted 5 year drive". Very few companies bother to change until their actions start hurting them and even if I tell everyone this, I don't think they will notice a sales decline until many more customers change their buying behaviour.

[kherr4377]

i was just on Amazon, and for SnG i looked up WD GOLD ..... they're cheaper than PROs and better specs ...... <1 in 10^15 ....