Hello,
For the moment, I'm still using some aging WD Red 4T drives (the older, CMR ones) in my equally aging NAS. I plan to change them to higher capacity WD Red Plus - and noise is a factor (performance less so).
I actually bought a 14TB Red Plus (at a good price for its capacity); no issue with it so far. Except... each 5 seconds or so, it clicks. Looking around, this seems to be a "feature" - preventive wear leveling:
https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/16309
and yes, the disks is passing all the tests and appear to function normally.
I'd like to go with the Red Plus series because they're presumably quieter than the alternatives. But, to have this "Chinese water torture" multiplied by 4...
Do you know if there are any Red Plus drives without this clicking "feature"?
Or, perhaps you could confirm which disks have it... and I'll start with: 14TB Red Plus WD140EFGX.
P.S. I assume I would not reduce noise by going WD Red Pro or Ultrastar, or with Seagate.
Thanks.
Do all WD Red Plus disks click? (preventive wear leveling)
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Re: Do all WD Red Plus disks click? (preventive wear leveling)
Including this for posterity https://community.wd.com/t/preventive-w ... ing/249579 as it seems WD consider this to be a "feature":
> PWL - “Preventive Wear Leveling”. It’s a periodic head sweep to distribute lubricant and prevent wear in a particular place if lubricant were to build up in one spot. On many older models, this would happen maybe once a minute. But on some builds it’s maybe every 5 seconds.
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Re: Do all WD Red Plus disks click? (preventive wear leveling)
Thanks, this is not encouraging at all I was hoping there were some exceptions. So even the 4TB drives do it?
I guess I'd still like to hear about people's experience with this, how bad it is for certain HDD models (considering they'd be in a NAS in close proximity), if there's e.g. a significant difference between the lower and the higher platter count drives...
The 14TB should have the highest platter count of all the Red Plus. Would a 12TB be slightly quieter? How about an 8TB? Or a 6TB, although it's quite inefficient to go from 4 to 6TB...
Anything you could share on this matter, any (subjective) evaluation you were able to do would be appreciated.
I guess I'd still like to hear about people's experience with this, how bad it is for certain HDD models (considering they'd be in a NAS in close proximity), if there's e.g. a significant difference between the lower and the higher platter count drives...
The 14TB should have the highest platter count of all the Red Plus. Would a 12TB be slightly quieter? How about an 8TB? Or a 6TB, although it's quite inefficient to go from 4 to 6TB...
Anything you could share on this matter, any (subjective) evaluation you were able to do would be appreciated.
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Re: Do all WD Red Plus disks click? (preventive wear leveling)
Have you considered a different brand such as Seagate NAS rated drives? I moved away from WD although I still have a few old 2TB drives in service, but I've been very happy with Seagate Ironwolf and Exos drives.
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Re: Do all WD Red Plus disks click? (preventive wear leveling)
From what I've heard, the Seagate Ironwolf disks are noisier - and they also have this PWL "feature". Am I mistaken?
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Re: Do all WD Red Plus disks click? (preventive wear leveling)
noisier?
depends. their 4tb ones they have low rpm drives, isn't noisy at all.
if u think noise is that big an issue, you can always relocate your nas away from your work area (out of your physical presence), and just access it over lan. problem solved.
depends. their 4tb ones they have low rpm drives, isn't noisy at all.
if u think noise is that big an issue, you can always relocate your nas away from your work area (out of your physical presence), and just access it over lan. problem solved.
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[Backup] QNAP TS-653A (Truenas Core) w. 4x 2TB Samsung F3 (HD203WI) RaidZ1 ZFS + 8gb ddr3 Crucial
[^] QNAP TL-D400S 2x 4TB WD Red Nas (WD40EFRX) 2x 4TB Seagate Ironwolf, Raid5
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[Main Server] QNAP TS-877 (QTS) w. 4tb [ 3x HGST Deskstar NAS & 1x WD RED NAS ] EXT4 Raid5 & 2 x m.2 SATA Samsung 850 Evo raid1 +16gb ddr4 Crucial+ QWA-AC2600 wireless+QXP PCIE
[Backup] QNAP TS-653A (Truenas Core) w. 4x 2TB Samsung F3 (HD203WI) RaidZ1 ZFS + 8gb ddr3 Crucial
[^] QNAP TL-D400S 2x 4TB WD Red Nas (WD40EFRX) 2x 4TB Seagate Ironwolf, Raid5
[^] QNAP TS-509 Pro w. 4x 1TB WD RE3 (WD1002FBYS) EXT4 Raid5
[^] QNAP TS-253D (Truenas Scale)
[Mobile NAS] TBS-453DX w. 2x Crucial MX500 500gb EXT4 raid1
Network
Qotom Pfsense|100mbps FTTH | Win11, Ryzen 5600X Desktop (1x2tb Crucial P50 Plus M.2 SSD, 1x 8tb seagate Ironwolf,1x 4tb HGST Ultrastar 7K4000)
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[Review] Moogle's QNAP experience
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Re: Do all WD Red Plus disks click? (preventive wear leveling)
I can't say from first hand experience. I have no noise issues from my WD Red, Seagate Ironwolf or Seagate Exos so have nothing to compare to that actually makes noise at a level that I would notice.
My 4x NAS units sit about 4 feet from my desk. I hear the usual minor noise from the fans, disks spinning etc, but nothing I would classify as extraordinary
QNAP TS-563-16G 5x10TB Seagate Ironwolf HDD Raid-5 NIC: 2x1GB 1x10GbE
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Re: Do all WD Red Plus disks click? (preventive wear leveling)
I can say I was about to return my red plus 6tb's because of the clicking and just overall noisiness of them, while they were 3 feet from my desk on my hardwood floor in a 453d. But once putting a strip of velcro in the chassis for each sled and moving the unit to the closet I don't hear it anymore. They don't seem to all fire off the pwl at exactly the same time but it's kind of like a deck of cards. Fpppttttpptt. If I'm close enough.
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Re: Do all WD Red Plus disks click? (preventive wear leveling)
In the end, I upgraded to helium-filled Seagate Ironwolfs (non-Pro). Not because I needed the extra capacity, but because they're slightly quieter (according to the datasheet) than the 8TB version, and they have lower power consumption. Price per capacity was also good. And there's the Ironwolf Health Management which I don't know if it offers any real advantage over regular SMART scans.
These are quiet when idle, and there's no preventive wear leveling noise (regular clicks) I can hear. The NAS' fans are noisier - I have a TS-673A, which is not the quietest.
The Ironwolfs are somewhat noisier in seek, though - and at startup there's a tiny bit of clicking. I don't find the noise very disturbing, though, and I think 6 WD Reds clicking each 5 seconds would've been worse.
These are quiet when idle, and there's no preventive wear leveling noise (regular clicks) I can hear. The NAS' fans are noisier - I have a TS-673A, which is not the quietest.
The Ironwolfs are somewhat noisier in seek, though - and at startup there's a tiny bit of clicking. I don't find the noise very disturbing, though, and I think 6 WD Reds clicking each 5 seconds would've been worse.