The Red Pro is the cheapest 7200rpm, 256MB cache, 4TB, SATA 6GB/s, 5 year warranty drive Western Digital makes.
There is no "Red". There's a Red Pro and a Red Plus, both NAS drives.
In the UK where the OP is shopping... the Black is $50 more expensive.
I AM keeping it simple.
I use a WD Black 4TB on my X299 for my game files, so far, it`s been doing great.
WD Black 4TB Performance Desktop Hard Drive 7200 RPM - Newegg.com
A 6TB would be even better and he would most likely jump up and down higher
WD Black 6TB Performance Desktop Hard Drive 7200 RPM - Newegg.com
Thank you all who contributed to my thread.
In no particular order of reference to those that have.
Yes---please-- keep it simple for me.
My reason for writing my thread was because I got concerned I might be making a mistake/s.
I am purchasing a HDD for my grandson, he has asked for a 4tb internal unit for storing and playing his PC games.
I know he uses Steam, I now realize this is actually a gaming platform.
I did have a word with him about not putting all his eggs in one basket, would he not be better with say a couple of 2tb external HDDs, he listened but would like a 4tb internal drive.
I would if budget allowed buy him a larger SSD drive, budget doesn't allow. I thought maybe get him a little extra and a stick of ram---not doing that now, there is always Christmas if he wants more.
So,---how hard could it get for me? In my HDD days the choices were simpler or no choice, all most all HDDs were 3 .5 and 7200s, the only thing one had to do and decide, brand and master or slave,--that really was it in a nutshell.
So off to Amazon UK and read some reviews, then Googled for more information then came across a term I had not heard of, SMR, more reading. I am not a PC expert reading is all I have and then evaluating, as best as.
What I understood I think is SMR technology is not widely praised--ok but recalling something Sygnus wrote, ( and I agree with ), in another thread recently about " real world use " I went back to Amazon reviews and got muddled. I had decided to purchase a spinner at 7200 but I couldn't find any I recognized as such within budget.
Ghot came to my rescue, gave me a link to a WD Red Pro but did suggest WD Blacks but I am trying to stick to a budget but get the best possible with it for my GS so WD Blacks were out. Ghot gave me a link to the cables required and that dealt with some confusion I had, great, all sorted.
Both Ghot and Berton then informed me the new drive would have to be converted from MBR to GBT because of its capacity-I never knew this-- and gave me instructions how to convert.
Meanwhile JB wrote a post that made sense to me as far as my understanding allows about NAS drives and constant spinning and the Red Pro is a NAS HDD. I'm not sure my GS wants his HDD in constant spin, not in a PC anyway.
Sygnus you may think you are 99.9999% right but you were wrong--you are 100% correct, the board is configured for UEFI.
So given all the above in real world use, accounting for what my GS wants to use it for storage and playing games from, should it be 5400s or 7200s and SMR or Non-SMR in the slower spinners?
As board is configured for UEFI will the new 4TB HDD still require converting to GBT?
And NAS or Non NAS, will it matter, if it does can the NAS constant spin be turned off?
Thank You
Last edited by Jaylob4; 19 Apr 2021 at 04:19.
did you mean "gpt"
Back to topic:
Yeah... Seriously. UEFI Windows requiring GPT drives and UEFI Windows is requiring a UEFI capable motherboard.
And whether it's a NAS or an consumer drive, if it's exceeds 2TB... You need to convert it to GPT. As well as NTFS.
FAT32 can't used in exceeds 32GB (in Windows) and 2TB (anywhere)
My setup is have an 250GB SSD (converted into GPT and the boot drive) and an prebuilt Dell Vostro 270s. I don't know if CSM is gonna depectrate in W10 in future updates, so I keep that there.
Last edited by jbcarreon123; 19 Apr 2021 at 05:15.
It`s just a storage drive so I would make it GPT, that`s what I do with my storage drives.
There is no converting of anything, when the new drive is 1st powered up, windows will say "Do you want to initialize this drive as GPT or MBR" just choose GPT.
My Z170 setup.
NAS Drives are intended to use in an NAS Server, or Home Server.
NAS Drives are not intended to use in an consumer PC.
Servers are not intended to turn off natively, except for power outages. So that, The UPS comes in. (Alright not on the topic the UPSes.)
Plot Twist:
You can't use Consumer drives on an NAS, because that drives will fail quickly as it should.
Hi there
Actually not quite true these days -- so long as the HDD's are of reasonable quality -- if drives are 7200 RPM with a decent cache size then you should be OK -- older 5400 RPM drives with small cache size can run like molasses (i.e really slow) and have a lousy MBTF (Mean Time before failure). Of course as well don't use older IDE drives.
What larger HDD's don't like is being switched off and on often -- modern bearings are quite capable for running months on end at 24/7 -- also don't let too much heat accumulate. The big problems for continual re-starting is that the bearings will be cold and take more wear on starting than when continuously running.
When buying new drives always as well check MBTF times in the spec (Mean time before failure) -- this will give an indication of the reliability of the drives.
Nothing wrong in using HDD's in NAS type servers - a lot cheaper than SSD's and for things like simple file sharing / serving, multi-media etc you don't need an SSD. SSD's work best for the OS (even the OS on a NAS server) and for other work that needs a lot of disck handling --e.g scratch work files, paging, swapping etc.
Try also to avoid HDD's from continually having loads of I/O -- I run on one NAS server 4 HDD's as 2 RAID 0 arrays -- I backup data regularly so RAID 0 is fine and maximizes speed. Using RAID 0 balances the I/O over the drives,
I'm using a Linux box as a NAS server here :
Cheers
jimbo
Another note:
You can't work it if you natively insert it into the PC, some MB requires a CMOS reset and you need to configure Steam so on that drive downloads the game not on the other drives.
There actually was a "Red" but it seems Western Digital did a bit or renaming.... probably after the whole SMR fiasco and subsequent lawsuit - Western Digital Lawsuit For Shipping Slower SMR Hard Drives Including WD Red NAS
Also.... Western Digital admits 2TB-6TB WD Red NAS drives use shingled magnetic recording
And in the U.S. where I live, the WD Black is only 10 dollars more verses the Red Pro at Amazon - Red Po ($139) vs Black ($149)
I don't make these things up
Quote
