Western Digital 14TB WD Red Plus NAS Internal Hard Drive - 5400 RPM Class, SATA 6 Gb/s, CMR, 512 MB Cache, 3.5"

I have been around computers since the mid 80's and remember purchasing my first hard drive. It was for my Apple II in an enclosure about half the size of the computer with a self-contained power supply, fans and all sorts of what were then, "goodies".It was an SCSI drive and it had a whopping 25 megabytes of space at my disposal. The hard drive was a Shugart, named after the fellow that built them and the predecessor of what is today, Seagate.There was a period of time in the 90's where my experiences with what were then the kingpins of hard drives, WD and Seagate simply did not prove reliable in a server or NAS environment which is why I always ended up paying top dollar for SCSI servers and enterprise drives that were significantly more expensive than an equivalent ATAPI desktop drive. When Samsung introduced their line of desktop drives, for the first time I felt comfortable using them in a server environment where they run 24/7.Today, after testing hard drives as they come out in both sizes and formats, I found that by far, WD has the best NAS drives for the money and they are not that much more expensive than a regular desktop drive. In fact, the WD Black line, which is intended for desktops is also a terrific drive and would not hesitate to stick them in a NAS box with one from their Red line.But I say so only from the point of view of reliability. As in the past I often found that anyone selling a non scuzzy drive claimed they were purpose built for a server environment, I questioned it as it seemed that I could not see any tangible evidence of them being anything more than the same drive as any other with a different label and a higher price.I can quantify the difference even between a WD Black drive and the Red NAS line. The transfer speeds are higher and they don't run nearly as hot which explains their great longevity under enterprise environment. There are still good reasons for going with enterprise scuzzy drives if that is what you need and can afford it. But for the everyday person that simply wants to keep their data backed up off site or off their PC, the WD Red line is a terrific drive and deliver a lot of bang for the buck.I presently have a location where I run 10 NAS boxes with two to four hard drives each and over time, the WD Red drives have outlasted Seagate's equivalents -- by a long shot. That is not meant to be a put down of Seagate because I use their hybrid drives on my desktops and they are terrific. I personally prefer them to WD's Black line even though I know they are also great drives.I must admit that I am baffled when I read about someone these days getting, say, 4 new drives and one or two being DOA. Maybe I've been fortunate, but I have purchased hundreds if not thousands of hard drives and I have yet to get one tha was DOA. Some clearly perform better than others and last longer than others, but as a whole, I would say the hard drive market is extremely mature and whether they are made in China or the US, makes no difference.All I can say is that in my experience and for my needs, the WD Red line is an excellent NAS drive and will continue to use them in the foreseeable future. Something else may come out that it is better or not. But when one is dealing with a NAS environment, there isn't much room for testing new equipment if the one I use now meets my needs and has proven itself.As my needs change, I will go through due diligence in determining what will be best. But at least presently, there are alternatives to SCSI if you do not need it and the prices per megabyte are lower than ever. I highly recommend this line of drives from WD for its intended use.

I purchased two of the 3TB drives and one of the 2TB drives. When I went into WDIDLE3 the setting for all three drives were set to 300 seconds (5 minutes). Since I was in there I simply disabled it. These drives are working flawlessly thus far as I have the two 3TB drives in a media center running Media Browser 3, PlayOn, and a few other apps. The 2TB drive is hooked up to a Dish Network Hopper as a secondary storage. I have not experienced any issues so far with these drive. I will update as time goes on with more info.*Update 3/27/15: Some drive information obtained from HD Guardian:Drive 01Serial Number: WD-WCC4N7E*****Firmware: 82.00A82User Capacity: 3,000,592,982,016 bytesProduct Name Status Exp Date (MM/DD/YYYY)3 TB WD Red Hard Drive In Limited Warranty 1/6/2018Overall Health:Temperature: 34*CHigh: 36*CLow: 34*CLast Test: Completed without error.No bad sector detected.No ATA error detected.SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 185 182 021 Pre-fail Always - 5733 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 42 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 673 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 5192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 1193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 40194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 116 110 000 Old_age Always - 34196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0Working Time: 673 hours (28 days, 1 hours)Last Update Fri Mar 27 01:53:28 2015 CDTDrive 02Serial Number: WD-WMC4N0F*****Firmware: 82.00A82User Capacity: 3,000,592,982,016 bytesProduct Name Status Exp Date (MM/DD/YYYY)3 TB WD Red Hard Drive In Limited Warranty 12/11/2017Overall Health:Temperature: 37*CHigh: 41*CLow: 35*CLast Test: N/ANo bad sector detected.No ATA error detected.SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 181 179 021 Pre-fail Always - 5950 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 50 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 672 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 4192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 1193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 48194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 113 109 000 Old_age Always - 37196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0Working Time: 672 hours (28 days)Last Update Fri Mar 27 01:53:28 2015 CDT-------------------------------------------Update 5/14/2015 Some drive information obtained from HD Guardian:Drive 01Serial Number: WD-WCC4N7E*****Firmware: 82.00A82User Capacity: 3,000,592,982,016 bytesProduct Name Status Exp Date (MM/DD/YYYY)3 TB WD Red Hard Drive In Limited Warranty 1/6/2018Overall Health:Temperature: 37*CHigh: 37*CLow: 34*CLast Test: Completed without error.No bad sector detected.No ATA error detected.SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 186 182 021 Pre-fail Always - 5700 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 193 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 98 98 000 Old_age Always - 1844 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 5192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 1193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 190194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 113 108 000 Old_age Always - 37196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0Working Time: 1844 hours (2 months 16 days, 20 hours)Last Update Fri May 14 22:31:35 2015 CDTDrive 02Serial Number: WD-WMC4N0F*****Firmware: 82.00A82User Capacity: 3,000,592,982,016 bytesProduct Name Status Exp Date (MM/DD/YYYY)3 TB WD Red Hard Drive In Limited Warranty 12/11/2017Overall Health:Temperature: 37*CHigh: 41*CLow: 35*CLast Test: N/ANo bad sector detected.No ATA error detected.SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 181 179 021 Pre-fail Always - 5908 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 242 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 98 98 000 Old_age Always - 1836 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 5192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 1193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 240194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 110 106 000 Old_age Always - 40196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0Working Time: 1836 hours (2 months, 16 days, 12 hours)Last Update Fri May 14 22:31:35 2015 CDT