Pair your NAS device with a high-quality hard drive.
About a month ago, one of our direct-attached storage devices began showing signs of failure. It would automatically shut down with no warning and files were disappearing at random. This stutter in our backup system caused us to rethink the entire plan we had in place. We replaced the DAS and decided it was time to upgrade our NAS, too. We’ve had a Synology DS1019+ for a couple of years, but weren’t using it for general archives. We were trying to use it more as our own personal cloud storage but realized that using it as a true NAS device made more sense. So, we added a fifth hard drive to the 5-bay system and welcomed a 14TB WD Red Pro 3.5” NAS HDD to the storage pool of the Synology.
DETAILS
The WD Red Pro HDD is designed for medium to large-scale businesses and can be used in up to 24-bay NAS systems. These magnificent drives are engineered to handle high-intensity workloads and can run consistently for 24 hours a day. WD states that these drives are ideal for archiving, sharing, and for use in RAID arrays. Every WD Red Pro drive has built-in NASware 3.0, which is Western Digital’s firmware technology that assists with integration, data protection, and performance. Error Recovery Protection is also apart of NASware 3.0 to help reduce drive fallout in RAID applications. WD Red Pro drives are one of the most compatible drives for NAS enclosures. They are equipped with a multi-axis shock sensor that automatically detects subtle shock events so that it can adjust read-write functions to protect the data on the drive and significantly increase the lifespan of the drive. Red Pro drives also feature dual-plane balance control that improves the drive’s performance and reliability. Red Pro drives come with a 5-year warranty and are available in a variety of capacities from 2TB up to 18TB. For the purposes of this review, we will be referring to the 14TB capacity.
Capacity | 14TB |
Cache Size | 512 MB |
Disk Speed (RPM) | 7200rpm |
Interface | SATA |
Transfer Rate | up to 255MB/s |
Compatibility | Designed with CMR technology for medium or large-sized businesses in RAID-optimized NAS systems with up to 24 bays. Perfect for archiving, sharing, and handling high-intensity workloads. |
Dimensions (L x W x H) | 5.79″ x 4″ x 1.03″ |
USER EXPERIENCE
As far as real-world testing goes, I’ve been using this 14TB HDD exclusively inside my Synology DS1019+. As I mentioned above, it is a 5-bay system, but until this WD Red Pro drive arrived, we only have 4 bays filled. Installing the hard drive is very easy. Each drive bay on the DS1019+ has a self-locking rail system that pops into the screw holes of the hard drive. So, all I had to do was unlock the drive bay, pull out the HDD tray, and snap the rails into the sides of it. Then, I slid the entire assembly back into the bay. I actually did this while the Synology was still on. I was surprised to find that the system recognized the HDD without the need for restarting it first. Synology provides a drive expansion guide on synology.com along with their explanation of what Synology Hybrid RAID is. Once you add the drive to your storage pool, the system goes through a process to expand the pool. This can take a very long time – days even. For my disk expansion process, it took approximately 49 hours to complete.
I’ve been through many different types of hard drive tests and there is usually a standard set of tests I run these products through. I usually use Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, AJA System Test Lite, and I will also complete a real-time data transfer test. Based on the previous testing of NAS systems I have conducted, I was aware that the Blackmagic and AJA tests would still be valid tests as long as you connect your computer through an Ethernet cable. One thing to note, these tests will base results on the speed of your network connection since that is how you are connecting to the hard drive. With that in mind, both the Blackmagic and AJA tests provided a similar result – Blackmagic Read/Write 101/109 MB/s and AJA Read/Write 100/110 MB/s. The following screenshots demonstrate the overall health of the hard drives and the system as a whole. These were taken before the expansion of the system was complete.
In addition to those tests, I also ran the utility LAN_Speed Test to double-check the speed of the network connection. According to the software’s product page, “LAN Speed Test was designed from the ground up to be a simple but powerful tool for measuring file transfer, hard drive, USB Drive, and Local Area Network (LAN) speeds (wired & wireless).” The screenshot below shows the test results. This test was conducted while my computer was connected to our local WiFi network.
Finally, I also completed a data transfer test. For this test, I transferred a file from my MacBook Pro to the NAS device while connected to our WiFi network. At the time that this test was conducted, the internet speed test showed that our network speed was 469.89 Mbps (download) and 20.31 Mbps (upload). I transferred a file that was 1.86 GB in size. The transfer rate ended up being 0.93 GB/m (930 Mb/s) or 0.02 GB/s (20 Mb/s). Even though the hard drive has a spec of 255MB/s as a transfer rate, that rate is going to be affected by the speed of your local area network speeds since that is how you are connecting to your NAS device. I’ve been happy with these test results and do find them consistent with other NAS data transfer tests I’ve done in the past.
CONCLUSION
Western Digital has a very rich, trustworthy history of creating products that are consistently high-quality and high-performing. Since the Synology NAS device that I used for testing in this review has been in operation for more than 2 years with the same WD Red Pro hard drives that I am highlighting in this review without any failures is encouraging. The hard drives have helped to create a robust backup system that should serve us for many years to come. Even though the expense of these hard drives might turn some people away from them, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend these for any NAS device.
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