Reviewers-Please tell us whether using "enterprise grade" as stand-alone or in RAID. This could possibly be cause of failures &amp; low ratings.
773091
As I understand it, if a single drive gets a read error, or is slow to return the data, the controller will keep trying to read(like hundreds of times). In a Raid 1(2 drives mirrored) or 10(4 drives, dual Raid 0) configuration, the data is retrievable from a subset of the drives). If a drive is slow, the controller will return the data retrieved from the fast drive and then deal with the slow one. For a server application, it makes the array faster than a single drive. If a Raid drive is used as a single, the controller may report failure when repeated reads would have eventually been successful. I suggest that you get a diagnostic program from the manufacturer. If it reports deficiencies, I suggest that you talk with the Tech Support people. Drives are cheap enough that I wouldn't fool with even a marginal drive.
1487742
This is too slow to use for surveillance applications by itself. You want at least a 7200 RPM spin rate to keep up. I have one and it drops frames. I'm leaving the OS on this one and will get WD RE 3 TB Enterprise Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, 7200 RPM, SATA III, 64 MB Cache for video database. Much more expensive, but should get the job done right. If you have this in a high speed RAID enclosure then the slower write speed is masked by performance boost of the RAID.
1233658
Technically, I doubt it. If you treat it as a series of JBOD disks, maybe, but anything with RAID will require the unit reformat all drives. In general, I don't recommend the unit -- it's slow, it's finicky, etc.
860400
I concur with Robin V on this one - I suggest replacing any failed drives with a WD RED drive. They are built to work in NAS boxes under constant use while other drives are not built for this kind of use and abuse.
1853219
I do not know the direct answer to your question.If RAID is of no importance to you, why not simply buy an external drive for supplemental storage or for backup?I use RAID for its data redundancy.If that is of no importance, why bother with a RAID enabled device?Cheaper and high quality alternatives exist.
2170887
I am using 2 WD RE4 drives independently (not in RAID) in my desktop computer. I know there is some scary discussion about them only working in a RAID array, but I don't have any problems.
2166244
Yes, It is very conservative when it comes for the disks. My diskstation rejected 2 hard drives of mine that I never suspected. One of those disks died one month later. Anyway the raid config is still the best choice to avoid surprises.
537756
I'm using it in a server raid 1 for data backup. I would say yes on NAS configuration. Because of the slower speed I would not use it as a drive setup to run programs from. Just for data.
993329
The red ones are the cheap ones right? Because the cheaper versions are definitely the ones I got. I thought about getting the base model (without the hard drives), but just figured I could upgrade later, as they begin to fail. One at a time hopefully. I love my Synology Disk Station!
1302605
That is the theory of a RAID 5. I had a 4TB drive fail after a month on duty. Western Digital immediately sent me a new one, I plugged it in and it took about four days to re-establish the full RAID. My 16TB with 12 TB usable space on RAID 5 was loaded with 4TB of records. So, if you want to upgrade your system one drive at a time, better be patient.
638153
I have found that my two drobos work very well for my needs. The one thing I would like to see work better, but I think it is a limitation of Windows not Drobo, is to report the current size of the mass of drives not some specific value like 16TB when you only have 5TB total space. I've installed Plex Server on my Drobo5n and it's been working great even without a mSSD that can improve performance. I don't know or really care about the processor or other specs as long as it works well and performs well.
252679
I have a variety installed - mainly used for storage of movies/music and vmware. If you want reliability, stick with the reds. I went for cost - so have WD, Seagate and Hitachi. Have only had 1 WD give me an issue in 3 years (10 3 Tb drives) - so when the 3 Tb drive failed, I replaced it with a 4 Tb and let the hybrid raid expand..
96349
Dr. Bozarth, I take all reviews with a grain of salt of course. I also noticed the disparity in the ratings between the two sites. I usually frequent thehomeservershow.com. Many of the forum members are I.T. Professionals, or like myself, a medical professional with a keen interest in technology. The Western Digital Green Drives were the go to drives in the past, but were not ideal for NAS/RAID situations. Many of the members have had good luck with the RED drives, but still recommend a program such as SpinRite or HD Tune Pro to evaluate the drive before putting it into service. I can only recall one situation where a member reported a DOA Red Drive, and many more situations where the Green drives presented problems. The recommended drives for your scenario would be the WD Red drives or the Seagate NAS drives. RAID-1 would be a good solution, and a cloud backup such as CrashPlan on top of that. I have personally purchased two 3TB Red drives and have had no problems with them in the 6-12 months I have owned them. Hope this helps.
544505
There is an article on Ars Technica you may want to read called "Putting hard drive reliability to the test shows not all disks are equal". I don't think Amazon allows URLs to posted here so you can use Google to search for the web page. There are interesting results shown for the different drive manufacturers.
466450
I have 8 4tb drives running a raid 5 for my media server with no issues. Transfer rate is 6gb/s. Read and write would be a combination of your drives and controller but more your drives then the controller. But flashpoint is right. If you need performance then you will need to go high endon the controller. But I honestly can't picture the need for something better
188307
yes, I have two of these boxes, & I I either raid 0 or leave it at the default which is JBOD.right now, I buy a lot of Seagate Barracuda 4 terabyte drives, and put them in and out of these boxes per my various jobs. I work off of the one box that I have at 16 terabytes raid 0, & I back up to the JBOD single drives. it all works fine, & I configure everything using Disk Utility.
1944268
Yes it would be worth it if their support was not so bad. I have it running on 2 other computers no problem, then I had a problem, and the email support is a joke, hours waiting for a reply, then it was usually wrong. It allows you to take the raid to any computer if something dies in the "original computer" But I have that card and can not make it work. It is a shame! The on board Raid is ok but slow and if you have to move the drives, the MB must have the same version and firmware or else it can cause drama. So make sure of the return process on this card.