Needed a large hard drive for file sharing duty, and it had to be reasonably fast without roasting itself inside a hard drive dock. WD Red met all specs on paper, exceeded all specs in reality. Other drives in docks around my home needed a small fan attached to remain below 40 C during hot summer months, whereas the WD Red 3TB has been rock solid at 35 C without a fan, even during days exceeding 100 F outside and 80 F inside the house. It did reach 41 C once, during a 48GB write over USB 3.0, but it also reached 140MBytes per second writing that video file. Never tested in a RAID or NAS enclosure, don't need such things. Potential buyers should be aware of 2TB limit in older motherboards, necessitating two partitions for compatibility between such boards and newer ones. Usage in a hard drive dock also requires simple precautions in line with all hard drives, such as allowing the platters to spin down before removing from the dock, and allowing for air movement around the drive to prevent heat building up during long backups. WD has a winner in this line of drives. They're fast enough, quiet enough, run cool and available in very large capacities. They're not cheap, but then, with this drive, I got exactly what I wanted, for what I was willing to pay. The only real complaint I have is that I did not buy more of them, an issue I plan to rectify as soon as possible.Read full review
I was looking for a higher capacity hard drive with good performance. I found the WD Red drive to be every thing I was looking for. It was very easy to install and it made me lose focus on the time it took to load because it was just that fast. I always look for the biggest bang for my buck and I do believe I found it! The drive has really nothing negative to say about it. I would buy another just like it!
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
Bought two of these to use in RAID 1 NAS and they work like a charm. Only downside is that when using RAID 1 they are even slower than a normal HDD. I don't think it matters since RAID 1 is used for backup and you write much less than you read from it and the read speeds are as great as a normal HDD. When using them to max (both reading and writing a lot of data) they are still more silent than my fans so I have never heard then.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
I'm using this drive in my combo main Computer/Media server as a A/V storage and streaming drive. This is my first drive larger than 2.5TB and my first WD Red..It will not be my last! I monitor all my HD's in R/T and while I generally have had good experiences with WD drives, this 3TB Red is exceptional! Of course time will tell, but I have a unusually trusting feeling about this drive, It's SMART stats are the best I've seen on a post flood drive and I think it would run fairly cool without the active cooling I use on all my HD's. And to top it all off, this drive is FAST! I will only be buying WD Red's from now on, and since this drive only has 600GB free, I will be buying another two very soon!
WD Red (now Plus) drives with CMR are the best for NAS use. I should know, I have a bunch in different sizes. They are uber reliable. Their slow 5400 rpm speed means they write data more slowly than 7200 rpm drives, but they run cooler and last longer.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
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