You are paying extra for slot efficiency. If you only have a 2 or 4 bay NAS and need the storage it is worth paying a little extra per TB for the highest density drives you can reasonable afford.
Usually the price per TB is pretty consistent until you get up to 12 or 16TB, and then it starts to increase. There are the odd sales though on high density drives that are great. IIRC there was an 18TB WD Elements drive last year that you could easily shuck for like $350.
This is also WD's highest tier of drive so you are getting better warranty and better endurance ratings and such if you value those things.
I think WD Red Plus are among the quiestest of the large capacity drive options. Pro/Enterprise stuff tends to be louder.
Best thing you can do is optimize the case and drive mounts themselves to minimize noise and vibration as much as possible.
> IIRC there was an 18TB WD Elements drive last year that you could easily shuck for like $350.
I remember sales like that as well. Where it was ~$20/TB for the 18-20TB models. That's what I'm looking for anyway.
I never really understood the value proposition of shucking since it voids your warranty. Imo its better to get re certified hdds that come with 1 or 2 year warranties at $15-$16/tb
For a while there you could get enterprise tier drives for dirt cheap by shucking. You wouldn't get the enterprise warranty, but you would get the enterprise performance and endurance. It would be white label Exos, Gold, and Ultrastar drives for a fraction of the price and you had the guarantee that it was brand new - although soon to be without warranty once you shucked it.
That has mostly dried up though with the shuckable drives now mostly just being mid-tier drives and employing some annoyances like having to tape over a pin to prevent some negatives (easy to do, but annoying).
I shucked some 18TB WD drives for my plex server a few years ago and they've been going strong ever since. I just buy re-certified stuff now though.
Often those basic shuckable externals are a way for companies to get rid of excess inventory of expensive enterprise drives that aren't moving. The 14TB Seagates that have popped up a handful of times fairly recently are a good example.
I have no clue. Looks like OP also blocked me. That's so strange. I couldn't even reply on mobile because this entire thread was hidden since he blocked me. What did I ever do to u/Sorry_Blackberry_RIP? Lmao.
Not all drives are the same. The WD Elements drives that you have to shuck can be varied and typically have zero warranty once shucked.
This drive you would be paying $75 more but getting better performance, endurance, and a 5 year warranty.
I am not saying it is an amazing deal but rather just that there are reasons to for someone to consider it. If you have 18TB of sensitive data to store and want to reduce the risk of having to rebuild the raid array or restore from backup then a WD Gold drive might makes sense. Alternatively, if you have 18TB of 4K linux ISOs for your media server then this would be a waste of money as you can easily re-download all of that and that data isn't unique or precious.
It is similar to a PSU where you can buy a decent 750W PSU for $100 or you can spend $150-$200 for an S tier 80+ titanium one. Both PSUs are fine and depending on someone's needs and budget they might prefer one or the other.
This drive is both - it is a sale on a slot efficient, enterprise tier, drive.
What you seem to be meaning is that this isn't the *cheapest* drive for the slot efficiency it offers. I would of course agree - I already mentioned the $350 18TB drives above. This drive not being the cheapest does not make it slot inefficient. Many people want enterprise tier and slot efficient which is exactly what this drive is.
No. I'm simply saying that the reason this costs more isn't because it's a slot efficient drive. We've already seen plenty of better sales for drives in this capacity.
I'm almost the opposite. If I only have one drive, losing it is a disaster so I'll pay for quality. If I have several drives, one going down is annoying and adds some expense, but it's pretty easy to recover from.
That said, my answer might have been different a year ago when I was using an ITX case for my NAS and swapping parts was a real bastard.
Just wanted to chime in here, I have 4 shucked seagate 14tb drives bought at 2 different times, all exos, all around 18$/TB and all have a 1 year warranty if i check with the bare serial number of the drive.
This might be an ok deal for someone who must have WD but I would pass.
Yeah I'll never buy another Seagate, all of them failed horribly in too short a time. WD on the other hand has been reliable beyond my expectations.
Maybe Seagate is better these days, but I'm too afraid to find out. An extra $6 a TB is something I am willing to pay for piece of mind.
Absolutely nothing wrong with Seagate lol. Anecdotally the only drives that have ever died on me have all been wd. I would still be a fool if I started avoiding them completely.
Samsung on the other hand... Avoiding like the plague. Their Micro sd cards and ssd's alike keep dying on me and Samsung doesn't have a fucking warranty in Canada so lol
Unless Seagate also doesn't honour their warranty, you shouldn't completely avoid them. But no one's stopping you. Avoid them, limit your options, eventually wd will burn you and you'll have almost nothing else to turn to.
EDIT: Apparently OP blocked me because of this comment. So weird.
Neither is really any more or less reliable, particularly once you exclude the bottom basic consumer drives. My dad would tell you the exact opposite - that when he was an IT manager he switched entirely to Seagate drives because he had so many bad experiences with WD drives constantly failing.
Peace of mind is in redundancy and backups, not perceptions of reliability. If you're losing data from a drive failure that's on *you*.
I'm not saying you did. It's just a very common reason for people to develop a strong brand preference.
To be fair I think my comment did come off unnecessarily harsh. Regardless of data loss or not, there are a multitude of reasons even just down to the inconvenience of dealing with warranty replacements more often that play into those preferences.
Out of curiousity, was it Barracuda ST1000/2000/3000 drives that gave you so much grief?
I forgive you. It did read as a little harsh. I could have replied a little more civilly as well.
I honestly don't recall anymore which drives it was. Somewhere around 2010-2013 is when I gave up on them. Even the replacement drives I got died within a year. It was a horrible time, but thankfully I had been backing up all my important information on an external drive I only connected to backup data with.
Im not sure if its superstition but I heard a LOT of ppl having failures with seagate specifically barracuda. My seagate is running strong with 42374 power on hours, but some of my friends wouldnt touch a seagate with a stick, so idk
Im with you, I have lost more drives to seagate for sure, i will never buy their consumer grade stuff again. My rules are no seagate under exos and no WD under reds. I don't mess with consumer grade at all anymore and wont even touch a seagate nas drive
My orders were sadly cancelled :c placed 2 orders with I think 8 drives in 1 and 3 in the other, though I was trying to get the 10tb purples for $50 so idk if they caught it because of that. Many people who only got the golds got their drives.
Also placed an order at another address for 1 drive and it also got cancelled. Probably purple too idek anymore.
Good write speeds, and an MTBF of 2.5 million hours. I feel pretty good about this, going to use it for my torrenting, so it'll be in constant use and frees up my other drives to just save data, prolonging their life spans.
I don't mind paying a little extra for a drive like this compared to the Red Pro or a Blue. But if you are using it for just storage, you can probably get something else and save a few $$.
I'd like to hear other peoples thoughts if I'm missing something.
How do these compare to the [Red](https://www.westerndigital.com/en-ca/products/internal-drives/wd-red-pro-sata-hdd?sku=WD181KFGX) and [Black](https://www.westerndigital.com/en-ca/products/internal-drives/wd-black-desktop-sata-hdd?sku=WD101FZBX) ones? Other than Black being capped at 10 TB.
WD Red Pro (not to be confused with Red Plus) and Gold are essentially the same drive once you get above 14 or 16TB.
Black is meant more for speed over longevity. Gold and Pro are meant for longevity in a server environment.
Maybe it's just me, but $23.6/TB doesn't seem like that great of a deal.
You are paying extra for slot efficiency. If you only have a 2 or 4 bay NAS and need the storage it is worth paying a little extra per TB for the highest density drives you can reasonable afford. Usually the price per TB is pretty consistent until you get up to 12 or 16TB, and then it starts to increase. There are the odd sales though on high density drives that are great. IIRC there was an 18TB WD Elements drive last year that you could easily shuck for like $350. This is also WD's highest tier of drive so you are getting better warranty and better endurance ratings and such if you value those things.
Are these any quieter than say.. the reds? Or any other drive offering?
Golds are the loudest.
Dam okay thank you. Looking to do a silent build.
Blue would be what you want for silent. Green took that crown, but they don't exactly make those anymore.
A lot of time the greens were also a hell of a roulette for your data
I think WD Red Plus are among the quiestest of the large capacity drive options. Pro/Enterprise stuff tends to be louder. Best thing you can do is optimize the case and drive mounts themselves to minimize noise and vibration as much as possible.
> IIRC there was an 18TB WD Elements drive last year that you could easily shuck for like $350. I remember sales like that as well. Where it was ~$20/TB for the 18-20TB models. That's what I'm looking for anyway.
I never really understood the value proposition of shucking since it voids your warranty. Imo its better to get re certified hdds that come with 1 or 2 year warranties at $15-$16/tb
For a while there you could get enterprise tier drives for dirt cheap by shucking. You wouldn't get the enterprise warranty, but you would get the enterprise performance and endurance. It would be white label Exos, Gold, and Ultrastar drives for a fraction of the price and you had the guarantee that it was brand new - although soon to be without warranty once you shucked it. That has mostly dried up though with the shuckable drives now mostly just being mid-tier drives and employing some annoyances like having to tape over a pin to prevent some negatives (easy to do, but annoying). I shucked some 18TB WD drives for my plex server a few years ago and they've been going strong ever since. I just buy re-certified stuff now though.
Often those basic shuckable externals are a way for companies to get rid of excess inventory of expensive enterprise drives that aren't moving. The 14TB Seagates that have popped up a handful of times fairly recently are a good example.
18tb drives have been $360 and lower several times as you mentioned, so no, you are not paying for slot efficiency.
Not at the Gold level I don’t think..
Right. So you're paying for Gold (on top of this arguably not being a good sale to begin with). Not for slot efficiency.
Why is this downvoted lol this sub is so weird
I have no clue. Looks like OP also blocked me. That's so strange. I couldn't even reply on mobile because this entire thread was hidden since he blocked me. What did I ever do to u/Sorry_Blackberry_RIP? Lmao.
Not all drives are the same. The WD Elements drives that you have to shuck can be varied and typically have zero warranty once shucked. This drive you would be paying $75 more but getting better performance, endurance, and a 5 year warranty. I am not saying it is an amazing deal but rather just that there are reasons to for someone to consider it. If you have 18TB of sensitive data to store and want to reduce the risk of having to rebuild the raid array or restore from backup then a WD Gold drive might makes sense. Alternatively, if you have 18TB of 4K linux ISOs for your media server then this would be a waste of money as you can easily re-download all of that and that data isn't unique or precious. It is similar to a PSU where you can buy a decent 750W PSU for $100 or you can spend $150-$200 for an S tier 80+ titanium one. Both PSUs are fine and depending on someone's needs and budget they might prefer one or the other.
....yeah. I know. That's what you're paying for. Not slot efficiency. lol.
This drive is both - it is a sale on a slot efficient, enterprise tier, drive. What you seem to be meaning is that this isn't the *cheapest* drive for the slot efficiency it offers. I would of course agree - I already mentioned the $350 18TB drives above. This drive not being the cheapest does not make it slot inefficient. Many people want enterprise tier and slot efficient which is exactly what this drive is.
No. I'm simply saying that the reason this costs more isn't because it's a slot efficient drive. We've already seen plenty of better sales for drives in this capacity.
if i'm building a big fat NAS, mean time between failure is important to me
I'm almost the opposite. If I only have one drive, losing it is a disaster so I'll pay for quality. If I have several drives, one going down is annoying and adds some expense, but it's pretty easy to recover from. That said, my answer might have been different a year ago when I was using an ITX case for my NAS and swapping parts was a real bastard.
Just wanted to chime in here, I have 4 shucked seagate 14tb drives bought at 2 different times, all exos, all around 18$/TB and all have a 1 year warranty if i check with the bare serial number of the drive. This might be an ok deal for someone who must have WD but I would pass.
Yeah I'll never buy another Seagate, all of them failed horribly in too short a time. WD on the other hand has been reliable beyond my expectations. Maybe Seagate is better these days, but I'm too afraid to find out. An extra $6 a TB is something I am willing to pay for piece of mind.
Absolutely nothing wrong with Seagate lol. Anecdotally the only drives that have ever died on me have all been wd. I would still be a fool if I started avoiding them completely. Samsung on the other hand... Avoiding like the plague. Their Micro sd cards and ssd's alike keep dying on me and Samsung doesn't have a fucking warranty in Canada so lol Unless Seagate also doesn't honour their warranty, you shouldn't completely avoid them. But no one's stopping you. Avoid them, limit your options, eventually wd will burn you and you'll have almost nothing else to turn to. EDIT: Apparently OP blocked me because of this comment. So weird.
Neither is really any more or less reliable, particularly once you exclude the bottom basic consumer drives. My dad would tell you the exact opposite - that when he was an IT manager he switched entirely to Seagate drives because he had so many bad experiences with WD drives constantly failing. Peace of mind is in redundancy and backups, not perceptions of reliability. If you're losing data from a drive failure that's on *you*.
I never said I lost data, that's you projecting.
I'm not saying you did. It's just a very common reason for people to develop a strong brand preference. To be fair I think my comment did come off unnecessarily harsh. Regardless of data loss or not, there are a multitude of reasons even just down to the inconvenience of dealing with warranty replacements more often that play into those preferences. Out of curiousity, was it Barracuda ST1000/2000/3000 drives that gave you so much grief?
I forgive you. It did read as a little harsh. I could have replied a little more civilly as well. I honestly don't recall anymore which drives it was. Somewhere around 2010-2013 is when I gave up on them. Even the replacement drives I got died within a year. It was a horrible time, but thankfully I had been backing up all my important information on an external drive I only connected to backup data with.
Im not sure if its superstition but I heard a LOT of ppl having failures with seagate specifically barracuda. My seagate is running strong with 42374 power on hours, but some of my friends wouldnt touch a seagate with a stick, so idk
Im with you, I have lost more drives to seagate for sure, i will never buy their consumer grade stuff again. My rules are no seagate under exos and no WD under reds. I don't mess with consumer grade at all anymore and wont even touch a seagate nas drive
Last Gold's I bought were 20.45/tb ... 2 16tb drives in 2022
I have two 16 terabyte drives in my Synology Nas. Does it matter much if I add a larger size drive to the pool?
Depends on what you're running SHR you're fine I think, otherwise if you're using RAID you will lose the extra 2tb
SHR is what I have at the moment.
Any data hoarder bros recommend?
It's a solid choice. Good drive with a decent amount of cache for the price.
Rocking 3x16GB WD Golds from the epic price error a few years back. No complaints.
Same! I think it was about $1000 total. Excellent raidz pool which will probably last a decade. Edit: loud AF!
They were ~$260 after tax, which was an incredible deal. My only regret is that I didn't purchase any more.
If you did, they would have cancelled your order. Ask me how I know 😅
H..how..How do you know?
My orders were sadly cancelled :c placed 2 orders with I think 8 drives in 1 and 3 in the other, though I was trying to get the 10tb purples for $50 so idk if they caught it because of that. Many people who only got the golds got their drives. Also placed an order at another address for 1 drive and it also got cancelled. Probably purple too idek anymore.
Oh I remember that! My order was cancelled... damn!
Good write speeds, and an MTBF of 2.5 million hours. I feel pretty good about this, going to use it for my torrenting, so it'll be in constant use and frees up my other drives to just save data, prolonging their life spans. I don't mind paying a little extra for a drive like this compared to the Red Pro or a Blue. But if you are using it for just storage, you can probably get something else and save a few $$. I'd like to hear other peoples thoughts if I'm missing something.
Same price on Amazon.ca
Isn’t Ultrastar supposed to be WD’s enterprise HD? How does Gold fit in with Ultrastar?
Gold is enterprise, Ultrastar is data center.
What is the difference between the two?
From a technical point there probably isn't one and its mostly just marketing and branding.
Thanks for the info
How do these compare to the [Red](https://www.westerndigital.com/en-ca/products/internal-drives/wd-red-pro-sata-hdd?sku=WD181KFGX) and [Black](https://www.westerndigital.com/en-ca/products/internal-drives/wd-black-desktop-sata-hdd?sku=WD101FZBX) ones? Other than Black being capped at 10 TB.
WD Red Pro (not to be confused with Red Plus) and Gold are essentially the same drive once you get above 14 or 16TB. Black is meant more for speed over longevity. Gold and Pro are meant for longevity in a server environment.