WD RED 2.5-Inch 1TB in Four-Disk RAID Review

Introduction Western Digital launched their WD RED line quite a while ago, and it's been a successful one. We've previously had a look at how the 2.5-inch version with 1TB capacity performs as a single disk, but we've yet to look at how four of these will do in a RAID environment. The WD RED drives are primarily built for NAS usage, but they're also well suited for SOHO users who want more performance and reliability in a small size. Network attached storage is getting more traction every day and more and more people take the plunge into the world of NAS, but not everyone wants a large system. A tiny NAS with 2.5-inch drives is the solution, and the WD RED drives are perfect for this. They come as both 750GB and 1TB versions, but it's the 1TB version that's on the bench today. The 2.5-inch WD drives run with an Intellipower spindle speed of 5400RPM and come with 16MB of cache, and an SATA 6Gbps interface. They're rated to handle a workload of 120-150TB of data per year, which should be more data throughput than most small businesses will put their drives through. The NAS optimized firmware, called NASware 2.0, is an exclusive technology to WD that gives their drives far more enhanced reliability with a 35% improvement in MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) over their standard desktop drives, better compatibility with NAS systems, and a more energy-efficient operation which in turn leads to lower operating temperatures, a longer warranty for piece of mind and a system known as 3D Active Balance Plus. This dual-plane balance control, has helped to drastically increase the reliability of the drives – with a better balance, there are far fewer vibrations and this means the platters will degrade at a much lower rate thus increasing the longevity of the drive and its performance. The 2.5-inhc drives themselves are 9.5mm thick, which really isn't a lot considering the capacity. The drives are powered by the Marvell 88i9446-NDB2 high-performance storage controller and it is paired with the Samsung K4H2816380-LCC 16MB cache chip. The motor controller is WD's own Nautilus that handles the Intellispeed capabilities. Test Procedure Test system: Supermicro C7Z97-OCE motherboard Intel Xeon E3-1230Lv3 Corsair Vengeance 16GB Corsair H100i BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 10 850W Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD We would like to thank BeQuiet, Corsair, Supermicro, and Lian Li for supplying us with our test system components. Many different software applications are also used to gain the broadest spectrum of results, which allows for the fairest testing possible. Software used: AIDA64 Engineer Anvil's Storage Utilities AS SSD Benchmark ATTO Disk Benchmark CrystalDiskMark I will be creating each possible RAID array through the Intel RAID tool and fully initialize it through the IRST control panel before running each test. I will be running a series of benchmarks with the software mentioned above on each array before destroying it and moving on to the next. I'll be using four drives in all the tests except RAID 1 mode that only allows two disks to be used. The SSD with the operating system is running on a different SATA controller to avoid possible performance impact. Each of the following pages will display a list of screenshots from each test as well as comparison charts for a quick overview. AIDA64 Engineer AIDA64 is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users. It provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives and is compatible with most Microsoft Windows operating systems. It also has a disk benchmark tool, and that is the one we'll be using. RAID 0 RAID 1 RAID 5 RAID 10 Single Anvil's Storage Utilities Anvil's Storage Utilities is a relative new benchmarking utility that has the ability to test mainly hard drives and solid state drives, but also any other form of storage medium that you can throw at it. It is completely free as well, which is a nice thing As well as testing the drive in a variety of benchmarking tests, it also has a drive endurance test that consistently reads and writes data to the selected medium to give days, months and potentially even years of use in a shorter period of time to see how the drive handles in the long run. RAID 0 RAID 1 RAID 5 RAID 10 Single AS SSD The AS SSD software determines the performance of Solid State Drives (SSD). The tool contains five synthetic and three practice tests. The synthetic tests determine the sequential and random read and write performance of the SSD. These tests are performed without using the operating system caches. In Sequential tests, the program measures the time it takes to read and write a 1 GB file respectively. To give a clearer picture of the drives tested, I've chosen to include all tests. Special the copy test is one that I think is relevant on the consumer level as it gives the user a view To give a clearer picture of the drives tested, I've chosen to include all tests, also the copy test. While it isn't the most static test, I think it is a relevant test in the eyes of consumers, giving them a view into one of the operations they're going to be doing many times. RAID 0 RAID 1 RAID 5 RAID 10 Single ATTO The ATTO Disk Benchmark is a performance measurement tool is for Windows. It measures storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for both reads and writes. It has multiple options available to customize your performance measurement, including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. ATTO can be used to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives so it is a popular tool everywhere. RAID 0 RAID 1 RAID 5 RAID 10 Single CrystalDiskMark CrystalDiskMark is a small HDD benchmark utility for your hard drive that enables you to rapidly measure sequential and random 4KB/512KB read/write speeds. RAID 0 RAID 1 RAID 5 RAID 10 Single Final Thoughts Pricing Western Digital's 2.5-inch 1TB RED NAS HDD can be had for $69.99 at NewEgg or $69.81 at Amazon. British readers can find it at Scan Computers for £59.60 or Amazon for £66.02, while German readers can find the best offer through Geizhals where it starts at €73.55. Conclusion Western Digital’s RED line of drives have made vast improvements in SOHO and SMB storage arrays, giving them the performance and reliability that they need but on a scale that doesn't carry the same price tags that the enterprise-class drives bring with them. The drive can't compete with its bigger brothers in the 3.5-inch form factor, but they do very well for 2.5-inch drives. They also come with just a fourth of the cache that the 3.5-inch drives are packed with, and when taking that into consideration, then we know that we have a great drive on our hands. The RED series is designed for the use in network attached and other storage units with up to eight bays, and by using 2.5-inch drives you can do that with a much smaller footprint. It is well suited for a RAID setup as we clearly saw on the previous pages, and as always which mode you chose comes down to your personal preferences and needs. Four of these drives can give you a drive array that can perform with up to 425MB/s sequential reads and writes. at the same time you get it at a good price, and barely any premium over other 1TB drives. A really great drive "The Western Digital RED 2.5" 1TB drive would be a great choice for small footprint NAS servers just as they would be for any other system. Good performance at a great price and long reliability in 24/7 running systems." Thanks to Western Digital for providing us with these samples