Western Digital 4TB WD Red Plus NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD - 5400 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, CMR, 256 MB Cache, 3.5" -WD40EFPX

If you're building or upgrading a NAS, just get this drive. Seriously. The most important feature here is that it's a CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording) drive, not a cheaper SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) one. For a NAS that's running 24/7, especially in a RAID configuration, this is a huge deal. It means you get consistent write performance without the weird slowdowns and unreliability that can plague SMR drives. More importantly, it means if a drive ever fails, rebuilding your array won't be a nerve-wracking, multi-day nightmare. I've got a few of these running around the clock in my own server and they've been absolutely flawless—they run cool, they're quiet, and they just work. For protecting your important files, the peace of mind you get from a solid, purpose-built drive like this is worth every penny.

I picked two of these up after one of my WD Red 6TB I had in RAID 1 in a WD PR2100, died after 9.5 years of 24/7 service. I transferred all the data over from the good drive to these new drives since that drive is probably on its last leg. I also picked up a Asustor Lockerstor 2 Gen 2 to get these drives on the new file system as WD did not seem to follow up on the amazing PR2100.These drives are much faster than the WD Reds of 10 years ago. I see a lot less choking on tiny files and a lot higher speeds when transferring large files. I am seeing 10 MB/s on tiny files and up to 220-230 MB/s on large files. My old drives fell into the KB/s on tiny files and 130-140 MB/s on large files.These are the highest capacity of the WD Red Plus at 5600 RPM. I did not need anything crazy as these are being used as general network storage between a couple of computers and a server. The performance is exactly what I need it to be. Temperature of these drives are 40-41C with the enclosure fan at full during transfers with a room temp of 30C.Judging by how long my last drives lasted, I hope to get at least 7-9 years out of these.

My go-to for quiet, dependable, consistent speed storage. The 5400RPM is great for setups where you don't want to hear loud drives all the time. I also like the fact that it is a CMR drive, so speeds are consistent when writing large amounts of data. I needed a drive where I could offload finished video projects long term. Even though I have a separate drive for Time Machine backups, which backs up my Mac AND this drive, this WD Red Plus has my full confidence. Top-rated for long-lasting and dependable storage. I wouldn't use anything else.

-------------------------------------------------Original post 8/13/2025-------------------------------------------------Worked fine for 4 months, then started getting drive errors. Unraid refuses to use the drive now leaving it inactive. Not happy with WD lately. The Drive reports itself to me 3 months 30 days 17 hours old and we already have relocated sector errors. What is going on WD? You used to make good drives. This from a RED PLUS Drive? 4 months? No issues with my Seagate Ironwolf drives... I have a old WD Blue in the server (and I mean really old, like 4 or 5 years old - When WD made decent drives), that seems to be working just fine. But a new WD RED PLUS can't go 4 months.-------------------------------------------------Update 9/6/2025-------------------------------------------------Had to RMA the drive. Now, if you have ever RMA'ed a drive with WD it starts with calling the phone number Amazon gives you which is the wrong number. The person you waited to speak with after you pressed a bunch of buttons will kindly inform you that you have called the SSD/San Disk Flash Drive division and you need to call the WD HHD division.... which is weird because they are all Indian and probably sitting in close proximity to each other. Ok, whatever, so you call the new phone number and the guy will ask you to go through a ton of stuff as if you have a mental deficiency and have no idea when a hard drive is bad. Regardless, you explain the drive is bad... it has hundred of sector errors piling up and growing fast. Your server rejects the drive. You even formatted it to trick the server and it last about 1 hour in the server before the server said, 'No way Jose!'. Why? Because it has a ton of bad sectors and they are being reallocated like 20 a minutes. And yes, you tried swapping out cables, and even tried it on a Windows 11 PC and guess what? The PC says it is piling up bad sectors as well... how strange! It must be a bad hard drive. At some point the guy in India might give in and take your information and verify the serial number and give you an RMA code. He will then eventually send you an email once some other department has reviewed the case and approved it. So, like two days later you get an email with a ton of info on how to mail a drive back and if you do not do it exactly their way they will not accept your drive.Ok, so you have to find your old box or something suitable, and an anti-static bag (because everyone has loads of those laying around) and place the drive in the anti-static bag then in a suitable box, and seal it, then place that in a shipping box with padding to prevent farther damage to your already damaged drive and go to a post office and mail it, yes at your cost (yeah no credit or anything even though they sold you a rubbish drive), to some place in Calexico, California. Calexico? Really? Ok, whatever, so the drive gets mailed off and about 2 to 4 weeks later they will let you know they received it. And if you won the WD lotto they will replace it with another drive and mail it back to you slow boat from Calexico.Why slow boat? Well, I literally live about 100 miles from Calexico and it would be faster for me to pick it up on a bicycle. They must use the cheapest, slowest mailing tier possible. Like delivered by Mexican Coyote human smuggler tier or something. If you lived next door to the WD place, it would take at least a week to get your new drive. You could probably mail a postcard to the UK faster.Anyway, so now I am waiting on my new drive arriving. I am looking for the Coyote to drop it off at my front door. I will update once I have it.

I picked up this 10TB WD Red Plus as a replacement for a failing drive in my NAS, and it performed exactly as hoped. The unit successfully rebuilt the RAID array using this drive - yes, it took quite a while since I'm running consumer-grade equipment, but that's expected with a 10TB rebuild. The 7200 RPM speed and CMR technology really shine in NAS applications compared to SMR drives that can struggle during rebuilds.Everything is running smoothly now and my data feels much better protected. The 256MB cache and SATA 6 Gb/s interface keep up well with my network demands. WD Red Plus drives are specifically designed for NAS environments, and it shows - no compatibility issues, proper vibration handling, and built to run 24/7. Worth every penny for the peace of mind, especially when replacing a failing drive. If you're running a home NAS, don't cheap out on drives - this is exactly what you want protecting your data.