Western Digital RED 3TB Drive Problems

Singularity wrote:
1. Has anyone heard or does anyone have any information about the problem of using more than 5 of the WD30EFRX drives in a single NAS or should I just go ahead and use the WD30EFRX throughout?

It seems to me that the "problem of using more than 5 drives" is really just a misunderstanding of Western Digital's marketing literature. If WD advertised that a new drive was already certified by Dell, Synology, and Apple, would people assume that it was incompatible with equipment made by HP, Acer, Netgear, etc?

Singularity wrote:
2. If I need to use another manufacturer for a 3TB drive, can anyone make some recommendations?

There are only two and a half other choices...

Singularity wrote:
3. With regard to replacing my drives - which drives should I change first. The obvious choice is channel 1 and then channel 2 etc.

Yes. If you are starting with just two new 3TB drives, you must use them to replace two of your 1TB drives; if you don't, you won't get any expansion of your array.

Singularity wrote:
However, I was thinking of starting from channel 6 and working down. I would replace drive 5 and drive 6 with 3TB discs and use the 2TB discs in channels 1 and 2.

How is that different from simply replacing drives 1 and 2 with new 3TB drives? By replacing your 2TB drives with 3TB drives, then replacing two of your 1TB drives with your old 2TB drives, you're just making a lot more work for yourself... And that's assuming that your proposed method would work at all. I'm pretty sure that it won't; once you replace your 2TB drives with 3TB drives, you will no longer be able to replace your 1TB drives with anything smaller than a 3TB drive.