Can WD20EARS run side by side with a WD20EZRX hard drive.
Hi, I am very new here, so I apologise for posting a question that may have already been answered.
I have a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+V2 (4bay). At the moment I have 4 WD20EARS Caviar Green hard drives running. I need to buy another hard drive to replace one of them and I am having a lot of trouble getting the same model hard drive here in Australia. Most suppliers stock the WD20EZRX Caviar Green hard drive which I hear is a later model. I am wondering whether this will be a problem or whether it is compatible to run side by side with the WD20EARS hard drives?
Thanking you in advanced for your help in this matter.
Re: Can WD20EARS run side by side with a WD20EZRX hard drive
Hi mdgm, Would you mind elaborating on:
mdgm wrote:
I don't recommend Green drives.
The Green are fare less expensive than the Red ones. Is this a reliability (Red are designed for NAS), a performance problem (they run with lower speed) ,... ? I'm considering a Green for my ReadyNas Duo v1 (which does not officially supports the Red drive at http://www.readynas.com/app/hcl_disk). Regards, Gilles
Re: Can WD20EARS run side by side with a WD20EZRX hard drive
The Green disks have the WDIDLE3 timer set to a very short period. Green disks will have a load cycle count that rises rapidly. You can change this behaviour using the WDIDLE3 utility.
Regardless of which disks you choose you should backup your data regularly. No important data should be stored on just the one device, no matter what that device is.
Re: Can WD20EARS run side by side with a WD20EZRX hard drive
Also NAS drives (like Reds) have a longer warranty, and are intended by the drive manufacturer for NAS use. The 3 year warranty more than makes up for the small price difference.
The WD20EFRX works well in the v1 platforms (despite not being on the long-neglected HCL). I recommend it also. If your warranty is over, there are no support implications. Frankly even I were still under warranty, I'd still get the red drive.
From a performance perspective, the REDs are similar to green drives. They run at similar speeds, and have similar throughput, and both are acoustically quiet. The REDs are advertised as less vibration, which is a good thing when you have multiple drives in the same chassis. From an energy perspective, they are at least as efficient as the EZRX.
There is a higher-performing version of the REDs (the "Red Pro") which were recently announced. I haven't heard much here about them, which is a bit surprising. The v1 platforms are pretty slow, so they probably are overkill for you.
Re: Can WD20EARS run side by side with a WD20EZRX hard drive
Thanks, indeed I was initially confused with the fact the WD20EZRX was not in the official compatibility list. This was the only reason I was looking for an alternative. Thanks for your feedback and the community reporting the WD20EZRX as compatible with Duo v1, I bought and setup my new volume with 2 new disks. This works fine. Thanks again and Happy New Year 2015!
