Product ReviewsWestern Digital Red Plus (5400RPM, 3.5", SATA III, 64MB Cache) 3TB Internal Enterprise Drive - WD30EFRX

Fast enough, quiet enough, cool enough, reliable enough, a solid winner

Needed a large hard drive for file sharing duty, and it had to be reasonably fast without roasting itself inside a hard drive dock. WD Red met all specs on paper, exceeded all specs in reality. Other drives in docks around my home needed a small fan attached to remain below 40 C during hot summer months, whereas the WD Red 3TB has been rock solid at 35 C without a fan, even during days exceeding 100 F outside and 80 F inside the house. It did reach 41 C once, during a 48GB write over USB 3.0, but it also reached 140MBytes per second writing that video file. Never tested in a RAID or NAS enclosure, don't need such things.

Potential buyers should be aware of 2TB limit in older motherboards, necessitating two partitions for compatibility between such boards and newer ones. Usage in a hard drive dock also requires simple precautions in line with all hard drives, such as allowing the platters to spin down before removing from the dock, and allowing for air movement around the drive to prevent heat building up during long backups.

WD has a winner in this line of drives. They're fast enough, quiet enough, run cool and available in very large capacities. They're not cheap, but then, with this drive, I got exactly what I wanted, for what I was willing to pay. The only real complaint I have is that I did not buy more of them, an issue I plan to rectify as soon as possible.Read full review...

Great Performance and a quick easy install

I was looking for a higher capacity hard drive with good performance. I found the WD Red drive to be every thing I was looking for. It was very easy to install and it made me lose focus on the time it took to load because it was just that fast. I always look for the biggest bang for my buck and I do believe I found it! The drive has really nothing negative to say about it. I would buy another just like it!Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: new | Sold by: myxuyen_corp

Fast and good

Bought two of these to use in RAID 1 NAS and they work like a charm. Only downside is that when using RAID 1 they are even slower than a normal HDD. I don't think it matters since RAID 1 is used for backup and you write much less than you read from it and the read speeds are as great as a normal HDD. When using them to max (both reading and writing a lot of data) they are still more silent than my fans so I have never heard then.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: new | Sold by: k8ndx4ja

Best high capacity internal I have ever purchased. A/V streaming powerhouse

I'm using this drive in my combo main Computer/Media server as a A/V storage and streaming drive. This is my first drive larger than 2.5TB and my first WD Red..It will not be my last! I monitor all my HD's in R/T and while I generally have had good experiences with WD drives, this 3TB Red is exceptional! Of course time will tell, but I have a unusually trusting feeling about this drive, It's SMART stats are the best I've seen on a post flood drive and I think it would run fairly cool without the active cooling I use on all my HD's. And to top it all off, this drive is FAST! I will only be buying WD Red's from now on, and since this drive only has 600GB free, I will be buying another two very soon!Read full review...

WD Red Plus Means Reliability

WD Red (now Plus) drives with CMR are the best for NAS use. I should know, I have a bunch in different sizes. They are uber reliable. Their slow 5400 rpm speed means they write data more slowly than 7200 rpm drives, but they run cooler and last longer.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: meinhard

Good Drives

This drive is made for NAS usage just what I was looking for, if I fill it I will pop them out and put in a bigger drives in my unit they are very reliable , nice a quiet in my NAS unit, would recommend
Western Digital any day. In all of my years working on computers and big storage units they don't fail if you keep them cool better than average and fast transfer rates. cant go wrong. Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: lg2k

WD NAS WD30EFRX 3TB Drive

Installed 2 of these drives in a network attached storage device. Operating system quickly recognized the devices and paired them in a RAID configuration. Initial tests reported OK. Ran extended tests. Hours later, drives reported no errors or bad sectors.
These drives should last several years if properly maintained.
I'll purchased higher capacity WD drives in the future.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: new | Sold by: newegg

Used WD Red (CMR) 3TB NAS drives at a great price!

Recently I set up a home network NAS server, two actually; one new and one purchased used on ebay. The used one is a 4-bay unit that arrived with 3 of these WD30EFRX 3TB NAS drives, in a Raid-5 array. That left the fourth bay empty, and as the the 3 WD drives were all matching I opted to find another drive to match them and set up a new array with all four bays in use. These older drives are not the WD Red drives being sold today. The specs appear to be the same, but there's a major difference between these older Red's and today's drives: These drives use CMR technology, while today's Red's use SMR. I'm not going to waste the space defining these terms, but I recommend you research them as to how they differ. If you want the superior CMR in a WD Red NAS drive today you must buy WD Red Plus. There's a big difference in price. Since the 3 WDs I inherited with my NAS server were not new, but in perfect condition with no errors and great specs, I purchased a used drive here on ebay. The price was excellent, shipping was quick and the drive checks out perfectly. Of course, used is used, but let's be real here. I'm running a home network for my pleasure, and to create adequate storage for tons of media and information on all kinds of subjects I've been collecting since the1980's. These WD30EFRX drives are perfect for this! Remember, NAS is for storage, not for backup, so I backup my storage. I'm also watching the drives' conditions for deterioration. You cannot beat the quality of these drives for the prices they are being sold at!Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: nextuse_usa

Awesome!

Worked excellently and quietly! Used as my secondary HDD in my gaming rig to give me a total of 4 TB of space to store all my digital content (games and save files). I love this HDD and would definitely recommend it to others!Read full review...

good for NAS box

I have 4 of these installed in a NAS (network attached storage) box that is connected to my wireless router. This is configured as a RAID storage box. All users have access to select files on this box (provided they have the correct password!) thru the WiFi connection. These drives run 24/7. This is a replacement for a failed drive that had been in use for almost 3 years! Very Reliable!Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: craig_lloyd