The secret sauce in these drives is the firmware, or as WD is calling it NASware. NAS devices in the home are often used for bulk storage of media, they may have some shared documents and be used as back-ups, too; but they're most often used to store movies, music and images. ATA streaming command is featured in NASware, to alter the behavior of the drive while streaming media, in an effort to ensure smooth playback, even while serving mutliple streams. They've also included error correction optimizations to prevent a drive from dropping out of a RAID array while it chases down a piece of corrupt data. The downside is that you might see an artifact on the screen briefly while streaming a movie, the upside is that you won't have playback pause for a few seconds, or for good depending on your configuration, while the drive drops off the RAID to fix the error.

Then there's the matter of performance. With quoted performance of around 150 MB/s these drives are nudging into Black territory. WD's new balance mechanism contributes to this. By actively balancing the drive during use there's no need to slow the drive down to prevent damage, so performance remains high. There's also a reported power savings, which WD says will make up the price delta for these drives over the rest of the line through your power bill.


Read more at http://www.anandtech.com/show/6083/wd-intr...dQwGIWbDdJli.99

Last I saw it was RM100 more then the Green equivalent for 3TB. Also seeing the same price difference on newegg.com (USD 30 difference). You using it on your server?

Well I'm waiting for the Red drives to reach Penang...so far no shop carry them yet (not to mention Green drives still cost a bomb here).

Thinking of putting a 3TB red into my DNS320...should be no problem right?

Based on my list from ditributor, it is  less than a hundred difference between the Green (WD30EZRX) and the RED(WD30EFRX).

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Added on July 31, 2012, 6:58 pm

I have not, I have 4TB currently in my N40L...about 70% full now... so, who knows I might drop one RED into the additional bay and do some comparo... 

Rgrds

I must admit that I'm not particular sensitive abt the data on the 2x2TB as mostly are entertainments media which I can d/l again.   Are you using the N40L BIOS RAID  or you have a separate controller installed into your N40L?

Would like to ask a general question here.

What would be the easiest to setup NAS for home user with bittorrent & emule capability?
And where to get them from?

Thanks in advance.

Anyone fancy the latest WD Red NAS Hard Drives to replace your green drives (not designed for 24x7 probably).. PM me for indicative price..

where is this shipped in from?
Warranty world wide?

Gonna get it from WD local distributor so warranty remains the same standard WD warranty..

Well I'm waiting for the Red drives to reach Penang...so far no shop carry them yet (not to mention Green drives still cost a bomb here).

Thinking of putting a 3TB red into my DNS320...should be no problem right?