Can I substitute other identical physical sized hard drives to this unit, such as four western digital green series 3TB or 4TB hard drives instead? WD Red Enterprise drives are great, but too expensive, and not everyone necessarily needs them for their individual needs. Can I substitute other identical physical sized hard drives to this unit, such as four western digital green series 3TB or 4TB hard drives instead? WD Red Enterprise drives are great, but too... » Read More Can I substitute other identical physical sized hard drives to this unit, such as four western digital green series 3TB or 4TB hard drives instead? WD Red Enterprise drives are great, but too expensive, and not everyone necessarily needs them for their individual needs. « Show Less
860400
I concur with Robin V on this one - I suggest replacing any failed drives with a WD RED drive. They are built to work in NAS boxes under constant use while other drives are not built for this kind of use and abuse.
860401
If you pre purchase the 16TB it comes with Reds and you cant change that. But if you buy the disk less version you can put any drive in their compatibility list on WDs site. Some current Greens are on there, but they are unable to test backward with older Greens that are no longer manufactured. (but may still work) I am using 2 not on their list and they work fine.
860402
I "third" Robin V.'s comment. A few years ago, I installed four Seagate consumer drives equivalent to WD green line HDs in a Drobo and had 2 single drive failures followed by 3 simultaneous failures that resulted in a lot of downtime and some data loss. WD Red drives are built for NAS use and have not failed me yet (multiple years in, now!) And for those counting, yes, that was 5 failures with 4 (purchased) Seagate 1.5TB drives -- the first drive that failed was replaced under Seagate's warranty, and then that replacement failed. All failures happened between 6 and 18 months after purchase/deployment. I "third" Robin V.'s comment. A few years ago, I installed four Seagate consumer drives equivalent to WD green line HDs in a Drobo and had 2 single drive failures followed by 3 simultaneous failures that resulted in a lot of downtime and some data loss. WD Red drives are built for NAS use and have not failed me yet (multiple years in, now!) And for those counting, yes, that was 5 failures with 4 (purchased) Seagate 1.5TB drives -- the first drive that failed was replaced under Seagate's warranty, and then that replacement failed. All failures happened between 6 and 18 months after... » Read More I "third" Robin V.'s comment. A few years ago, I installed four Seagate consumer drives equivalent to WD green line HDs in a Drobo and had 2 single drive failures followed by 3 simultaneous failures that resulted in a lot of downtime and some data loss. WD Red drives are built for NAS use and have not failed me yet (multiple years in, now!) And for those counting, yes, that was 5 failures with 4 (purchased) Seagate 1.5TB drives -- the first drive that failed was replaced under Seagate's warranty, and then that replacement failed. All failures happened between 6 and 18 months after purchase/deployment. « Show Less
638240
If you buy 16TB you can't add more, but in case that one crashed you can simply replace it with same size, all drives must have same size, for example you have 4TBx4, to replace one it has to be 4TB if it is 3TBx4 to replace it has to be 3TB and so on, this the rules of RAID 5 configuration.
1364122
No. Get something more reliable like a WD BLUE OR BLACK (black is better) This drive failed on me after only 4 months in my Xbox 360. I replaced it with a 360mb WD black after a lot of careful research.
104431
I too have 4 Western Digital Red 3TB drives in mine. No problems. Assuming that your drives are the same physical size as these, you should be OK.
1456423
I bought a hard drive from Go Hard Drive and had a problem. I tried to get warranty from WD and in fact returned it to them and they told me it was not one of their drives. I returned it to Go Hard Drive and they replaced it. Please, if you want a genuine WD drive, make sure you are buying it from a genuine WD dealer. Then verify the production date when you receive it and update the warranty with WD.
1600420
This unit does not come with hard drives. They have 2 slots that will accept up to 4TB each. I highly recommend getting the Western Digital RED drives since they are made specifically for NAS to run 24/7.
41314
My two WD Green 2TB drives worked until one failed. The two WD Red 4-TB drive does not work in DNS-321, failed to format and could not recognize the correct capacity in the RAID 1 configuration menu. FW is v1.03.
96349
Dr. Bozarth, I take all reviews with a grain of salt of course. I also noticed the disparity in the ratings between the two sites. I usually frequent thehomeservershow.com. Many of the forum members are I.T. Professionals, or like myself, a medical professional with a keen interest in technology. The Western Digital Green Drives were the go to drives in the past, but were not ideal for NAS/RAID situations. Many of the members have had good luck with the RED drives, but still recommend a program such as SpinRite or HD Tune Pro to evaluate the drive before putting it into service. I can only recall one situation where a member reported a DOA Red Drive, and many more situations where the Green drives presented problems. The recommended drives for your scenario would be the WD Red drives or the Seagate NAS drives. RAID-1 would be a good solution, and a cloud backup such as CrashPlan on top of that. I have personally purchased two 3TB Red drives and have had no problems with them in the 6-12 months I have owned them. Hope this helps.
46265
WD Black drive are high performance consumer drives. They're designed for things like desktop PCs. WD Red drives are constructed with NAS and home/small business servers in mind. WD Red drives are built with things like more vibration resistance, lower operating temperatures, and a longer warranty. This in turn gives them more reliability in an "always on" situation where they would be subject to constant use. The enhanced vibration resistance also gives them more stability when used with multiple other HDDs as they would be subject to more vibration this way. If you plan on having your home server with multiple drives in a RAID config and keeping it on at all times to access then I would recommend WD Reds.
807230
If you are trying to use this as an internal HDD, you might want to double check on the size there. That's a 3.5" HDD commonly used in desktops; unless you were planning on using this drive in an external HDD rig I would suggest you look into the 2.5" HDDs.*Suggestion: go with <Western Digital Bare Drives 2.5 Inch, Low Profile, 5400 RPM, SATA II, 8MB Cache 500GB Mobile Hard Drive, Blue WD5000LPVT> it's only $3 more ($43.99) than that desktop HDD for double the capacity.
756894
Just make sure that you aren't going to use it as master boot, windows won't use more then to 2tb and the other 2tb are unusable. As far as Green vs Black WD Black These high-performance SATA drives combine 7200 RPM spin speed, up to 64 MB cache, SATA 3 Gb/s interface, and an integrated dual processor for lightning-fast performance in demanding desktop, workstation, and multi-drive systems. WD Green These drives make it possible for energyconscious customers to build systems with higher capacitiesand the right balance of system performance,ensured reliability, and energy conservation.
1113307
This NAS does not ship with hard drives. You can view a full compatible list here:http://www.qnap.com/i/en/product_x_grade/product_intro.php?g_cat=1&II;=117&hf;=oldI purchased two of these from Amazon Warehouse, and both work flawlessly.WD Red 3 TB NAS Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, SATA III, 64 MB Cache - WD30EFRX
1128744
For years I have been purchasing both Seagate and Western Digital for system builds (they are the only two brands of mechanical hard drives I will use), although I have bought many more Seagate drives. The reason for that is because I seem to find better pricing on Seagate drives, which is the reason for my personal opinion: Go with whichever of the two has the best price per similar spec (transfer speed, cache size, etc.); they both manufacture high quality, dependable products that don't break the bank.
891990
Hi there. First of all, I dont recommend any WD green line hard drive as a system (C:) drive, because the speed. These drives are excelent as a external storage (via usb or esata cables). Try a new sata cable in a different sata slot. For format use operative system tools (avoid and unistall every acronis software, even the free one). Do not intent repair or manipulate in any form the drive with any tool. Try a RMA from WD. Hopes this helps.
244281
That's an excellent question......, unfortunately I think that only Amazon or what ever retailer that's selling the drive can answer! Reason being that in my opinion, these drives are great and the only thing that separates them is the capacity that they have. So if you can buy a larger drive for less money, and with all due respect, don't be a Schmuck and buy a drive with higher capacity! :-) The physical size is the same for all of the Cruzer fit drives!
2062748
All NAS manufacturers recommend a list of hard drives to be used with their NAS. But I have been using hard drives from WD only but different models. I am using on my own risk and you certainly need to do it on your own too.I use exclusively for audio and video in my network (no documents or backup). Green drives with 5400 is OK for me to stream 15GB HD movies.
2147086
Yes - and basically, it's whichever WD Green SATA drive is plentiful inventory-wise at the build time for these enclosures, so it varies from batch to batch. But they're all in the same category of performance and specs. I've gone through 4 of them just to harvest the drives as they're typically a little less cost than the bare drive at some vendors.
506901
You sure can. I have mine working with one WD red 3tb hard drive. Will upgrade to another one same capacity once I get this one full.