WD Red Pro Review: 4 TB Drives for NAS Systems Benchmarked

Multi-Client Access - NAS Environment

We put the NAS drives in the QNAP TS-EC1279U-SAS-RP through some IOMeter tests with a CIFS share being accessed from up to 25 VMs simultaneously. The following four graphs show the total available bandwidth and the average response time while being subject to different types of workloads through IOMeter. IOMeter also reports various other metrics of interest such as maximum response time, read and write IOPS, separate read and write bandwidth figures etc. Some of the interesting aspects from our IOMeter benchmarking run are linked below:

1. WD Red Pro
2. Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5" HDD v4
3. WD Red
4. Seagate NAS HDD
5. WD Se
6. Seagate Terascale
7. WD Re
8. Seagate Constellation ES.3
9. Toshiba MG03ACA400
10. HGST Ultrastar 7K4000 SAS

Western Digital Red Pro 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - 100% Sequential ReadsSeagate Enterprise Capacity v4 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - 100% Sequential ReadsWestern Digital Red 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - 100% Sequential ReadsSeagate NAS HDD 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - 100% Sequential ReadsWestern Digital Se 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - 100% Sequential ReadsSeagate Terascale 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - 100% Sequential ReadsWestern Digital Re 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - 100% Sequential ReadsSeagate Constellation ES.3 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - 100% Sequential ReadsToshiba MG03ACA400 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - 100% Sequential ReadsHGST Ultrastar 7K4000 SAS 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - 100% Sequential Reads

Western Digital Red Pro 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Max Throughput - 50% ReadsSeagate Enterprise Capacity v4 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Max Throughput - 50% ReadsWestern Digital Red 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Max Throughput - 50% ReadsSeagate NAS HDD 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Max Throughput - 50% ReadsWestern Digital Se 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Max Throughput - 50% ReadsSeagate Terascale 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Max Throughput - 50% ReadsWestern Digital Re 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Max Throughput - 50% ReadsSeagate Constellation ES.3 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Max Throughput - 50% ReadsToshiba MG03ACA400 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Max Throughput - 50% ReadsHGST Ultrastar 7K4000 SAS 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Max Throughput - 50% Reads

Western Digital Red Pro 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Random 8K - 70% ReadsSeagate Enterprise Capacity v4 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Random 8K - 70% ReadsWestern Digital Red 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Random 8K - 70% ReadsSeagate NAS HDD 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Random 8K - 70% ReadsWestern Digital Se 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Random 8K - 70% ReadsSeagate Terascale 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Random 8K - 70% ReadsWestern Digital Re 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Random 8K - 70% ReadsSeagate Constellation ES.3 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Random 8K - 70% ReadsToshiba MG03ACA400 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Random 8K - 70% ReadsHGST Ultrastar 7K4000 SAS 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Random 8K - 70% Reads

Western Digital Red Pro 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Real Life - 65% ReadsSeagate Enterprise Capacity v4 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Real Life - 65% ReadsWestern Digital Red 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Real Life - 65% ReadsSeagate NAS HDD 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Real Life - 65% ReadsWestern Digital Se 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Real Life - 65% ReadsSeagate Terascale 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Real Life - 65% ReadsWestern Digital Re 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Real Life - 65% ReadsSeagate Constellation ES.3 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Real Life - 65% ReadsToshiba MG03ACA400 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Real Life - 65% ReadsHGST Ultrastar 7K4000 SAS 4 TB - 3 HDDs / RAID-5 / 2x 1G - Real Life - 65% Reads

We see that the sequential accesses are still limited by the network link, but, this time, on the NAS side. On the other hand, our random access tests show markedly better performance for drives such as the Seagate Enterprise Capacity, Seagate Constellation, WD Re, etc. Not only is the total available bandwidth higher, the average response times also go down.