Question 1

I want to use this as a regular drive (with Win7 OS) in my PC which I am making into a personal DVR. Will it be suitable for that?

Accepted Answer

It will work just fine for that, but might be overkill in price compared to the WD Blue or Purple drives which are really meant for DVR.  These drives will still do what you are asking without any issues though and do have a longer rated life-span / better build quality and firmware.  The only con I have found to these drives is they are noticeably louder during access than my WD blue drives, but not as loud as my older 150GB WD VelociRaptor drive.

Have you considered using a smaller ssd for your OS and then use one of these or something else as the "media/dvr" drive?  Doing this has made my home HTPC much more responsive while letting the storage drives spin down when not in use and thus save wear on them since the HTPC is on 24/7.

Question 2

Mac compatible?

Accepted Answer

Yes--It's in my Synology Server backing upmy Pegasus2 R4 Hard drive and my new iMac.  Works fine after I finally got everything configured (which was because of the Synology system not the WD Drive)

Question 3

I would like to put these in Vivotek NVRs. Are these good for video?

Accepted Answer

I don't know what a Vivotek is, but WD has drives marked "Purple" for surveillance systems. Other than that, the Red Pro's would work but might be more expensive because they are setup for 7200 RPM RAID arrays.

Question 4

The description on these drives say "Up to 16 bay".  Why wouldn't these drives work in a 24 bay enclosure?

Accepted Answer

It has to do with vibration and how the hard drive can compensate for.  I have 16 of these in a 24 bay server case with the other 8 positions being Intel 2500 Pro 480GB SSDs.  Will it work with a full case of 24?  Maybe, but you are now operating them outside of designed limits and could encounter such drastic things as head crashes (the read/write head actually contacts the data platter(s)) if the vibration of all the drives get's in sync and starts to amplify each other.  Look up "resonance" or "resonance amplification" to get more info on the phenomenon.

Your best bet to run more than 16 at a time is to have the raid arrays broken up so all the drives don't try to spin-up or seek tasks at the same time.  While doing so isn't a guarantee against more than 16 drives going active at the same time, it can attempt to limit such cases.

Question 5

Any reason two of these drives would not be suitable for use on a desktop in a Raid 1 configuration?  I'm building on a recent Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3- motherboard.  I store a lot of video and large graphic files.  Are they overkill versus a similar Black drive?

Accepted Answer

WD states the PRO drives spin at 7200 and they have a 5 year warranty so that is all good and they should work fine. There was some question about rotation speed on the non-Pro red drives (they were slower).

I use these when I need 3 or more in a RAID 5. For a RAID 1 I have used the Black drives and the Velociraptors (10K RPM) with good results.

Brand	WD
Series	Red Pro
Model	WD3001FFSX
Packaging	Bare Drive

Interface	SATA 6.0Gb/s
Capacity	3TB
RPM	7200 RPM
Cache	64MB

Features	Storage for 1 to 16 bay NAS solutions - Joining the original color of NAS, WD Red Pro adds support for medium and large 1-16 bay NAS business storage systems. WD Red Pro hard drives integrate WD's exclusive technology, NASware 3.0, to provide unparalleled support for drive compatibility, reliability, and performance. Exclusive NASware 3.0 technology - Our exclusive advanced firmware technology built into every WD Red Pro drive, NASware 3.0 enables seamless integration, robust data protection and optimal performance for systems operating in the demanding NAS environment. Error Recovery Prevention - Built specifically for RAID and NAS environments, WD Red Pro drives come equipped with error recovery controls as part of NASware 3.0, which prevents the drive from fallout in RAID applications. Vibration Protection - In combination with 3D Active Balance Plus, WD Red Pro also features hardware vibration compensation technology which monitors the drive to correct both linear and rotational vibration in real time, further increasing drive reliability.
Usage	For NAS systems

Form Factor	3.5"
Height (maximum)	26.10mm
Width (maximum)	101.60mm
Length (maximum)	147.00mm

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WD Red Pro 3TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM Class SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD3001FFSX

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