Question 1

Are the screw holes for mounting at the standard spacing?

Accepted Answer

Yes and No.  Yes because they are the new standard spacing for drives 6TB and larger.  No because drives 6TB and larger don't have holes with the same spacing as older/smaller drives.

Drives up to 4TB have 3 holes on each side and many mounting rails use all 3; the two outside ones are used with screws while the inner one has a "wart" on it.  These new driver that are larger than 4TB eliminated that middle hole so the rails can't be used without modifying them. Also many smaller cases that don't use rails rely upon using the hole closest to the front of the drive and the one in the middle; the drive bay metal simply isn't deep enough to have screw holes for the two outer most holes.

As for the holes on the bottom. Drives 4TB and smaller have holes spaced 1.75" while this drive (and apparently all 6TB and larger drives) are spaced 3" apart.  Not all cases which use those bottom mount holes have accommodation for the wider spacing.

Question 2

Can I just use this drive as a normal internal desktop drive? To store movies and videos.

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can. I have had the WD Red drives on standard Windows and Linux desktops. They behave like any other HDD in that respect. The only difference with the Red drives is their firmware is optimized for RAID operations, but that doesn’t prevent them from operating in a non-RAID setup. These are perfect for large storage. Relatively slow, but economical on the TB/$ front.

Questions & Answers