Question 1

Is this drive SSD?

Accepted Answer

No, this is a standard (moving parts) hard drive. The "Red" series of Western Digital drives come with an extended warranty and are built for NAS devices (they can operate next to other moving parts hard drives without prematurely failing due to the increased vibration), but they are not SSDs.

Question 2

So I am debating on buying a few of these drives for a 8 drive storage server. I have looked at the reviews and looked into the controversy about these drives.
 I seen that WD is planning to release a WD red CMR based drive. Is this drive a CMR drive?

Accepted Answer

Here is an article you should read. Note that it is from 2019 so any new drive would be in the new format.

https://dropbox.tech/infrastructure/smr-what-we-learned-in-our-first-year

Question 3

is the disk compatible with the WD MY Cloud EX2 Ultra?

Accepted Answer

To the best of my knowledge, yes.  In fact, "a different seller, named after a Brazilian rain forest", lists the 4TB WD Red as an item often purchased with the MY Cloud EX2 Ultra, so you should be good to go.

Question 4

does the red series make any difference for people running it in raid not in a nas but in a personal computer since i dont think with it being in raid that it will always need to be on unless raid arrays are just naturally always on?

Accepted Answer

Yes the Red series makes a difference, 1) once you set up a raid array since this is done in bios at the mobo level, it will always be on.  2) The Reds have more features and are better suited for response and reliability in RAID setups.

Questions & Answers