Seagate NAS and WD Red HDD DAS RAID Performance Analysis
We have covered plenty of NAS HDDs here at TweakTown, and the reason is simple: more and more users are purchasing NAS units every day. The expansion of NAS capabilities allows them to serve a much wider use-case than just a few years ago. In today’s digital-content tsunami, many users are searching for the best solution to manage their vast trove of data, and NAS fits the bill nicely. There is nothing quite like centralized storage to ease the headache of managing data from the ever-expanding number of devices in the home.
Surprisingly, we receive many requests about which drives will work best in a Direct Attach Storage (DAS) usage model. NAS HDDs are also commonly used for value-oriented DAS usage models, in arrays from one to five drives. The primary focus has always been the use of NAS drives in NAS units, but in reality, they can serve a dual purpose. Pairing these small RAID arrays with the latest RAID controllers provides significant advantages over NAS deployment models. We have conducted full product evaluations of both the WD Red, and the Seagate NAS unit. Our consumer storage editor, Chris Ramseyer, also examined the performance of NAS RAID arrays.