The WD Red Plus is a NAS hard drive designed to be a quieter, cheaper solution than the Red Pro . This comes at the cost of performance and warranty but positions it well for a budget offering on our list of best hard drives . It’s not as cheap as entry-level hard drives but offers an extra year of warranty and also a larger capacity range. It’s also less expensive than higher-end NAS models but faces competition from other angles. However, as it’s optimized for NAS and multi-drive environments, it is a better pick for NAS than retail alternatives like the Seagate BarraCuda Pro.
The 12TB Red Plus runs at 7200 RPM and uses CMR technology with a 256MB DRAM cache, which is a solid combination. However, its performance seems to fall short of expectations, and it doesn’t have the OptiNand technology of the Red Pro. This puts the Red Plus in a special spot, making it the best choice if you want a quieter, cooler multi-drive NAS solution.
Specifications
| Product | WD Red Plus |
|---|---|
| Capacity | 12TB |
| Model # | WD120EFBX |
| Pricing | $189.99 |
| Cost per TB | $15.83 |
| Interface | SATA 6 Gb/s |
| Form Factor | 3.5" |
| Technology | CMR |
| RPM | 7200 |
| Sustained Transfer Rate | Up to 196 MBps |
| Cache | 256MB |
| Operating Power | 6.3W |
| Noise | 29 dBA |
| Workload Rate Limit | 180 TB/year |
| MTBF | 1 million hours |
| Warranty | 3-year |
The WD Red Plus comes in a large variety of capacities with differing spindle speeds, and cache capacities. Today we’re looking at the 12TB model that is rated for 7200 RPM with a 256MB cache - it climbs to 512MB at 14TB - and an internal transfer rate of 196 MB/s. This is slower than its primary competition, the IronWolf NAS HDD, which is rated for 210 MB/s. Both drives have a three-year warranty with an MTBF rating of 1 million hours and a workload rate limit of 180 TB/year. Both also use CMR rather than SMR technology. The IronWolf, for its part, does pull more power on paper.
The 12TB Red Plus is currently $189.99, with a higher cost per terabyte than standard hard drives. It’s priced near the IronWolf but also the Seagate BarraCuda Pro. The latter has better performance and a longer warranty which makes it essentially a larger version of the FireCuda. The BarraCuda Pro, however, is not NAS-optimized and is also not designed for quiet operation like the Red Plus.
Software and Accessories
WD offers downloads for its Digital Dashboard and its version of Acronis True Image on its website. The first is useful for monitoring drive health and the latter enables you to image and clone your drives.
A Closer Look
The WD Red Plus doesn’t look special, but it is optimized for NAS. It’s designed to operate in a multi-drive environment and also has the NASaware firmware that’s used in the Red Pro . This bumps its warranty up an extra year versus entry-level internal storage like the Blue and Toshiba X300. The capacity range is also larger than the Blue’s, stripping away one of the X300’s benefits as the 12TB Red Plus is cheaper.
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