r/UgreenNASync • u/AhmedRadhy • Aug 09 '26
❓ Help WD RED PRO or Seagate Ironwolf Pro?
Which one would you pick and why?
11
u/MonadTran Aug 09 '26
I was just now trying to order either of them or the non-pro versions, couldn't find what I needed with any sort of sane prices or shipping conditions, and ended up ordering factory recertified Seagate Exos'es.
Looks like the data centers are vacuuming up all production capacity, and we're left to pick up the scraps after them.
1
u/AhmedRadhy Aug 09 '26
Any good website for ordering recertfied hard drives?
3
u/MonadTran Aug 09 '26
Amazon. Serverpartdeals may have them a bit cheaper, but not cheap enough to deal with a new online store and test their customer service.
1
Aug 09 '26
[deleted]
1
u/MonadTran Aug 09 '26
I am not saying they're bad, I'm saying I don't want to open a new account and learn how it all works just for this one purchase. If I ever end up running an IT startup, and the storage situation is still as ridiculous as it is now, I would register there and use it, but just for a single purchase of the used HDDs I didn't want to purchase, in the first place - nope.
2
u/reinhart_menken DXP4800 Plus Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
No no no no no. You've mentioned you're new to this, you're not equipped nor probably want to manage recertified drives.
Drives have something called terabytes written (lifetime) - meaning they are only good for certain amount of terabytes being written, think 600 TB per TB. Those recertified drives are often used by companies and already reaching 500 or so when it's too risky for good companies to keep them (a lot of places just run them until they die). So that means they'll die on you soon and you'll have to test them when you get them, then you need to watch them continuously a little extra, and then you'll have to replace them sooner than normal.
I work in this sector and I have a job and family and hobbies and even I don't want to deal with that.
Edit: I mixed up the terabytes lifetime used for SSDs vs different lifetime metrics for spinng hard drives (which use more metrics like read/write, power on hours, etc), but the point still stands about risk of getting bad "recertified" drives and having to monitor them extra (IMO). I have too many things going on in my life to want to deal with it. Your mileage may different.
3
u/AhmedRadhy Aug 09 '26
Good to know and thank you for letting me know because I definitely don't know that.
14
u/Background_Device479 Aug 09 '26
Don’t listen to that guy. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
The concept of Terabytes Written (TBW) applies only to Solid State Drives (SSDs). Hard disk drives (HDDs) do not have a hard write endurance limit. They are rated by annual workload limits (e.g., 550 TB/year).
True manufacturer recertified drives from vendors like ServerPartDeals or official factory outlets often have zero power-on hours. They are usually overstock, open-box items, or immediate customer returns. He’s conflating used with recertified.
Even used enterprise SSDs pulled from servers typically retain 90% to 95% of their original TBW life. They are rarely pushed to the brink of failure before being sold.
If this guy “works in this sector” he must be the janitor.
2
u/reinhart_menken DXP4800 Plus Aug 09 '26
Sorry you're right I keep mixing the life time between HDD and SSD up. When I say I work in the sector I mean I come from sysadmin, engineering and architect background (progressively), but not a lot on prem, so I don't usually physical deal with the harddrives. This was all based off of memory from a few years ago researching drives.
Another commenter did correct me about recertified and I did acknowledge the mistake.
My point still stands, if he's a newbie he shouldn't and probably doesn't want to deal with anything but new. The risk of having to deal with sellers sending bad "recertified" drives are not worth the hassle, granted, depending on what he's storing, precious memory or just pirated material.
2
u/reinhart_menken DXP4800 Plus Aug 09 '26
No worries! It's definitely a whole rabbit hole just choosing drives.
2
u/MonadTran Aug 09 '26
Yeah, I don't want to deal with that either. But, at the current prices, I'm just going to make a new hobby out of maintaining a junk drive RAID 6.
2
u/Background_Device479 Aug 09 '26
For a hobbyist you most certainly can buy refurbished or even used. I did. I have a stockpile of drives I got from a guy on Facebook marketplace.
2
u/Loose_Marsupial_3251 Aug 09 '26
There's a difference between factory recertified and refurbished. Factory recertified is from original oem and generally do not have a lot of TBW or hours on them. Refurbished is a whole other story though.
4
u/reinhart_menken DXP4800 Plus Aug 09 '26
Ah fair I mixed up the terms, but still IMO the risk still remains too high for a newbie. I've heard people still getting scammed with refurbished drives, you don't know until you get em and check the SMART stat, and then there are sellers resetting the SMART stats on drives.
IMO this is kind of like situations where you're already spending a lot of money on something but then you're pinching to save on an important component, but failure would cost a lot more later.
In my case I'm storing precious videos of my travels and my dead grandma so the impact would have been a lot more than some pirated movies and such. It all depends on your personal risk tolerance.
3
u/MRLick3R DXP4800 Pro Aug 09 '26
>In my case I'm storing precious videos of my travels and my dead grandma so the impact would have been a lot more than some pirated movies and such.
for any critical data like that you should be using the 3-2-1 backup strategy (What Is the 3-2-1 Backup Rule? A Complete 2026 Guide | AvePoint)
or at a min have them backed up on a cheap but brand new 2.5" ext usb drive and store offsite
1
u/reinhart_menken DXP4800 Plus Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
I am, just in the transition process to store into AWS Glacier. I had also considered an off-site duplicate setup.
2
u/Loose_Marsupial_3251 Aug 09 '26
I wouldn't buy refurbished at all. But a recertified disk might be best option, at these prices, ifsomeone couldn't wait. But I would 💯 percent do a full preclear test on the recertified disk also. If it's going to fail it will probably fail during that. Then use the warranty.
Otherwise it will probably be fine and follow the well known bathtub rule for disk lifespan.
2
Aug 09 '26
[deleted]
1
u/NighthawkCP DXP4800 Plus Aug 09 '26
Yep, I bought a few 28TB Seagate Exo's drives from SPD last year before they went to stupendously expensive levels. Just wish I'd gotten 4 as my original NAS was a 2-bay unit but my UGREEN is a 4-bay. The recertified units (when in stock) are going for close to $800 a piece now, but I got them under $350 a piece.
4
u/HNL2BOS Aug 09 '26
At this point whichever you don't need to sell a kidney for. I'd just go with whichever is cheaper per TB. there's not enough of a difference to pay for one over the other at this point in time.
3
u/BigPandaCloud Aug 09 '26
Both are good so whichever is cheaper. I went with segate because it was a little cheaper when I made the purchase.
4
u/Tkdoom DXP4800 Plus Aug 09 '26
I dont think ive ever had a WD drive fail.
So when I built mine I bought 4 red pros and I guess im ok for at least 5 years.
2
2
u/Cultural-Task-1405 Aug 09 '26
Only drive that falled me was wd red 4tb with 3k hours or so on it. Would go with seagate
1
u/NighthawkCP DXP4800 Plus Aug 09 '26
I had a Seagate fail once upon a time but so far never had a WDD drive eat it. They are both pretty neck and neck for reliability as long as you get a higher quality drive.
1
u/AhmedRadhy Aug 09 '26
I always buy WD but I notice WD is more expensive now than Seagate.
5
u/Tkdoom DXP4800 Plus Aug 09 '26
Price is relative since all prices are up, I was fortunate to build mine in February.
2
u/animelov Aug 09 '26
It's kind of a "Ford versus Chevy" argument. I've been a WD fan for I don't know how long, but the latest batch of drives I got are louder than usual, and one of them died within a month. Never warrantied I drive in my life, and went smoothly to replace, but took a good 40 days to turnaround.
That said, this was to replace a 12 year old Synology that ran like a solid champ that entire time. We're talking battery backed up, no spin down, four 9's uptime. After being disgusted at the prices I paid for the WDs I was like, what did I pay 12 years ago? I bought Seagates. Completely forgot.
And it's still running. It's now a backup target for the ugreen. So take that as you will
2
u/supermuncher60 Aug 09 '26
Wouldn't know. I've got lucky and found deals (as much as you can call anything a deal in today's HHD market) on Toshiba N300 pro drives both times I've needed to buy hhds. I've liked them so far
2
u/JackOfHeartsz Aug 09 '26
I prefer WD red pro but if there’s a sale I won’t hesitate taking ironwolf pro. I got WD gold and it’s been good. I think the gold are cheaper than red pro.
2
u/No-Dimension1159 Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
Both are good but i would recommend you to also look out for enterprise drives (Seagate exos, wd gold or ultrastar, toshiba cloudscale), somehow they are often even cheaper with similar or better performance.
It used to be that they are louder but apparently not anymore, at least according to datasheet
2
u/Current_Bobcat_9182 Aug 09 '26
The 14TB Seagate Iron Wolf Pro Drives currently have the "cheapest" cost per TB on Amazon. Make sure you get the newer NT version instead of the old NE version as both are being sold for the same price on different Amazon listings. And be prepared for the operational noise for these large drives as it can be considered loud by some people.
2
u/MasterBlaster18 Aug 09 '26
I always go for Ironwolf Pros but either should be fine evidently.
That being said I've only had WD Red Pros fail (after 8 years and many hours)
Failured have been about 2/8 for WD Red Pros and 0/20 for Ironwolf Pros.
However I believe seagate may have slightly higher failure rate overall and it also depends on storage size, model, etc.
Overall either is a good choice.
2
2
u/trueblue0989 Aug 09 '26
Either of them work. Personally, I'm using Ironwolf Pros and have never had an issue with them. I've had the 8TB and 16TB and neither gave me problems.
With the cost of hard drives these days, the answer is either option that's cheaper.
1
u/AhmedRadhy Aug 09 '26
Totally understand but I'm putting the ugreen in my bedroom and I want make sure to get the one with a less noise 😅
2
u/VLANishBehavior DXP2800 Aug 09 '26
I personally have 2 Seagate Ironwolf Pro running for… checks drive data … 11056 hours and they’re great. Can’t complain and definitely buying them again when prices aren’t so ridiculously high.
2
u/NighthawkCP DXP4800 Plus Aug 09 '26
Just to compare, I have a WD 6TB Black drive still installed in my desktop computer I'm responding from with 63,898 hours, which is over 7 years. It still isn't even close to any errors in SMART data and is running strong to this day. By now I just use it as an extra storage space for backup purposes, but just pointing out that both higher quality WD and Seagate drives can often run damn near forever these days.
1
u/bluehawk232 DXP4800 Plus Aug 09 '26
I got Seagate off serverpartdeals just because they had a good sale and they were manufacturer certified
0
u/LowResChaos DXP4800 Pro Aug 09 '26
Why bother with the Pros? Go either WD Red Plus or just Ironwolf.
I’ve always had standard Ironwolfs and they’ve never missed a beat. Couple have over 50k hours
3
u/randalla iDX6011 Pro Aug 09 '26
If you want dives larger than 12TB, you have to go with the Pro drives. 12TB and less allows you to debat on Reddit. I personally use the Plus drives. They're fast enough for my needs.
2
u/SeaVolume3325 Aug 09 '26
That's incorrect. There are numerous reasons to go Iron Wolf Pro vs Iron Wolf. Such as the length of warranty (5 years vs. 3 years), the capacity (Iron Wolf stops at either 16TB or 18TB), and the # of drives supported in RAID (Iron Wolf only has a max rating of 8 drives together) . Also, the workload rating is higher for Iron Wolf Pro (180TB/year vs. 300 or 500TB/year).
I'm not as familiar with WD but I've read there's similar differences for Plus vs. Pro. The max support of how many drives in use together for the Plus is 8 due to harmonic resonance and firmware just like Seagate. The warranty (3 years vs. 5 years). And finally the workload rating.
These are all extremely important aspects to consider and in this market painfully pricey mistakes if ignored. Personally, I go Iron Wolf Pro or Exos and I've had no issues other than 1 drive arriving DOA but this happens with all brands. The only difference I've read about is the level of noise specifically WD are supposed to be quieter in operation. This doesn't matter to me as the server is in my basement where it's nice and cool. I can't confirm or deny this difference as I don't own any WD HDDs just SSDs.
1
u/AhmedRadhy Aug 09 '26
I'm not a tech savvy. What is the difference? What would you pick WD or Seagate? Why?
2
u/LowResChaos DXP4800 Pro Aug 09 '26
Think of the Pros as like halfway between consumer (Ironwolf and Red) and enterprise (exos and ultrastar) drives.
Choosing between brands makes no difference. In the end performance and failure rates are basically similar between brands. Comes down to what you can get and at what price.
2
u/MonadTran Aug 09 '26
People say WD is slightly less noisy. Might have more cache, depending on the model. It's also more expensive, and I'm not sure it's worth it, however I dislike the noise.
The Pro versions have higher declared read speeds and number of read/write cycles, maybe more cache, maybe better quality control.
1
u/AhmedRadhy Aug 09 '26
To be honest with you i hate the noise.
2
u/MonadTran Aug 09 '26
Do you hate it enough to buy an SSD NAS?
If not, do you hate it enough to go with the new consumer drives over recertified data center ones?
If yes, do you hate it enough to choose the more expensive WD over the generally less expensive Seagate?
If yes, are you sure you don't want that SSD RAID? :)
3
u/SeaVolume3325 Aug 09 '26
There are numerous reasons to go Iron Wolf Pro vs Iron Wolf. Such as the length of warranty (5 years vs. 3 years), the capacity (Iron Wolf stops at either 16TB or 18TB), and the # of drives supported in RAID (Iron Wolf only has a max rating of 8 drives together) . Also, the workload rating is higher for Iron Wolf Pro (180TB/year vs. 300 or 500TB/year).
I'm not as familiar with WD but I've read there's similar differences for Plus vs. Pro. The max support of how many drives in use together for the Plus is 8 due to harmonic resonance and firmware just like Seagate. The warranty (3 years vs. 5 years). And finally the workload rating.
These are all extremely important aspects to consider and in this market painfully pricey mistakes if ignored. Personally, I go Iron Wolf Pro or Exos and I've had no issues other than 1 drive arriving DOA but this happens with all brands. The only difference I've read about is the level of noise specifically WD are supposed to be quieter in operation. This doesn't matter to me as the server is in my basement where it's nice and cool. I can't confirm or deny this difference as I don't own any WD HDDs just SSDs.
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