The new 4TB WD Red Pro is an upgraded version of WD's popular Red NAS (Network Attached Storage). The Pro Reds have a rotation speed of 7200 RPM unlike their regular Red counterparts which are marketed as "IntelliPower" but actually spin at fixed speeds of 5400 or 5700 RPM depending on the exact model. Comparing the regular 3TB Red and the 4TB Pro shows that the pro version is significantly faster across the board. The biggest performance gains are seen in the small file 4K area and are a direct consequence of lower access times due to the higher rotation speed of the Pro Red. As well as offering better performance the Pro Reds have 5 year warranties vs 3 years on the regular Reds. Unfortunately it's not all good news as the Pro Red is priced around 50% higher than its regular Red sibling and thus currently represents average value for money at best. [Oct '14HDrivePro]
With peak sequential read/write speeds of 140 and averages of 120 MB/s the 3TB WD Red is around 25% slower than the group leaders. If the Red is used in a NAS (Network Attached Storage), that won't make much difference because the vast majority of home networks still operate at Fast Ethernet (~10 MB/s), even users with faster Gigabit (~100 MB/s) networks will be limited by their network bandwidth before the drive. I could assume that any of our drives are for use in a NAS but that of course doesn't excuse sub-par performance because they could equally be used in a desktop. It's true that the power consumption (4.4W) on the Red is lower than average (6W) but the performance hit isn't justified. Even assuming continuous usage, those extra couple of watts for something like the Seagate Baracuda 7200.14 amount to a few pounds a year at most. At £133 this dive is both overpriced and offers sub-optimal performance. [Feb '14HDrivePro]
We calculate effective speed which measures performance for typical consumers. Effective speed is adjusted by current cost per GB to yield value for money. Our calculated values are checked against thousands of individual user ratings. The customizable table below combines these factors to bring you the definitive list of top HDDs. [HDrivePro]
Welcome to our PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best value for money upgrades.