Replace WD NAS Drives?

[Enquiries]

Hi,

I currently run a Synology DS218+ with 2 x 2TB WD Red drives in a SHR configuration. A few weeks back I had the first indication of bad sectors (2) on one of the drives and again today the count has increased to 3. The NAS does not come in for fantastically hard use, being only used as a Time Machine backup device for a couple of Macs and as a Sonos Music server. The drives themselves date from a previous Synology NAS bought back in 2012.

Clearly after 8 years, I have no complaint about needing to replace the drives, but my question is with the increasing (slowly) bad sector count, how critical is is that I do so asap? Secondly, although there is no great need for extra backup, I would probably increase the drive capacities to 4TB just for future-proofing. Having been happy with the WD drives, I would likely go for the same brand again (unless you strongly recommended an alternative). Which drives would you suggest for the DS281+ Red, Red-Pro or Gold. I quite like the idea of the increased rotation speed of the Red-Pro and Gold for presumably improved performance and have found actually Gold devices to be cheaper than the Red-Pro.

I would be very interested in your thoughts.

Many thanks,

brian.

[ed]

If you had no backup and you could not afford NAS downtime then you should replace this drive ASAP. But if you have worries like then and you plan to upgrade drive to a bigger capacity, then yes, you have time to do that.WD Red are quieter drives. But surely Pro and Gold drives have their advantages. You will feel a slight improvement in data access times since these drives come with better IOPS. But you will notice more noise.I hope this helps.