Pros: As mentioned in the title, the big advantages of this drive are the scalability and reliability features of this drive, combined with high performance. This hard drive was created by Western Digital with large business servers in mind. The primary feature in mind was the ability to be used in conjunction with many other hard drives, and that is where we get the WD SE drive series. Like the WD RE and XE brands this hard drive is capable of working in a configuration of over 24 hard drives. A feature that the WD Red series and lower series are incapable of. This allows for much more complex and extensive server connections to be available. The performance of the drive is quite good. As compared to similar hard drives by other manufactures, through tests performed by companies this drive beats or comes close to their performance. Even when this drive fails to beat the other drive in performance, the performance is very consistent and does not vary as much. Using Crystal Disk Mark, I was able to get these results: SEQ-Read: 174.1 SEQ-Write: 172.6 512KRead: 56.47 512KWrite: 101.9 4KRead: 0.716 4KWrite: 1.989 4KQDRead: 1.838 4KQD3: 1.985 Compared to a WD 2TB and a Samsung 2TB I also have in my system which perform close to each other, the WD SE 3TB drive performed between 153% and 165% faster in general write and read speed than the other drives. Since this drive became my new backup drive because of its high reliability, I was able to copy data off both 2TB hard drives simultaneously with hardly any slow down in transfer. In other words, this drive was able to perform at transfer speeds close to the other two drives combined! This probably comes as result in large to the dual processors located on board and the fast DDR2 memory.

Cons: Going by WD design, this hard drive has less performance than the WD RE and XE brands. This is not really a con, as the hard drive performs excellent in all tests I performed. I only list it, because it is a con in comparison to the higher end drives by design. A minor con comes as result of the drives power saving features. While I have mixed feelings about this, the drive takes between 5-10 seconds to get up to speed if you have not accessed it in a while. It is probably for the best, since the drive not in use will save power and last longer, but I don't like when I finish typing an email or reading online for 15 minutes or so and the drive is spun down.

Overall Review: I have a lot of faith in this drives ability to work. It is not loud, and seems to run smooth. With the extensive amount of testing put on the drive by WD, I have high doubts that many of these drives will be sold that are bad. While compared to some hard drives, it is a little expensive, but the drive is one of the most reliable hard drives on the market. While this drive is not able to perform quite as good as the WD RE and XE hard drives, it still performs excellent. The hard drive gives faster speed than I have ever experienced with a hard disk storage solution. If you are of need to set up a sever with large storage space and you don't want to have to worry about a drive failure for some time, I would highly recommend the WD SE series.

Pros: I had previously reviewed the Seagate SATAIII 4TB NAS drive and had been very happy with it. However WD is my brand of choice for mechanical drives and was happy to receive this for testing. The drive was connected in an HP ML350 G5 server 4GB DDR2 ECC Xeon E5335 2.0GHZ Windows 7 Pro 64bit SATA III PCIe Card Windows recognized the drive and there were no problems with formatting the drive. I benched this drive, the Seagate, and the three 10k RPM 3GBs SAS drives that are in RAID5. CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2 RAID5 SAS 3GBs Seq Read :107.7MBs Seq Write : 33.2MBs 4k Read : 0.742MBs 4/k /write : 2.341MBs Seagate Seq Read : 168.4MBs Seq Write : 163.9MBs 4k Read : 0.591MBs 4/k /write : 1.468MBs Western Digital* Seq Read :178.8MBs Seq Write : 168.2MBs 4k Read : 0.744MBs 4/k /write : 2.028MBs HDTune 2.55 RAID5 SAS 3GBs Avg Transfer Rate : 68MBs Access Time : 7.2ms Seagate Avg Transfer Rate : 154.1MBs Access Time : 13.3ms Western Digital* Avg Transfer Rate :143.4MBs Access Time : 9.6ms To round out the pros you have a five year warranty on a drive that is built to run 24/7. I have always been happy with WD RMA process and have never been let down (so far).

Cons: I really can't think of any con for this drive except the cost. It's performance is marginally better than Seagate's current offerings but costs more. This is not something that I can take an egg away from, especially since it provides such large capacity with lower access times.

Overall Review: If you need large storage for backups that aren't mission critical, I would grab these over anyone elses. Of course this assumes you don't have access to hardware that would support a large number of smaller faster drives.

Pros: This drive has some nice tech built into it not found on desktop drives, which one would expect for an enterprise storage solution. However, this is also ideally suited for a high-end consumer with money to burn on HDD storage. I particularly appreciate the: - dual processors - dual actuators/vibration stabilizing technology - secured shaft at both ends of the drive motor - 5 year, enterprise class warranty This drive was loaded up in my desktop rig which ensure the disk is not hindered by other components. I performed a quick GPT format and began running benchmarks. The drive has a high-performing sequential read of 243 MB/s and a sequential write of 172 MB/s when it's empty and brand new, which is great performance for a 7200 RPM drive. The drive is not noticeably loud and doesn't appear to get hot to the touch. Obviously, these are subjective inferences and not scientific. In all, I recommend this drive for high-end consumers looking for high density storage and enterprise users looking for quality solutions for scalable storage that will see moderate 24/7/365 usage. It is important ot note that WD rates these Se drives below their Re class with higher MTBF and usage rates. However, that doesn't mean you should feel shy about their performance and longevity capability shipping with the same 5 year warranty as other drives. See 'Other thoughts' for additional background and compatibility information.

Cons: If you're a consumer, the $279.99 price tag is steep. However, it's pointless to really consider it a con when you consider it's only $0.69 per advertised (not actual) gigabyte and that purchasing similarly spec'd 2 TB drives will run you at least $300.00 still. That makes this drive budget friendly for scalable storage. It may hurt the consumer budget, but for enterprise storage, it's an excellent investment.

Overall Review: This drive was intended for data center NAS storage type environments but can be utilized by anyone running a 64-bit version of Windows 7 or later. If you're using a 32-bit OS or have an older computer, all 4.0 TB may not be recognized and you'll instead be limited to the maximum of 2.2 GB forcing you to partition the disk. Also, to get the best performance out of the drive a SATA III connection or USB 3.0 external connection is needed. This drive can leverage the latest generation I/O, so feed it what it wants for optimum performance.

Pros: >3Tb >SATA III >64Mb Cache >7200rpm

Cons: >None at this moment in time on a Win8 system with UEFI mobo

Overall Review: I am using this as a replacement for my media drive and right now, the drive is a little less than a quarter filled. This is not quite enough to induce a 'slow-down' just yet, so posting Crystal DM scores would be misleading. However, I do not anticipate any kind of 'slow-down' that would not already be expected from an HDD as it fills. The installation went off without a hitch. Combined with Windows 8 and a ASUS Maximus V Formula motherboard, everything to handle large, single partition drives was already there. If you are running windows, you will need a motherboard with an EFI firmware, or one that deploys a special workaround to use GPT addressing. Once the drive was attached to the computer (I used an external dock for this), the drive had to be initialized. I set it to GPT - do not use MBR if you want a single partition - and formatted into NTFS. After that, the move onto the new drive was pretty text book. After the drive gets a little closer to 50% utilized, I will run Crystal DM on it and post the scores.

Pros: - Very fast shipping by NewEgg. Item was well packed. - 5 Year Warranty, which is unusually good for mechanical drives. - Designed with servers in mind, which implies manufacturer’s emphasis on durability and reliability. - Perfect for devices requiring a lot of “up” time like servers or video surveillance devices.

Cons: - Quality and reliability comes at some extra cost. You can get similarly sized HD’s for much, much less. However, keep in mind that budget drives come with only 2 year warranty.

Overall Review: - I installed this this drive into my tower. I then tested a few different SAT A cables. I wanted to see if I could make a SATA cable just disconnect itself from the hard drive. Some cables that I tested were new, and some were used. In the end, each cable stayed firmly attached to the Hard Drive. I experienced no spontaneous disconnects, Similarly, the power cable firmly attached also. - Once I booted into Windows 8, the PC had no trouble detecting and initiating this drive. HD’s NFTS formatted capacity is 1.81 TB. - For my tests I transferred around about 790 GB of data that ranged from small .txt files, documents, pictures, .pdf’s, music and large raw video files. I transferred this data from another internal mechanical drive. I observed write speeds hovering around 130 MB/s. I then transferred several gigabits of data from this data to an internal SSD drive. This drive’ read speeds were around 155 MB/s. - Even during prolonged use, drive’s temperature stays at around 30 degrees Celsius. However, my case is very well vented . I have dual 140 mm intake fans in front that push a lot of air around four of my internal drives. - The drive is quiet. Even during intensive read/write operations I did not hear this drive much. - I have no doubts that this drive would perform OK as a boot drive. However, that task is best handled by a dedicated SSD drive. - I have dealt with WD RMA department in the past, while fixing my friend’s system. WD customer service was very easy to deal with. Once the claim was filed, WD sent me a new HD so I could copy data off my old failing drive. I then “killdisk’d” the old drive and mailed it back to WD in an prepaid container. - I would recommend this drive for anyone who is looking for a solid and dependable data storage unit and/or video surveillance hard drive. While this review unit had a 2 TB capacity, these particular series of drives also come in 3 and 4 TB capacities.

Pros: SMART Identify Data: Model: WDC WD3000F9YZ-09N20L0 Firmware: 01.01A01 LBA: 5860533168 Form factor: 3.5" RPM: 7200 Interface: SATA SATA Rev 3.0: Supported Cache (MB): Not Reported Commands queue: Supported Queue depth: 32 NCQ: Supported Runs cool and quiet for a 7200 RPM drive (32 C in an Antec One Hundred case). Manufacturer Warranty: 5 years (great). My Seagate NAS drive is only 3 years. I've seen warranties as low as one year. Supports time-limited error recovery (TLER) for RAID.

Cons: Higher cost than the same capacity non-NAS Hard Drive (but should be more reliable). No encryption support. The Self-encrypting Drive (SED) Option is not included on this version of the drive. Sequential performance is about 15% lower than my Seagate ST3000NC000 (another 3TB 7200 RPM NAS drive). Measured (MB/sec): WD3000F9YZ ST3000NC000 OD (nearly empty): 175 185 MDa (half full): 150 170 MDb (3/4 full): 130 145 ID (almost full): 105 105 I focus on Sequential Performance. If you need high Random performance buy an SSD. Also seem my 6/24/2013 review of the Seagate ST3000NC000, newegg item N82E16822178324.

Overall Review: Western Digital has an excellent Support web page (support.wdc). You should go there and Register your drive. The web page then gives you customized links to any software and documentation for each specific drive. The critical component of any Hard Disk is reliability / longevity. This drive is optimized for 24/7/365 operation (time will tell). Being over 2TB, I formatted the drive as GPT (GUID Partition Table). The older partitioning scheme MBR (Master Boot Record) used on hard drives since the PC first came out, supports at most 4 primary partitions per hard drive, and a maximum partition size of 2TB. GPT is the newer partitioning scheme, supported by Windows XP x64 Edition (not 32 bit), Windows Server 2003 SP1, Windows Vista (and all subsequent Windows versions). GPT disk can support a volume up to 2^64 blocks in length (i.e. two trillion times 2TB) however Windows has other limitations.

Pros: The drive claims to be optimized for NAS, so the most important factor, other than reliability, will be how fast it can access files (14 msec) and how fast it can read/write (leaning more towards read). The drive has a burst of throughput at the start of file transfers which gradually declines in speed in a straight line. Therefore, I'll start by listing the read rate from the start of the benchmark to the read rate at the end of the benchmark. Each setting is with 1,000 files. Palimpsest Read Benchmark (reads continuously without interupption): 1,000 1MiB files = 200MB/sec -> 146 MB/sec 1,000 10MiB files = 180MB/sec -> 144 MB/sec 1,000 25MiB files = 180MB/sec -> 144 MB/sec 1,000 50MiB files = 180MB/sec -> 144 MB/sec I'm sure you know where this is going. As for sequential writing, it is roughly ~10-20MB/sec slower than the read throughput. When performing the sequential read/write tests, the read and write speed both suffer greatly. It starts at 180MB/sec then quickly drops to 140MB/sec within seconds and slowly declines to ~110MB/sec by the time it reaches the 1,000th file.

Cons: There is nothing bad to say about the product other than the expensive price ($200 currently) and the expectedly poor random read/write performance which is typical of magnetic hard drives. People who are looking for high performance in regards to random read/write throughput, however, buy SSDs, so this isn't a problem.

Overall Review: Although many people use NTFS partitioning because that is the only thing Windows supports, I do highly recommend using btrfs or ext4 instead as it is more efficient and removes the need for defragging. Many NAS-related products support drives with btrfs/ext partitioned drives which are presented to your network via samba so that Windows, Linux, Mac OSX, iOS, and Android clients can access it. Personally, I've copied my entire 1.7TB media archive to this 3TB drive, which only took a few hours to rsync. I use the system as a Linux samba server which also serves many machines running distributed x264/ffmpeg/aac encoding. This drive suits this purpose fine.

Pros: Very fast drive Great warranty (5 year) Great price (on par with some consumer grade drives) Excellent read/write speed in either NAS or as a desktop drive

Cons: Gets pretty warm, other than that - not a single thing.

Overall Review: Let me start by saying this is not a desktop drive. Is is designed for server/NAS use (backplane),and as such does not have a locking mechanism for SATA cables. I benchmarked the drive with a few different utilities, including HD Tune Pro, CrystalDiskMark, and ATTO. Results in my desktop (i7 2600k, Z77 motherboard, 32gb DDR3) Drive connected to the Native Intel SATA III controller. Read speeds Min 81.5 MB/s Max 165.6 MB/s Avg 133.6 MB/s Burst 257.5 MB/s Access time: 11.3 ms Write speeds Min: 80.3 MB/s Max: 163.2 MB/s Avg: 131.5 MB/s Burst: 248 MB/s Access time: 11.6 ms These are awesome performance numbers for a mechanical drive. My 1TB WD, and 1TB Seagate drives were roughly 30% slower all around. Next, I popped the drive into a USB 3.0 enclosure for testing. Min: 25 MB/s Max: 37 MB/s Not the numbers I expected, but my USB 3.0 controller could be at fault. Finally for the last test, I placed the drive in it's intended environment - my Synology NAS server. This was the lone drive in the server, and tests were conducted on Gigabit ethernet. Read speeds Min: 35.7 MB/s Max: 66.4 MB/s Avg: 51.05 MB/s I'm happy with these numbers, as they are almost double the 500gb drive that is usually in the NAS. This drive is definitely not for the average desktop user, as the price is a bit steep, and the drive does run a bit warm. Along with this, the absence of a locking mechanism for the SATA cable. However if you have a NAS or server, or you are just a power user wanting the 5 year warranty, you will find this to be a top of the line drive.