WD Red 8TB Helium-Filled WD80EFZX NAS HDD Review

Power Consumption

Our custom power testing samples each drive for a period of three minutes, across each workload. In order to offer more granularity, we sample the power in one-second intervals.

The 8TB Red starts off with random read and a solid 6.2 to 6.4 watts, write does increase the load but only slightly to around 6.5 or so.

Moving to sequential read and write, we have a jump above 7 watts nearing 7.5 watts and then moving back down to 6.9 in sequential write.

These numbers put the 8TB in a solid position in terms of performance per watts, especially considering how well it did against the Red Pro.

Final Thoughts

Prior to the month or so I have had these drives, I had never had the opportunity to test helium technology. With the launch of the 8TB Red, WD has seemingly stabilized the platform enough to trust it out in the wild with consumers and in introducing this with the NASware 3.0 platform, consumers do get a sense that these new drives have undergone "FIT" testing. In addition, with the 8TB Red now being launched, we have options for drives designed to be used in multiple drive enclosures such as NAS, DAS, and workstations.

The performance of the 8TB Red was quite good. At the beginning of testing when I was running through IOMeter and several other benchmarks I normally run, I didn't really notice how good the 8TB was. It wasn't until I started punching numbers into the charts that I saw it placing a beating on many of the drive I tested in the past, including the Red Pro. ATTO disk bench produced 180 MB/s on both end read and write and moving to Random testing, the Red was able to knock out nearly 600 IOPS read and 50 IOPS write.

IOMeter with sequential was spot on with what we saw in ATTO, 180 MB/s read and write but moving to the "SMB" or Workloads testing, I was genuinely astonished to see how well this drive did. Database produced 450 IOPs, 250 more than the Red Pro, while File Server and Email Server brought in 390 and 500, respectively. In finalizing my testing, I ran through the Workstation load and once again the 8TB Red topped all with 520 IOPs.

In closing, the WD Red in the new 8TB capacity is one of the most impressive drives I have tested, and that's after seeing nearly every new drive come through in the past four years.

Product Summary Breakdown

Performance	95%
Quality including Design and Build	90%
General Features	93%
Bundle and Packaging	90%
Value for Money	89%

Overall TweakTown Rating

91%

The Bottom Line: The 8TB Red from WD is one drive to get excited about offering both performance and capacity in one solution, with a comfortable price point considering what it has to offer.

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