Question 1

OK to use on a desktop system (64 bit Win 7 Pro)?

Accepted Answer

Jim,  it would be OK to use but you may find a more economical priced drive with the Green WD 5TB than using the WD Red.  The WD Red is designed for NAS servers for better error correction with the NAS OS which I bought 6 of these drives for my server and it works great.  Your best bet would be to check out the WD Green drive specially designed for OS systems such as 64 bit Win 7 Pro and other desktop OS's.  It would also save you money going with the Green WD.

Question 2

Has IntelliPower rotation which is comparable to a 7,200 RPM drive. Rather slow for a NAS storage solution. It needs to be at least 15,000 RPM for that much data. What do you think?

Accepted Answer

A 7.200 RPM drive has an average read speed of 100-120 MB/s. A gigabit connection can pull roughly 120 MB/s. If you're using this at your home you will most likely not have any limitations unless you're a power user. If you're a power user you probably have this an a RAID 10 array and these drives will be superb.

Question 3

I want to use four of these together.  Are these good drives for a Raid 10 setup?

Accepted Answer

Absolutely ! WD Red drives are designed for RAID setup weather it be a NAS or a server.

I have a set of 3 in my server and they are set on RAID 5, running Windows Home Server 2011 (the O/S is installed in my SSD and the data is in my RAID array) no problems what so ever.

Question 4

drive does not pick up in my pc what could be wrong?

Accepted Answer

How old is the computer? Can it handle a 5TB device? Try updating the BIOS and then trying the drive again.

Question 5

I’m considering using two of these to replace a pair of 3TB reds setup as RAID1 in a WD EX4. I’ve two concerns:
1)Will the WD EX4 recognize this size drive properly?
2)Can I upgrade by simply replacing one drive at a time. Will it automatically rebuild when it detects a new drive?

I don’t want to lose any data and am not keen on needing to use my desktop to format or copy.

Accepted Answer

You would be looking at more effort to swap out drives one at a time. I would suggest doing both drives at the same time to prevent issues. since this is a 4TB array, can you simply add the additional drives, format, and then copy over data? Currently the specs on this array are for 6TB max drives. that being said, maybe double checking your latest firmware before you start would be a good idea.

Question 6

Can this SATA hard drive (WD Red WD50EFRX 5TB) support video recording of security surveillance DVR?

Accepted Answer

Not sure as I haven't tried it.

Question 7

Can anyone post the Firmware of their 5TB drive(s) they got and roughly when they bought it?  I'm wondering if WD applied a firmware update to these like they did for their 6TB reds recently that fixed a throughput issue that was reported by pcper.  Thank you!

Accepted Answer

I picked up a bunch of them a couple weeks ago, ordered them on the 12th of October. Current firmware on all the drives I got is listed as:
Firmware Version: 82.00A82

Questions & Answers