NAS vs RAID hard drives; Whats is the difference?

What is the difference between the two? Would it be ok to use NAS drives in a server for RAID 1? It would be used the same way if in a NAS device.
I'm just curious why there are two types of drives as they both do the same thing, since in a NAS they're RAIDed as well. Thanks for the input.

Tracy

From what I understand, most "NAS" drive support RAID, so you won't have any issues there with drives suddenly dropping out of a RAID pool because it's taking too long to respond to the controller.

RAID rated drives are normally more robust, faster, have greater warranty, and normally cost much more per GB then the "NAS" rated drives.

If you are just looking for storage space, even if it is something that is accessed often like a network drive or share, NAS dives will be just fine. If you need something to run multiple Virtual Machines off of, or to host a database or something likewise heavy on the I/O, RAID rated drives would be best.

So what you're saying its more marketing. The hardware is virtually identical. NAS vs RAID drives are the same.

Thank you.

There are 2 types of drives, designed for 24/7 work and designed for home - max 8h per day work. All RAID and NAS series are designed for 24/7 work so there won't be any special difference except performance where RAID series should be faster ( but in real it's not always like that ).

The question was why are NAS drives when RAID drives do the same thing. What the point of having two different models if they both do the same thing.

Mountain said:

The question was why are NAS drives when RAID drives do the same thing. What the point of having two different models if they both do the same thing.

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Mountain said:

So what you're saying its more marketing. The hardware is virtually identical. NAS vs RAID drives are the same.

Thank you.

Click to expand...

Well I didn't really say that, but yes, for the most part, even with different internal hardware, their reliability and even performance (depending on the model NAS drive you get) is virtually the same, even in a enterprise environment.

Although Woomack does bring up another point about NAS/RAID drives vs consumer drives, it's almost irrelevant, like the pluses I gave about RAID drives vs NAS drives. Even I've used consumer drives 24/7 and have had plenty go for years without any issues (still have some PATA drives laying around that work just fine). The only reason I'm sticking with WD REDs for now in my server setup is their warranty, price and performance vs enterprise (RAID)/consumer drives.

Yeah the WD Red drive are at a very attractive price/performance point. I have a pair of WD Blacks in RAID1 that will outlast me. Ovetkill, but my data is worth it.

I just noticed that Seagate has a new classification called Archive drives. the one I looked at was an 8tb. They are basically for what they call cold storage, which I interpret to mean barely or rarely used. Being fairly new, there probably isn't much info about RAID or NAS applications with them yet, but could be an option in either role. BTW, drives in a NAS aren't always in a RAID configuration. As Woomack mentioned it'll depend on what you intend to use it for, as far as speed is concerned.

I don't trust Seagate. Too many RMA in past years and rankings are saying about the same. Their Constellation series are maybe reliable but they're slow. I mean like 20% slower than anything from WD.
I like WD Purple as it's cheaper series than Red but also designed for 24/7 work. Some Red had quite high RMA rate but I think WD fixed it in new deliveries as I haven't heard about it recently.
Anyway, Purple is surveillance series but looking at general performance etc it's like Red. I have 2 of them running 24/7 in RAID10 in my NAS for about 7 months now ( 2 Purple +1 Green + 1 Seagate AV as I had no idea what to do with free drives that left ). I'm also offering Purple series at work for business NAS series and so far I haven't got even one RMA ( count in 1 year as Purple are quite new ). Most of them run as a backup for large SQL databases and file sharing servers.

I had looked at Reds, and I too got nervous about the amount of RMA's. Funny thing with Seagate, their higher-speed SCSI drives are very reliable(at least they have been for me), and I'm still running 10 of them in server configs. Never tried Purple, I'll have to give them a look