We attempt to answer the burning question of whether the WD100EMAZ (Easystore white label) is the same as the WD100EFAX (WD Red) 10TB hard drive. The post WD WD100EMAZ and WD Easystore 10TB External Backup Drive Review appeared first on ServeTheHome. Continue reading...
Great job testing the differences between shucked white label vs. retail WD red label. I have been shucking for a few years now. I have shucked 3 8tb reds, 2 8tb white and now a 10 tb white. My NAS and my wallet are happy and now I feel comfortable in the cost vs benefit of using the lower cost solution.
The Duo-WD-book external drives are guaranteed to contain red label drives. Typically, with -20/-25% coupons off WD store in europe, they cost the same or similar to the single drive books. Another benefit of the duo enclosure since 2018 is they contain a ~60x60x15 fan which actively cools the drives, if one re-uses the enclosure after shucking.
If one looks closely at the white label on said drive, one will spot a certain specific R/N: US7SAL080. If one does a quick search for it, one ends up finding a document titled as follows: 2 pages later, one finds a nice list of products covered, as well as the certifications achieved, followed by scanned copies of all the certificates: The only conclusion that one can make from this, really, is that literally all the He drives HGST/WD makes are the same exact hardware, with the differences (including rpm!) existing only in the firmware. Link to said document: https://documents.westerndigital.co...t/cert-agency-approval-ultrastar-dc-hc510.pdf
These are great. I got 8 of them over the holidays. One thing that's quite important is to check them (you can use CrystalDiskInfo while it's in the enclosure) to make sure they are in fact the correct drives. There are reports on Reddit of the enclosure containing some old crap drives swapped in by unscrupulous buyers, or during manufacturing. I didn't have any problems with that as I purchased mine from the .com store, but one of my drives did fail the badblocks test. Interestingly, even shucked, none of the drives completed the SMART test, whether short or long. I even ran a script that keeps the drives active by dd'ing a small amount of data constantly to keep the drive from spinning down. My 8TB EMAZ drives I purchased last year were able to complete the SMART tests with no problems.
If they're similar to the 8TB shucked Reds & Whites, you can change the TLER setting with hdparm but any changes don't survive after the drive loses power (safe shutdown or otherwise). It's hard to prove whether the any changes are actually doing anything or if the firmware simply ignores them all together.
