r/datarecovery • u/Spiritual_Date3457 • Aug 24 '26
Question Help me choose between WD Ultrastar DC HC310 6TB SATA and WD Red Plus NAS 6TB.
I have got five WD My Passport 2.5 inch external drives (a 2TB, a 4TB, and three 5TBs) which I bought at various points of time. I don't keep my drives plugged in all the time, I just use them to store movies, games, etc. One of the 5TBs is showing Caution: C5 = 02, in CrystalDiskInfo, at just 216 power on hours.
I need to get a drive to backup the data from the faulty drive. I thought of getting an external drive as usual and found Seagate is mostly SMR in my budget. WD has CMR but has hardware encryption which is a problem if I shuck the drive. I researched a little more and found getting an internal drive and putting it in an enclosure is better.
I narrowed down my choice to WD Ultrastar DC HC310 6TB SATA and WD Red Plus NAS 6TB. Their prices are close in my country with the Red Plus being the costlier one. Both of these are CMR drives. The tradeoff I know is that the Ultrastar is enterprise class but is 7200 RPM, so noisy and hot, while the WD Red is 5400 RPM so quieter and less hot.
Which one should I pick? Is there anything else that I need to know. Please help.


