Western Digital Red WD100EFAX 10TB Review (Page 11 of 11)

Page 11 - Conclusion

"I got your data back," I told my supervisor. "Thankfully, it is just your motherboard that died. Your hard drives are just fine. You are not so lucky every time." Within a week, my supervisor began to back up his data. Since it was for only one computer, he decided to run his backups on a USB external hard drive. But for those who are looking for a little more comprehensive, and especially for those who need a network attached storage system for functions beyond data backup, you really could be spoiled for choice when it comes to what hard drives to choose to fill up your multi-bay box. Western Digital's Red WD100EFAX 10TB is the company's latest model in their big capacity collection. But did it still deliver in speed, power efficiency, and price? According to our benchmarks, the WD100EFAX is the fastest 5,400 RPM drive tested to date; in fact, it is, for the most part, faster than the 7,200RPM Western Digital Red Pro WD4001FFSX 4TB I reviewed back in 2015. Unsurprisingly, it is also one of the most power efficient drives on our charts. The real issue is when we strap down for some comparisons, did it outperform the Seagate IronWolf ST10000VN0004 10TB? According to the benchmarks we ran today, the answer is no. The Seagate IronWolf 10TB's 7,200RPM spindle speed gave it a slight performance advantage with no measurable penalty in power consumption when installed in a NAS box. For $350, the Seagate IronWolf 10TB is also $30 cheaper than the Western Digital Red 10TB's $380 price tag at press time. Both come with a three-year warranty. You cannot go wrong with either hard drive, as both Western Digital and Seagate offers solid performers in speed and power efficiency, but the competitor's offering is a little more attractive in price at the time of writing.

Western Digital provided this product to APH Networks for the purpose of evaluation.

Since April 30, 2007, Number Ratings have been dropped for all CPUs, motherboards, RAM, SSD/HDDs, and graphics cards. This is to ensure the most appropriate ratings are reflected without the inherent limits of using numbers. Everything else will continue using the Number Rating System.
More information in our Review Focus.

The Western Digital Red WD100EFAX 10TB is an ultra-high capacity NAS drive that delivers in performance and power efficiency.

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Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 Disk Benchmark
4. Benchmark: ATTO Disk Benchmark
5. Benchmark: Crystal Disk Mark 3.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tach 3.0.1.0
7. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 4.60
8. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 9.0
9. Benchmark: PCMark 7
10. NAS Performance, Power Consumption
11. Conclusion