Safe to use 2 different HD types inside 2-bay enclosure?

[we3fan]

Hi guys,

I ordered 3.5" 2-bay external enclosure, and I am planning to put inside one WD Blue 2TB Hard Disk and one WD Red 2TB Hard Disk.

I plan to use it as an external storage and the enclosure will not be used 24/7, once I copy everything on it I will just copy files from it 1-2 times per week.

I have never used a Red (NAS) HD before so that is the main reason why I wanted to try it.

Is it a good idea to mix 1 Blue and 1 Red Hard Disk inside the 2-bay external enclosure?

I guess it would be OK, but since I have never done it before I wanted to ask you guys.

Or it is better if I use 2 WD Blue HDs or 2 WD Red HDs inside the 2-bay external enclosure?


Thanks for your time.

[labtech]

Generally, consistency in drives used is important. But it depends on set up and other less important factors.
Is the 2-ebay enclosure set up as a RAID? If yes, what RAID type?

[we3fan]

I forgot to mention, I will not use the HDs in RAID.
I will use each hard drive to be seen separately as single drive. (Showing 2 HDD capacities)

[fzabkar]

Even if the drives were RAID-ed, there is a strong case for them to be dissimilar. Similar drives would have similar problems/bugs, so that would defeat the purpose of redundancy. In fact if you were to overvolt your enclosure, either accidentally or via a PSU failure, then both WD drives would fail catastrophically due to a design error.

[labtech]

Even if the drives were RAID-ed, there is a strong case for them to be dissimilar. Similar drives would have similar problems/bugs, so that would defeat the purpose of redundancy. In fact if you were to overvolt your enclosure, either accidentally or via a PSU failure, then both WD drives would fail catastrophically due to a design error.

True, although just about anything could be an exception knowing the various potential types of failures. Also, if the enclosure is known for such failure, I would think twice.
For similarity, it is good to have same cache size, RPMs, drives spinning down when not in use vs while in use (APM), etc.

[we3fan]

Thanks a lot guys.