NAS refers to online grid-attached storage.

There are many enterprises and home users using NAS system to share files among multiple computers.

It contains one or more storage drives and often is arranged into logical, Redundant storage containers orRAID.

WD Red 4TB NAS hard drive

NAS hard drive is a special hard drive designed for NAS system.

Some users wonder whether they can use normal hard drives in NAS system.

Actually, you might do it but it is not recommended.

WD Red Pro 4TB NAS hard drive

NAS hard drives are more heat-resistant and anti-vibration, and thus they are more suitable for long-time work.

Besides, they are coming with specialized firmware used in RAID.

Here is the basic information of the hard drive.

Seagate IronWolf Pro 4TB NAS hard drive

As mentioned, WD Red 4TB NAS hard drive is designed for NAS systems.

It can be used in the NAS systems with up to 8 bays.

you’re free to choose it either for home or small offices.

Toshiba N300 4TB NAS hard drive

WD Red 4TB NAS hard drive usesNASware 2.0 technologywhich improves NAS storage performance and increases compatibility and reliability.

It can protect your data in the event of a power loss or disruption.

In addition, the hard drive also features3D Active Balance Plus technologywhich enhances the dual-plane balance control.

select GPT

It indicates that the vibration and noise are controlled better.

In this case, vibration and noise are likely to have influence on thelifespan of the hard drive.

You might notice that the WD Red 4TB NAS hard drive has a rotational speed of 5400 RPM only.

select Initialize to GPT Disk

If you dont require high speed, this should be at the top of the list.

If you want larger capacity, you’re free to search from the Internet.

The WD Red NAS hard drives capacity varies from 1TB to 6TB.

click Disk Benchmark

It provides faster data transfer speed and is more expensive than WD Red 4TB NAS hard disk drive.

And during the process, you have to choose a partition style for it:MBR or GPT.

Generally, for a 4TB NAS hard drive, youd better choose GPT.

click Start

Otherwise, you canonly use 2TBof the disk.

How to initialize your hard drive to GPT?

Here are two easy methods for you.

Lets how to use it to initialize your NAS hard drive.

Step 1: Connect NAS hard drive to PC.

Step 2: PressWin+Rto invokeRunwindow.

Then typediskmgmt.mscin the box and clickOKto openDisk Management.

Step 3: AnInitialize Diskwindow will pop up automatically when you launch Disk Management.

You just need to check your NAS hard drive and then selectGPT (GUIDPartition Table)for it.

Step 4: ClickOKto perform the operation.

Then you just need to wait until the process is finished.

Here I recommend MiniTool Partition Wizard, a wonderful disk manager.

It can help you initialize/copy/wipe disk and create/move/resize/delete partitions within a few clicks.

The detailed steps are as below.

Step 1: Download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard by clicking the following button.

Step 3: Right-click your NAS hard drive and selectInitialize to GPT Diskfrom the pop-up menu.

Step 4: ClickApply.

There would be a pop-up window after you clickApply.

Just clickYesto confirm the operation.

After initializing your NAS hard drive, you cancreate partitionsand use it in the NAS system.

In this case, you’ve got the option to do a disk performance test.

MiniTool Partition Wizard is also a nice hard drive benchmark tool.

Besides, it can help you repair logical errors on the disk.

Here are the detailed steps to perform the disk benchmark with MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Step 1: Connect your WD Red 4TB hard disk drive to PC.

Step 2: Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Step 3: When you get the main interface, clickDisk Benchmarkon the toolbar.

Step 4: Select a partition on your WD Red 4TB hard disk drive and set disk test parameters.

Step 5: After configuring the parameters, clickStart.

Then wait for a while and you will get the disk performance test result.

This post introduces WD Red 4TB NAS hard disk drive and some other NAS hard drives.

Here is a review for it and you’re able to decide according to your needs.

you might share your experience in the following comment zone.

WD Red 4TB NAS Hard Disk Drive FAQ