This is loosely Linux related - only in that the OS is Linux (Debian Wheezy maybe?) and I've read a lot of Q&A on the topic - but little to explain my symptoms.

I noticed that my NAS (WD My Book Duo Live) was running really slow and very hot - it has no fans by design. I started pulling data from it because I was afraid it was going to fail - and during the process the drives got so hot they wouldn't really function well at all.

So I pulled the drives (WD Caviar Green 3TB) and hooked one up to a workstation via USB - and so far have been able to recover all but one file which was reported as having some damage. Otherwise - the drive remains cool and is being recovered quite well. Still have a lot of data to move.

I'm just curious if it's a sign of physical drive failure in the RAID1 configuration if the drives start overheating - or if there is something corrupt in the MD configuration that could be making them burn up.
It's my first time dealing with something like this. In order to SSH into the NAS or get to the UI you have to plug both drives in and they very quickly heat up and run super slow... So I'm electing the recovery method so far...

Any ideas? I'd like to replace the drive(s) but it's hard to tell if it would be worth it - or if there are errors which are just going to mirror to the new drive if I'm able to tell which one is bad. From what I read the OS is very unforgiving when it comes to being tinkered with but you can root around and look for running services, log files, etc.

Hi mwx,

The only suggestion I can offer is to switch to either the Blue or Black line of WD drives. I also experimented with the Green label a few years back, and after a failure that I felt was too early for typical MBTF expectations, it was suggested to me that the Green label was not the best choice for "always on" situations. Since I've switched to the Blue, I have not (knock wood) had any issues ...

Cheers !

the WD red drives are specifically designed for use in NAS, so that would be a good choice as well.

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Thanks for this - the Red wasn't available when I had the issue described above, so I have no experience with it. Good to know.

Cheers Timothy Miller !

I guess I might be able to choke an answer out of their tech support - but their site was buggie yesterday and couldn't even log in.
Not sure if I'd be able to use the same enclosure any more... Think I just have to move on... I have blues in a lot of other applications.

I've seen a lot of server drives that are in very hot locations and seem to do OK. There are OEM diag's that can be used to see the drive status as well as smart tools.

I have a WD ex2 nas at home but put the red drives in. It has a small fan I think but also it is very open to air.

Tend to agree that you could consider a nas drive but it should work OK with any drive.

When you shoot it with a temp gun what does it say?

We do not know what is "hot" for mwx. This discussion could be in vain, there could be a failing drive. WD green definitely runs cooler than black, so the advice above to use WD black instead does not make sense. I have greens running and smartctl readout is 35 °C.

Hot for me was near too hot to hold in my hand and so hot that the drives pretty much stopped operating.. I just used the free R-Linux utility on both (quite a godsend) and they both throw off really poor S.M.A.R.T reports - so they're both apparently shot...

Now I have an empty enclosure and no drives. The way WD operates - there's no OS to install on the enclosure.. So I think I'm kinda screwed...
If I thought I could get away with making the enclosure work in a simple external drive configuration I would... But I don't see it being possible, nor do I see being able to add 2 new drives and reinstall the system the way it was once configured... Looks like it's off to the glue factory with this one...

There's apparently FreeNAS out there, but I haven't read up on it yet...

Hi Emerson,

To perhaps clarify my above post, my suggestion that Blue or Black may be a more reliable choice for "always-on" applications had less to do with the temperature, which I agree may be a subjective interpretation here, than the unreliability mentioned by the OP. The WD Green line of products was not recommended to me at that time for such usage.

I apologize if the point I was trying to make was confusingly stated.

Cheers.

WD Blue drives are their budget drives. The bottom of the line. That doesn't mean they aren't good. But they aren't optimal for the NAS use you are wanting. Blue drives were once 7200 rpm, but I think now they are 5400?

WD Green drives were originally a lower speed version of the Blues, to be more energy efficient. They were 5400 rpm drives. I say "were", because didn't WD just slow down the Blues from 7200 to 5400 and use the result to replace the Greens? I seem to remember reading that somewhere.

WD Red drives are what you need to be looking at for your NAS use. They are 5400 rpm. And they are designed for 24x7 use, and also designed for the additional vibration you get in multi-drive NAS setups. Red's have better warranties than Blues or Greens.

WD Black drives are their "performance" drives. They run at 7200 rpm. They will run hotter than the others mentioned so far. Performance might be slightly better, but probably unnoticeable. Black's have good warranties (but I think Red warranties might even be better? ... not sure).

WD Red Pro are kind of like a super Red. They can withstand greater vibration than regular Red's. You don't need this unless your NAS has some ridiculous amount of drives in it - like 10 or so.

There is also WD "Re" drives. Kind of a super Red Pro I think. IMHO, totally unneeded in any home type situation.

There are even MORE different WD drive colors. e.g., Purple. But these are for very specialized applications (i.e., Purples are used for video surveillance storage).

Really, all's you need to consider are Blue vs. Red vs. Black. And personally, I would not even consider the Black. Or the Blue, for that matter. But then, that's just me.

My opinion:

• If you want performance, don't mess with the Blacks ... just get an SSD (and an additional Red, if you need more storage than an SSD provides).
• If you want reliability and warranty for NAS and/or day to day use, get Reds. Personally, I buy nothing but SSD's and Reds these days. I have both Blacks and Blues in use in different computers, but they were purchased before I came to my current level of understanding regarding WD colors and what they are best for.
• If you are on a super budget and prioritize saving a penny over everything else, get Blues.

If you are mounting these drives externally, buy a decent enclosure. Metal. With ventilation. If you expect heavy usage, get an enclosure with fans. Buying a super cheap enclosure is counter-productive in every way, except if your goal is to save a penny.

Note that when you buy a typical pre-made NAS, what you are getting are the cheapest drives available, in the cheapest case available. Same thing when you buy a pre-made external drive. The driving design consideration behind those things is low cost, low cost, low cost. And what they have done in recent years is taken what has traditionally been called an "external drive" and renamed it to "NAS" (without really changing anything). I'm not knocking anyone's purchase decision. But you should be informed about what you're purchasing before you purchase it. In the O.P.'s case, overheating drives in an inexpensive "NAS" are, unfortunately, not unexpected at all.

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10-4... Good read... Thank you... On my way to the store now...

Also, in terms of noise, a Black will be noisy, a Blue/Green less so, and a Red near silent.

As an example, I have a Red in an external enclosure. A lot of external enclosures have gaudy bright lights for some unknown reason. But not mine (because I disconnected the wires going to the gaudy LED's). So when I want to check and see it my external drive is turned on, I touch the case. Hmmm, zero warmth, it actually feels below room temperature because it's metal. The thing is absolutely silent, so no help there. OK, check for vibration next. Hmmm, none of that to give me a clue. The LED indicators are right out of the equation, since I disconnected them. So the only way I can tell if my external drive is turned on is to turn it around and look at the back to see if the power switch is in the on position. This is one reason why I bought an enclosure that had a power switch (many don't), and the power switch is shaped like a lever rather than a pushbutton (so I can easily see on vs. off). My enclosure does have a fan, but for the way this drive is used (accessed infrequently) I found that it runs cool as a cucumber and does not need the fan one bit. My enclosure has a switch where you can disable the fan (which I did). So you can start to see some of the benefits of buying a decent enclosure in my description above. I was even able to disconnect the LED's easily because they were connectorized. On a cheap enclosure, you'd probably have to get out the wire cutters and physically slice the leads in half.

BTW, here is the enclosure I went with (the 3.5 inch version):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It supports USB 3.0 (important) and also eSata (which I have not used). This enclosure is for a single drive. If you're looking for something to handle multiple drives, you'll have to look elsewhere.

p.s. - Another nice thing on the enclosure: Where the power cord plugs in, it is labeled which is the positive and which is the negative electrode. And also labeled that it is 12v. And labeled DC, not AC (although AC would be rare). So if you ever need to buy a new power brick for some reason, at least you know what you need to buy (you'd have to guess wattage, but that's more dependent on what you put inside the enclosure than on the enclosure itself). So many electronic devices these days leave you guessing with a non-descript, non-labeled plug. Is it 5v? 12v? Other? Is the center positive or negative? I guess you're supposed to just try various power bricks until you find one that works. Hopefully you haven't fried the device in the meantime while hooking it up to incorrect voltages/polarities during your testing!

I'd love to find a way to reuse the WD enclosure - but it doesn't really look possible. It has an onboard NIC and USB - and the backplane seems pretty basic... It makes one wonder if it is at all possible to at least turn it into a basic USB set of disks.
The newest machine I built has room for 6 sata drives and the mobo was purpose bought for the amount of drives it could handle. I'm considering adding a new RAID1 array in that machine and just scratching the WD enclosure all together.

Pretty sure you can access the web gui without any drives in it. You just can't update the firmware without a drive installed. It should allow you to access and mount usb drives.