Find 3TB Hard Drives Guaranteed Compatible
- ReadyNAS Ultra and Ultra Plus -
A list of 3TB hard drives will vary day by day, but when searching for ReadyNAS Ultra and ReadyNAS Ultra Plus hard drives for your diskless NAS device or to add storage capacity, you want to guarantee compatible hard drives.
Crossing the 2TB boundary for many devices will make the hard drive either not recognizable or not seen at its full capacity.
Note in the table below the minimum firmware version needed for any 3TB hard drive to function properly.
Buying 3TB hard disks that ReadyNAS has tested means they will stand behind the drive working in their Ultra NAS devices.
This will likely save you the trouble of having to seek out tech support in the first place, but if you do need support when adding or upgrading a hard drive, having bought one that was on their ReadyNAS compatibility list will certainly make their job – and your life – easier.
In fact, it’s possible that Netgear will even deny support if you do NOT buy your 3TB hard drive from their compatibility list.
3TB Hard Drives – Netgear ReadyNAS Compatibility List
| Vendor | Class | Model # | SATA | RPM | Cache | Vibration Safeguard |
Warranty (Years) |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hitachi | Deskstar 7K3000 | HDS723030ALA640 | 6Gb/s | 7200 | 64MB | Y | 3 | Must be used with 4.2.16 or newer firmware |
| Seagate | Constellation (Enterprise) |
ST33000650NS | 6Gb/s | 7200 | 64MB | Y | 5 | Must be used with 4.2.16 or newer firmware. |
| Western Digital | Caviar Green | WD30EZRS | 3Gb/s | # | 64MB | Y | 3 | Must be used with 4.2.16 or newer firmware. |
| Hitachi | Deskstar 5K3000 | HDS5C3030ALA630 | 6Gb/s | 5400 | 32MB | N | 3 | Must be used with 4.2.16 or newer firmware. |
| Seagate | Barracuda XT | ST33000651AS | 6Gb/s | 7200 | 64MB | N | 5 | Must be used with 4.2.16 or newer firmware. |
# – Intellipower “Green” hard drives do not rate at a particular constant speed
As you can see from the table above, you have a wide array of choices in picking a 3TB hard drive for your Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra or Ultra Plus NAS.
By wide array, not that five hard drives to choose from is that many, but the combination of performance, price and warranty covers a fair span.
How to Choose a 3TB Hard Drive from the List
Depending on the number of hard drives you have to buy to populate your ReadyNAS Ultra, the difference of about $150 per drive from the most expensive model on the list to the cheapest hard disk on the list can really add up.
Here is the way I would decide what hard drive to buy:
First, how important is it how fast the hard drive performs? The SATA rating of 3Gb/s or 6Gb/s really does not tell the whole story. Rotational speed and cache size will certainly matter, especially in multiuser environments.
If you spent the extra money for a ReadyNAS Ultra Plus over the Ultra model to get the dual core processor and the maximum performance, then it really does not make sense to scrimp on the hard drive. That would narrow it down to the Hitachi 7K3000 or Seagate Constellation.
If warranty is important, then take the Constellation’s 5 year warranty AND the knowledge that the Seagate Constellation, being and Enterprise grade hard drive, is probably less likely to fail and require you to take advantage of the longer warranty.
Power Consumption
If being “green” is your thing, or you just want to save as much money on energy as possible, then take a look at the Western Digital Caviar Green hard drive. It combines a decent amount of performance while saving on energy consumption.
And if your usage of your Netgear NAS device is infrequent over the course of the day and usually only one user accessing it at a time, then performance that falls short of other 3TB hard drives on the compatibility list really will not matter that much.
