Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
Comparison Products
The 12TB WD Red Plus HDD goes up against our suite of 8TB hard drives, including the 8TB WD Blue, the older HGST UltraStar He8, the Seagate IronWolf Pro 8TB, the Seagate FireCuda, and the Seagate BarraCuda. Larger 20TB drives include the WD Red Pro, the Seagate Exos X20, the Seagate IronWolf Pro, and the Seagate SkyHawk AI. Also compared are the 14TB Seagate IronWolf Pro and the 14TB Toshiba X300.
Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark
Yes, this class of drive isn't geared for gaming — you're far better off with an SSD — but we include these results for completeness. Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.
The Red Plus is middling to below average in 3DMark, making the Blue look good. However, it matches the Red Pro, which is in its favor.
Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark
PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.
The Red Plus is unimpressive in PCMark 10. This suggests the drive is made for specialized use in NAS environments.
Transfer Rates – DiskBench
We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.
Copy performance in DiskBench is acceptable but not good for the Red Plus. It beats the X300, BarraCuda, and Blue, but falls behind the IronWolf Pros. This is where it would be expected to land.
Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark
ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that storage vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.
The Red Plus shows no anomalies in its sequential ATTO results. This predictable behavior is a good thing, even if it’s slower in absolute terms. Random performance, as measured by the 4KB tests in Crystal Disk Mark, is actually quite good.
Sustained Write Performance
Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most HDDs implement a write cache which is a fast area of volatile memory such as DRAM. Sustained write speeds directly hit the platters and tend to be consistent. There are exceptions to both of these statements as there are SSHDs (flash-containing hybrid HDDs), OptiNAND drives, and SMR drives that deviate from the traditional configuration. We use Iometer to detect the maximum sustained write speed of the HDD.
The Red Plus underperforms in our write saturation test. It’s not particularly fast and is not perfectly consistent. However, this performance is good enough for NAS and will be more consistent than an SMR drive like the BarraCuda. You would be forgiven for thinking this is a 5400/5640 RPM drive and, in fact, WD notes that this SKU is 7200 RPM and not 5400 RPM as may be reported by ID Device.
Power Consumption
We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre storage.
Some drives can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.
Unsurprisingly, the Red Plus has relatively low peak and average power consumption. In fact, it’s significantly better than the other 7200 RPM drives with those two results. Overall efficiency is only mediocre, but given its capacity and role, it is quite good. Larger drives with higher performance will finish this workload faster with better efficiency. Comparing the X300 to the Red Plus, it’s clear the latter is the superior choice for NAS.
The IronWolf Pro has a strong showing at higher capacities but also costs more and would be better compared to the Red Pro. The Red Pro is very efficient, in part thanks to its use of OptiNAND technology. That makes the Red Plus a harder sell at 12TB as the Pro doesn’t cost a whole lot more and has a better warranty, but the price in bulk adds up - and the Plus should be quieter.
Test Bench and Testing Notes
| CPU | Intel Core i9-12900K |
| Motherboard | Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero |
| Memory | 2x16GB G.Skill DDR5-5600 CL28 |
| Graphics | Intel Iris Xe UHD Graphics 770 |
| CPU Cooling | Enermax Aquafusion 240 |
| Case | Cooler Master TD500 Mesh V2 |
| Power Supply | Cooler Master V850 i Gold |
| OS Storage | Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 2TB |
| Operating System | Windows 11 Pro |
Conclusion
The WD Red Plus is a drive that may surprise you. On the whole, its performance is lackluster at best, despite the glow of better performance in random workloads. On top of this, its price puts it in a difficult spot against competing drives. However, it’s still a 7200 RPM, CMR-based hard drive, with adequate cache and a longer warranty than entry-level desktop alternatives. Its capacity range also goes beyond what the WD Blue and Seagate BarraCuda offer. It’s also quieter than the Seagate IronWolf, which is probably its primary selling point.
This is a drive that should not be used singly or for general storage use. Rather, it’s ideal in a NAS environment with multiple drives where you're shooting to have an efficient, quiet solution. For general storage, you’re better off with the Blue unless you need more storage capacity, in which case the Toshiba X300 and X300 Pro lines might work. For higher performance, there’s the FireCuda, or the BarraCuda Pro if you need performance and capacity. For high-performance, high-endurance NAS use, there’s the Seagate IronWolf Pro. Options abound.
All things considered, this makes the 12TB Red Plus seem somewhat underwhelming, especially as it lacks OptiNAND technology. However, it does have some niche value and is essentially comparable to the IronWolf. Having more options is a good thing, even if this type of product segmentation makes for a more confusing market. The Red Plus is a good choice for a budget NAS where quiet and efficiency are needed without the drawbacks of SMR drives, particularly at higher capacities.
MORE: Best SSDs
MORE: Best External SSDs and Hard Drives
MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs
MORE: All SSD Content
