I have ran WD purple HDD for my cams for years and when I recently went to add another HDD and shut down everything, I went to try a defrag on that drive it didn't need it. You haven't had this system that long for it to get that defragged....
That does sound worrying.
And also a big pain in the ass, because the chassis I bought can only accommodate 2x 2.5 HDDs. So I guess now I have to buy a new chassis AND a new HDD?
You really think that would explain all the performance issues I'm seeing?