WD blue, red or green for me?

Duvan · 15 Feb 2015 at 19:10

I've tried to read different WD drives reviews... but it's still not clear to me what I should buy.

Red are best for servers... but seem to be as good on power consupmtion as greens?
But performance wise, are the reds about the same as green or slower/faster (for reading files, moving files, playing computer games, general use - NOT bothered with server use)?

And what about blue? Do they still have noticalby better performance than red and greens? I am seeing posts from 2012 saying greens have 5200 rpm and slower than blue, but that is not true for 2014-2015 models, is it?
I wonder why BLue:s are only available to 1tb... i wanted to buy 2tb or 3tb.

And yes, the HDD will be for having my OS and games and programs on. At least the next 1-2 years till I get an SSD.

tamzzy · 15 Feb 2015 at 19:15

get the blue if you want more performance

get the red for 24x7 workloads (as always, ymmv). it's slower than the blue (7200rpm vs 5900rpm)

green is for low power. i wouldn't reccomend these drives as a primary drive as they have very aggressive low-power modes.
your user experience will definitely suffer as they take time to spin up every time you try to access data (especially as you are using it as a primary drive)

Duvan · 15 Feb 2015 at 19:21

Okay. Thanks for the answer!

Okay so it's blue then if I'm buying a WD, but if I wanted to buy a 2TB drive that would have about the same performance as a WD blue, is there some other brand/model to recommend? The WD Blacks are much to expensive.

ED209 · 15 Feb 2015 at 19:37

visit this site, it tells you what the colours stand for

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/internal/desktop/

tamzzy · 15 Feb 2015 at 19:48

do you currently have a hard drive that doesn't need changing?
if you do, i suggest you get a 240/256gb ssd instead of a new hdd

i know it's not quite answering your question, but it's the most sensible answer.
but if you want to get a hdd and be done with it, then just get the toshiba 2tb ssd that's £70

Duvan · 15 Feb 2015 at 20:25

I have an old HDD but it's 320 gb only and full, and I'm planning to put it in another computer.

You're suggesting a hybrid drive?
I can't find a toshiba 2tb in my country, only the Seagate 2tb ST2000DX001
But the price of that one is about the same as a Red WD 2tb so would make sense if there are not other drawbacks...

Frozennova · 15 Feb 2015 at 21:22

Blue or Black for OS/Games general use. The Black is faster and available in larger capacites

Green as an Archive/backup drive

Red/Red Pro for NAS/RAID

Purple for CCTV/Surveillance

robj20 · 16 Feb 2015 at 10:11

You can use a green but you need to tweak the settings and either turn off the inteli park or set it to a longer time. Think they park after 8 seconds of inactivity. I set all mine to 5 mins.

alphaomega16 · 22 Feb 2015 at 03:53

Sorry to jack your thread but I am wondering the same, I have a PC which is on 24/7 and I am looking to increase storage space with a couple of 6TB Drives (One to hold main data and other one to backup to and keep in a safe place).

Now since my machine is on 24/7 and it also stores films for streaming am I right in thinking I should pick up the Red drives over the Green ?

demon8991 · 22 Feb 2015 at 23:35

alphaomega16 said:
Sorry to jack your thread but I am wondering the same, I have a PC which is on 24/7 and I am looking to increase storage space with a couple of 6TB Drives (One to hold main data and other one to backup to and keep in a safe place).

Now since my machine is on 24/7 and it also stores films for streaming am I right in thinking I should pick up the Red drives over the Green ?

100% get the Red drives, they are suited for your use perfectly and come with an extra year on the warranty.

alphaomega16 · 22 Feb 2015 at 23:42

demon8991 said:
100% get the Red drives, they are suited for your use perfectly and come with an extra year on the warranty.

Thanks, now all I need is for OC to get them in and list them at £200.

I have seen the horror stories of packaging from hhhmmmmm, not sure if I can say their name here but its usually before the word jungle.

If anyone knows to what im referring can you clarify for me if that particular site is ok or not to mention.

demon8991 · 23 Feb 2015 at 02:09

alphaomega16 said:
Thanks, now all I need is for OC to get them in and list them at £200.

I have seen the horror stories of packaging from hhhmmmmm, not sure if I can say their name here but its usually before the word jungle.

If anyone knows to what im referring can you clarify for me if that particular site is ok or not to mention.

Personally I have never ordered any computer components from that said site due to reasons you have mentioned although their returns process is outstanding.

You are right though there is quite a difference in price between the two companies might be worth contacting OcUK to see if they can offer a better price, not sure they will but may be worth a go.

alphaomega16 · 23 Feb 2015 at 04:54

demon8991 said:
Personally I have never ordered any computer components from that said site due to reasons you have mentioned although their returns process is outstanding.

You are right though there is quite a difference in price between the two companies might be worth contacting OcUK to see if they can offer a better price, not sure they will but may be worth a go.

As far as I can tell from the OC site they dont even stock the drives yet, would prefer to purchase from OC as its where I have always obtained PC parts and I have had nothing but good experiences with them so I am more than happy to continue only purchasing from OC.

Hopefully they will start stocking them soon.

demon8991 · 23 Feb 2015 at 05:09

alphaomega16 said:
As far as I can tell from the OC site they dont even stock the drives yet, would prefer to purchase from OC as its where I have always obtained PC parts and I have had nothing but good experiences with them so I am more than happy to continue only purchasing from OC.

Hopefully they will start stocking them soon.

Yeah OcUK have had them in stock for ages.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Western DIgital Caviar Red HDD 24TB Bundle 4 x 6TD Drives £899.93
1 x Western Digital Caviar Red HDD 18TB Bundle 3 x 6TB Drives £674.94
1 x Western Digital Caviar Red HDD 12TB Bundle 2 x 6TB Drives £449.96
1 x Western Digital Caviar Red 6TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD60EFRX - OEM HDD £229.98
Total : £2,264.41 (includes shipping : £8.00).

Justintime · 23 Feb 2015 at 10:00

alphaomega16 said:
Thanks, now all I need is for OC to get them in and list them at £200.

I have seen the horror stories of packaging from hhhmmmmm, not sure if I can say their name here but its usually before the word jungle.

If anyone knows to what im referring can you clarify for me if that particular site is ok or not to mention.

Yea first and last time I ever ordered any hdds from them were 1.5Tb Samsung Spinpoints that came with NO bubblewrap in a cardboard packet, not box! About 3yrs ago. Somehow they survived and passed all tests and work to this day. God knows how.

alphaomega16 · 23 Feb 2015 at 13:16

demon8991 said:
Yeah OcUK have had them in stock for ages.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Western DIgital Caviar Red HDD 24TB Bundle 4 x 6TD Drives £899.93
1 x Western Digital Caviar Red HDD 18TB Bundle 3 x 6TB Drives £674.94
1 x Western Digital Caviar Red HDD 12TB Bundle 2 x 6TB Drives £449.96
1 x Western Digital Caviar Red 6TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD60EFRX - OEM HDD £229.98
Total : £2,264.41 (includes shipping : £8.00).

Strange, when I went to Internal HDD over 2TB and sorted by western digital I didnt see them. Guess im holding off on buying til they come down a bit more.

Edit
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produ...tid=14&sortby=manual_sort&subid=1955&mfrid=46

Where are you seeing them ?

alphaomega16 · 23 Feb 2015 at 17:46

ah, they are hiding in the NAS portion, strange the red drives are listed in where I was looking up to 4tb though lol, my bad.

Just need them to drop closer to £200 each so I can pick two up.

Jinxter · 25 Feb 2015 at 20:54

I'd pay a bit extra and get a Black as you have piece of mind with a 5 year warranty. My Samsung died after the warranty was up. Buy cheap pay twice as they say..

sastusbulbas · 27 Feb 2015 at 16:15

Duvan said:
I've tried to read different WD drives reviews... but it's still not clear to me what I should buy.

I wanted to buy 2tb or 3tb.

And yes, the HDD will be for having my OS and games and programs on. At least the next 1-2 years till I get an SSD.

I really do not understand why you would be looking at expensive 2TB to 3TB drives for all you files and forgoeing SSD in this day and age. Especially for 1 or 2 years.

I would personally prefer an SSD and 1tb or 2tb drive over 3tb HDD only, my lads use a 120gb SSD and there are currently 1tb and 1.5tb internal storage drives they will probably never fill. Considering the pricing of HDD's, it would not be that costly to but a 120gb or 250gb SSD and 1tb or 2tb hdd, then add another HDD later, these days a 2tb drive costs what a 1tb drive cost a few years ago.

Currently you only have 320gb, so quite why you feel the need to forgoe the biggest performance boost for even more storage I do not know?

Do you have a budget in mind, regardless of opinons given, they are all pretty much void if you only have £70

w00dy85 · 27 Feb 2015 at 20:31

Like others have said, SSD for OS and mechanical drive for other things, that's the way to go. I have a SSD for my OS and a WD black drive for games and 3TB for files.