WD Purple or Blue?

[rtwjunkie]

What capacity do you have? Is it noisy? And How's the 4TB one?

I've got 4TB and 2 TB ones. My oldest 2 TB drives have run 24/7 for 4 and a half years now. I cannot vouch for noise as they all sit in a server, with fans that have no regard for noise. I like the 4TB. I see no difference in streaming from the 2TB. I have yet to have one fail. I know all HDD fail, and it's a matter of time, but I am still impressed.

 

[Kursah]

The WDBlue I removed from my wife's laptop was supposedly 7.2k, but that damn thing was painfully slow...one of the worst new laptop drives I've ever wasted money on.

Took over 3 hours to migrate 250GB data over to a 500GB SSD. Ironically the SSD was a WD Blue 500GB I got for around $135 from Amazon recently. That thing is smokin' fast, it put my personal Samsung 850Evo 250GB on alert performance-wise. So far very happy with it...and the wife is too.

I'll have to give the Red's a try, never have used them in personal builds. But I'm about at the storage limit for my home server's RAID5 array...time to expand.

 

[rtwjunkie]

@Kursah those WD Blue SSD's are basically just the old mainstream SanDisks. You'll recall WD bought them last year. Anywho, that's why they impress you, because those SanDisks are nice SSD's. I've got a few of them.

 

[Nabarun]

I talked to the seller. He confirmed that the Blues (2TB+) are 5400 rpm. I have cancelled it. Will talk to him tomorrow since it's late at night here. All the Black and REDs are out of stock Amazon has some with either terrible pricing or imported with no warranty. And the user reviews are not very encouraging.

 

[alucasa]

Kinda miss the old days where they had just black, blue, and green.

Now it's so complicated, black, blue, green, purple, red, rainbow, gray, pink....

 

[FireFox]

rainbow, gray, pink....

Your Avatar and colors preferences confuse me

 

[ironwolf]

Kinda miss the old days where they had just black, blue, and green.

Now it's so complicated, black, blue, green, purple, red, rainbow, gray, pink....

I miss the old old days when WD didn't have any color code system on their drives.

 

[Komshija]

HGST HDDs are among the most reliable on the market. Toshiba's are also very reliable, so picking one of these wouldn't be a bad choice. For instance, I've always used 7200 RPM HDDs for storage and never regretted. Currently I have Toshiba X300 4TB for games and storage and external HDD for very important data.

Check Toshiba N300 and HGST Deskstar.

 

[alucasa]

Darn, they should get rid of Deskstar. It keeps reminding of the Deathstar HDD.

 

[cdawall]

My suggestion, avoid the Blues at all costs. I wouldn't trust my data on a WD Blue if WD was paying me to use it.

Agreed one of the most common failed drives I get into the shop are failed WD Blues or any of the 500GB slim 2.5" drives. Brand doesn't matter on those.

 

[ironwolf]

Agreed one of the most common failed drives I get into the shop are failed WD Blues or any of the 500GB slim 2.5" drives. Brand doesn't matter on those.

Really? I sell ~10/month of 500 GB and 1 TB Blue 3.5" (7200 RPM) and have yet to RMA one in ~2 years.

 

[cdawall]

Really? I sell ~10/month of 500 GB and 1 TB Blue 3.5" (7200 RPM) and have yet to RMA one in ~2 years.

I get them bad from Dell at least once a month (these are warranty replacement drives).

On top of that I see 3-5 a month bad in a month from myself alone. I run through 40 units a week roughly. This is just talking wd blue.

Seagate I only really see 7200.11/7200.12 drives and those are obviously out of warranty. That and the slim 500gb 5400RPM lappys

HGST I only see the slim 500gb lappy drives.

 

[Nabarun]

I get them bad from Dell at least once a month (these are warranty replacement drives).

On top of that I see 3-5 a month bad in a month from myself alone. I run through 40 units a week roughly. This is just talking wd blue.

Seagate I only really see 7200.11/7200.12 drives and those are obviously out of warranty. That and the slim 500gb 5400RPM lappys

HGST I only see the slim 500gb lappy drives.

How about the WD Blacks?

 

[rtwjunkie]

How about the WD Blacks?

My experience with them is they usually last quite a long time. Also are pretty fast. Basically a slightly less robust version of their RE Enterprise drives.

 

[cdawall]

How about the WD Blacks?

7 year old iMac's normally have a dead one in them, but those aren't exactly in the best location for survival and no one seems to know how to shut them off. They normally out last the unit they are in.

 

[Nabarun]

I think I've made up my mind. Gonna get a 2 TB Black. Will talk to the local seller tomorrow about possible availability then decide.

 

[Vario]

Love my blue 1TBs, I got 3 of them Been running them since 2013 no problems. Fast drives too. These are the 7200 RPM with 64MB cache. Actually seemed faster than my velociraptor 10k but that drive failed in just a few months so maybe it was just junk.

One I use the most is a wd10ezex. I am not certain of the other two. All three perform the same.

I would avoid 5400 RPM drives though, so if you get a 2 TB don't get the blue. 2TB black should be a good choice.

Interestingly this site says the 2012 blue is slightly faster than the 2013 black and the 2015 blue is a lot slower than the 2013 black...? I have the 2012 blue.
http://hdd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/WD-Blue-1TB-2012-vs-WD-Black-1TB-2013/1779vs1822
http://hdd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/WD-Blue-1TB-2015-vs-WD-Black-1TB-2013/3520vs1822

http://hdd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/WD-Blue-1TB-2015-vs-WD-Blue-1TB-2012/3520vs1779
Older is 20% faster than the newer!?

edit:
WD rebranded greens as blues? If thats the case, avoid them. Greens are trash.

 

[rtwjunkie]

WD rebranded greens as blues? If thats the case, avoid them. Greens are trash.

Yeah, about a year ago.

 

[eidairaman1]

Darn, they should get rid of Deskstar. It keeps reminding of the Deathstar HDD.

That was IBM, When Hitachi Bought the Brand, It kicks ass.

 

[cdawall]

That was IBM, When Hitachi Bought the Brand, It kicks ass.

Western digital owns them now

 

[Beastie]

IME greens are fine if you use them for the purpose they were designed for.

They aren't designed for running your OS.

 

[Filip Georgievski]

WD's Blue and above lineups (Red, Purple and Black) are solid enough in my book.
I've used (and still using as external storage) a WD Green 640GB (produced in 2010) which were considered SHAITE and C**P but mine lasts for like 7 years.
Now I got a 1TB WD Blue and for the money it is very reasonable priced and good quality.
If you have the money to go for a higher end one, go for 4TB Red or Purple, those are meant for server storage so they should be good choice for you.
If you like to save money, the 2TB Blue with 64mb cache and 7200RPM will do the job too.

 

[Shihab]

IME greens are fine if you use them for the purpose they were designed for.

They aren't designed for running your OS.

This.
Greens (and most 5400RPM drives) make for good long-term storage drives. Less speed = less heat and mechanical wear = longer life.

Anecdotes matter little -if they do at all- in this subject.

 

[fullinfusion]

Used WD 1tb black and lasted 7 years. Actually it still works but smart is warning me of issues.

When I checked for warranty it was 7y and 3months old.. ran great but I needed another drive and for the price, I replaced it with the blue 1tb and tbh I couldn't tell a bit of difference between either version speed wise..

 

[Nabarun]

WD's Blue and above lineups (Red, Purple and Black) are solid enough in my book.
I've used (and still using as external storage) a WD Green 640GB (produced in 2010) which were considered SHAITE and C**P but mine lasts for like 7 years.
Now I got a 1TB WD Blue and for the money it is very reasonable priced and good quality.
If you have the money to go for a higher end one, go for 4TB Red or Purple, those are meant for server storage so they should be good choice for you.
If you like to save money, the 2TB Blue with 64mb cache and 7200RPM will do the job too.

I have been using a 1TB blue since 2013. There is a couple of bad sectors, but the performance (according to HDDSentinel) is still @100%. Unfortunately, WD have done some re-branding and I can't feel quite as comfortable using the newer Blue ones with 2TB and greater. And as far as the purple and REDs go, they are meant for servers which usually have lots of very high speed fans, and are usually not as quiet as desktop ones. I don't intend to make my PC sound like a factory, but the ambient temps here are >45C in summer. I'm getting a RX 580 which is not known to be as cool as the GTXs. When I keep my cabinet door closed, the heat inside the cabinet (even without a dedicated GPU) makes the HDD temps go up 5-6 degrees. With a Dedicated GPU (I had a GTS 250 for years), the HDD gets well beyond 55C, resulting in bad sectors and data corruption. If I keep my chassis door open, some of my cats may piss on the inside and ... you know. This has happened many times. Hence, I don't think it will be wise to get a drive which needs that extra cooling to stay safe. And the Blacks come with 5 year warranty. That's something I like.