WD Blue,Green, Black and Red

[TheGamingLawNL]

To keep it simple, what is the difference and what kind of drive would be most suited for gaming? I hear different stories and just don't know what to follow now.

 

Black seems to be best, Blue after that and then Green.

 

As far as I know, RED is NAS drives.

 

PS, the choice is not for me. I run SSDs ^^

[TheKDub]

Blacks.

[antoainb]

Blacks for gaming, blues for nothing since Barracudas make more sense IMHO (pls no comments on failure rates), reds for NAS usage and greens for long term storage or extremely low power situations.

[Damikiller37]

Reds are performance oriented drives that spin at variable rates so for things like NAS or home servers.

Greens are for eco which means that the are made to consume little power less power consumption
Blues are your standard vanilla drives but are faster then Greens
Blacks are for enthusiasts meaning that you will get the best speeds for gaming in your case.

 

So either Blues or Blacks are the way to go unless you want a lot of storage (2TB+) on the cheap then you should go with Greens or Reds if you are planning to put them in a NAS or Server.

[qwertywarrior]

Black seems to be best, Blue after that and then Green.

 

As far as I know, RED is NAS drives.

 

 

 

 

correct

[Syntaxvgm]

Or just not WD at all. Especially the high capacity ones. 

[I/O]

RED is good cause you get the peace of mind that you are getting a more reliable drive with better support. But the Blacks well nothing wrong with them or the others.

[Syntaxvgm]

RED is good cause you get the peace of mind that you are getting a more reliable drive with better support. But the Blacks well nothing wrong with them or the others.

I got a few red bricks that disagree. 

Again, the high capacity ones are the bad ones. The others are fine I think. 

[dragoon20005]

typically pick drives of 1 or 2TB capacity

 

higher ones for some odd reason tends to fail faster

[I/O]

I got a few red bricks that disagree. 

Again, the high capacity ones are the bad ones. The others are fine I think. 

To bad that the RED drives are server grade and are better for reliability and support ... that why you pay extra for them but hey trust a few bad apple reviews go ahead LOL .

[Syntaxvgm]

To bad that the RED drives are server grade and are better for reliability and support ... that why you pay extra for them but hey trust a few bad apple reviews go ahead LOL .

The bad apple reviews are in the form a metal pile on my desk. 

[I/O]

The bad apple reviews are in the form a metal pile on my desk. 

Great use the dam support that you paid extra for. they are server grade drives made for 24/7 operation. Christ sake do you not understand what you paid for LOL. Could have also been an error between K/B and chair no offense intended.

[Syntaxvgm]

Great use the dam support that you paid extra for. they are server grade drives made for 24/7 operation. Christ sake do you not understand what you paid for LOL. Could have also been an error between K/B and chair no offense intended.

No offense taken. I know I know what I'm doing. I received half of them dead 5 more died within a month. (These are all 4TB reds) I have gotten a total of 10 replacements so far, and I'm waiting on support to send off for more. 6 of replacements those have died, 2 of those were DOA. The pile of metal is because they break faster than they can be replaced

I have about twice as many HGST 4TB NAS drives and had only one failure and one doa. Same rack, Similar case.

 

I trusted WD because of past experiences but this is unacceptable. It seems to only be the red drives above 2TB. 

[I/O]

No offense taken. I know I know what I'm doing. I received half of them dead 5 more died within a month. I have gotten a total of 10 replacements so far, and I'm waiting on support to send off for more. 6 of replacements those have died, 2 of those were DOA. The pile of metal is because they break faster than they can be replaced

I have about twice as many HGST 4TB NAS drives and had only one failure and one doa. 

 

I trusted WD because of past experiences but this is unacceptable. It seems to only be the red drives above 2TB. 

Had a few WD drives over the years and they never let me down yet ... In fact as I type I have been using this WD black drive 24/7 for well over a year. RED guarantees more reliability and stability than that of Black drives so it would stand to reason you are full of shit ... Once again no offense intended.

[Syntaxvgm]

Had a few WD drives over the years and they never let me down yet ... In fact as I type I have been using this WD black drive 24/7 for well over a year. RED guarantees more reliability and stability than that of Black drives so it would stand to reason you are full of shit ... Once again no offense intended.

As rude as you are I believe you. In the past I have had nothing but good drives from WD. I usually get blacks and greens. I have never owned a 4TB drive from WD before, and I'd have to say it might have do with the newer high capacity designs. I want to try out the 6TB ones but I'm scared to. To be fair every dead one has been replaced so far and I expect the newly failed ones to be as well but just way to frequent. 

I still will buy WD for 10000 RPM drives at least for now. Never had a single one let me down yet. Kinda amazing really. 

[GloriousPain]

>Red- NAS/Server usage
>Blue- Normal usage (Useless b/c Seagate)
>Black- Enthusiast usage <Faster, Quieter, More reliable than Blues> (useless because SSDs and Seagate for HDDs)
>Green- Back ups, longterm storage, Low power usage
>Purple- 24/7 Nas/Server usage for constant usage
>Black²- Combo drives for laptops 
>Velicoraptor- highspeed(RPM wise) drives noisy and inefficient
>Seagate Barracuda- For Normal usage best bang/buck and basically best HDDs overall
>Seagate Momentus- SSHDs
>SSDs- Fast Reliable Quiet Efficient best of the best 99+1% of the time except in terms of pricing...

[dragoon20005]

>Red- NAS/Server usage

>Blue- Normal usage (Useless b/c Seagate)

>Black- Enthusiast usage <Faster, Quieter, More reliable than Blues> (useless because SSDs and Seagate for HDDs)

>Green- Back ups, longterm storage, Low power usage

>Purple- 24/7 Nas/Server usage for constant usage

>Black²- Combo drives for laptops 

>Seagate Barracuda- For Normal usage best bang/buck and basically best HDDs overall

>Seagate Momentus- SSHDs

>SSDs- Fast Reliable Quiet Efficient best of the best 99+1% of the time except in terms of pricing...

you almost forget one more drive from WD

 

Velociraptor 1TB

[Syntaxvgm]

you almost forget one more drive from WD

 

Velociraptor 1TB

I'm still rockin 500GB ones. Great dives. 

[dragoon20005]

I'm still rockin 500GB ones. Great dives. 

fast but noisy and pricey thou

 

that drive was like the best before SSD came along 

[GloriousPain]

you almost forget one more drive from WD

 

Velociraptor 1TB

editted it in

[Syntaxvgm]

fast but noisy and pricey thou

 

that drive was like the best before SSD came along 

At their price I still think they are an option. Noise is not an issue for servers. But I'm finally moving to SSDs slowly. So far I've had a couple of samsung ones and been delighted, but for price and equal reliability I'm being persuaded to give crucial mx100s a try. 

[I/O]

At their price I still think they are an option. Noise is not an issue for servers. But I'm finally moving to SSDs slowly. 

Price .... You can get a 480GB SSD for $200 that obliterates any HDD and the Velociraptor 500GB cost $140 ... Lets see which is the better value here LOL.

[Syntaxvgm]

Price .... You can get a 480GB SSD for $200 that obliterates any HDD and the Velociraptor 500GB cost $140 ... Lets see which is the better value here LOL.

We got them for 99$ bulk deal and still have some. They are as low as 120$ retail.  It's not about pure horsepower in all cases. I think it's a happy medium. But yea I'm probably not gonna order another except for replacements if need be. SSDs are really reasonable recently. 

[I/O]

We got them for 99$ bulk deal and still have some. They are as low as 120$ retail.  It's not about pure horsepower in all cases. I think it's a happy medium. But yea I'm probably not gonna order another except for replacements if need be. SSDs are really reasonable recently. 

Um the rest of us have to pay to much for that drive. SSD way way way faster and cost the same for near enough the same capacity ..... My vote SSD faster more reliably , less power consumption, less noise ... need I go on LOL. Velociraptor is dead it's noisy , loud and consumes more power enouff said.

[Syntaxvgm]

Um the rest of us have to pay to much for that drive. SSD way way way faster and cost the same for near enough the same capacity ..... My vote SSD faster more reliably , less power consumption, less noise ... need I go on LOL. Velociraptor is dead it's noisy , loud and consumes more power enouff said.

We got these in 2012, and those replaced some 150GB drives we had for ages. I usually make the hardware decisions, but I don't make the budget and final approval decisions, please understand. And that's the story for a low of people, even at large companies.  And for servers that have delta fans I don't think noisey drives is a reason to upgrade. We've only had them for 1.5 years and it'll probably be at least another year before an upgrade.  They are lower demand web servers anyway, bleeding edge speed is not always needed.  

Power consumption, yes that would improve, but this is not a large server room and it's pretty inconsequential. Just a few racks.