Difference between WD Blue and Green?

[IdortMasterRace]

I always thought that Greens were slower (specifically for just archiving things), but were cheaper because of this. However, a 1TB Green is exactly the same price as a 1TB Blue on Amazon.co.uk.

 

I need a drive specifically for storing and archiving stuff, but is there any benefit to buying a Green over a Blue in this situation?

[ThyFeared]

This video answered my questions

[WereCat]

No. Get Blue. Greens ARE slower than Blue.

[Archangel1994]

Green is slower but power efficient and quiet. Blue is balanced between noiuse and perf.

[Krytopsy]

Green are the only drives I don't recommend of the WD line up. They're unreliable as hell. Green consume less power not as much as Red are effective but they do. The Green are slower too.

[Pugs501]

Green is slower but power efficient and quiet. Blue is balanced between noiuse and perf.

I thought the Noise/Performance was Black?

[Theo]

Greens are slower than blue but for your situation i dont see a reason why you'd pick the blue over the green.

And IMO the greens are fine for everyday usage and all that, i really like them being quiet

[Theo]

Green are the only drives I don't recommend of the WD line up. They're unreliable as hell. Green consume less power not as much as Red are effective but they do. The Green are slower too.

Lol unreliable? Are you drunk

[Archangel1994]

I thought the Noise/Performance was Black?

Black is noisy and high performing. Green is quiet and slower. Blue is balanced.

[Tsuki]

"Blue: WD Blue drives are the effective baseline model for the SATA lineup. They spin at the “default” 7,200 RPMs, lack ERC/RLER and have a single processor. Drive cache varies between 16MB, 32MB and 64MB depending on the specific model. Blue drives are targeted at traditional desktop usage – as single drives with moderate speed characteristics, not well suited to server or RAID usage. Blue drives are what is “expected” to be found in off the shelf desktops. Blue drives have widely lost popularity and are often not available in larger sizes. Black and Green drives have mostly replaced the use of Blue drives, at least in larger capacity scenarios.

Black: WD Black drives are a small upgrade to the Blue drives changing nothing except to upgrade from one to two processors to slightly improve performance while not being quite as cost effective. Like the Blue drives they lack ERC/TLER and spin at 7,200 RPM. All Black drives have the 64MB cache. As with the Blue drives, Black drives are most suitable for traditional desktop applications where drives are stand alone.

Green: WD Green drives, as their name nominally implies, are designed for low power consumption applications. They are most similar to Blue drives but spin at a slower 5,400 RPMs which requires less power and generates less heat. Green drives, like Blue and Black, are designed for standalone use primarily in desktops that need less drive performance than is expected in an average desktop. Green drives have proven to be very popular due to their low cost of acquisition and operation. It is assumed, as well, that Green drives are more reliable than their faster spinning counterparts due to the lower wear and tear of the slower spindles although I am not aware of any study to this effect.

Red: WD Red drives are unique in the “color coded” WD drive line up in that they offer ERC/TLER and are designed for use in small “home use” server RAID arrays and storage devices (such as NAS and SAN.) Under the hood the WD Red drives are WD Green drives, all specifications are the same including the 5,400 RPM spindle speed, but with TLER enabled in the firmware. Physically they are the same drives. WD officially recommends Red drives only for consumer applications but Red drives, due to their lower power consumption and TLER, have proven to be extremely popular in large RAID arrays, especially when used for archiving. Red drives, having URE 10^14, are dangerous to use in parity RAID arrays but are excellent for mirrored RAID arrays and truly shine at archival and similar storage needs where large capacity and low operational costs are key and storage performance is not very important."

 

source

 

EDIT by request:

Purple: Built for personal, home office or small business surveillance systems using up to 32 cameras. Includes a 64MB cache and up to 4TB capacity. Dont buy this for normal consumer desktop unless you're actually using a surveillance system.

[Pugs501]

*Snip*

You forgot WD Purple?

[Tsuki]

You forgot WD Purple?

 

*fixed

[Pugs501]

*fixed

If you're going to lecture at WD HDD's, at least talk about all of them...

[Tsuki]

If you're going to lecture at WD HDD's, at least talk about all of them...

to be fair, OP only asked about blue and green and i just copypasta'd another site, which oddly didnt show purple. although it did have information about the RE and Veloceraptor drives, however im at work and IE hates me so when i tried to go back the page wouldnt load lol

[Pugs501]

to be fair, OP only asked about blue and green and i just copypasta'd another site, which oddly didnt show purple. although it did have information about the RE and Veloceraptor drives, however im at work and IE hates me so when i tried to go back the page wouldnt load lol

I've had school since August and I have and I have 1k+ post.

[Tsuki]

I've had school since August and I have and I have 1k+ post.

im not entirely sure how thats relavent, but ill keep that in mind

[Krytopsy]

My favorite HDD brand is Western Digital but I will not deny the flaws on their products like the ''proprietary mendatory'' software required to access to the 120 SSD part of the WD Black2.

[R2D2_WD]

Hi guys,

 

There really is a difference between the WD Blue and the WD Green drives. I believe that @Tsuki provided a pretty detailed explanation. When you pick up a drive, you should determinate why you need a particular HDD. Is it just for storage purposes: storing movies, pictures, documents, etc? Then go for the WD Green. It is quieter, power consuming and offers more capacity.

If you need a drive for everyday usage, including some software, etc, go for the WD Blue. In general, the warranty should be taken in consideration too, but it is actually the same, when comparing these two drives.

@Krytopsy, you are right that a software is needed, when talking about the WD Black Dual drive. It is available on the WD web page and actually “unlocks” the 1 TB HDD part of the WD Black Dual drive. The SSD part is accessible when you connect the drive, so that you can easily install OS on it.

 

For further details, I leave you the specification sheets of the WD Blue and the WD Green.

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-771436.pdf – WD Blue

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-800026.pdf – WD Green

 

Hope this helps

[Krytopsy]

When you get a RAM memory stick defective, you just remove it from the slot and put the replacement back but with defective hard drives you have to re-transfer your whole bunch of data so whatever the warranty lenght is, it's still a bad experience to get an hard drive failure. Just my two cents

[R2D2_WD]

When you get a RAM memory stick defective, you just remove it from the slot and put the replacement back but with defective hard drives you have to re-transfer your whole bunch of data so whatever the warranty lenght is, it's still a bad experience to get an hard drive failure. Just my two cents

 

That is totally true. That is why we encourage users to do regular data backups. In that case, if you have warranty left, you can get a drive replacement and keep the information.