Hard Drive Choice

[Fez760]

so i know i may sound like a major idiot for this but Western Digital has WD Blue, Red, Green, Black all that i know of... are there any differences?

[Jade]

Green is low power / quiet - very good for backups and mass storage that doesn't need to be quick.

Blue is consumer-grade, middle of the line. Similar performance to the Seagate Barracuda.

Black is the "performance" drive. Faster, at the expense of sound.

Red is a NAS drive; meant for 24/7 operation and some vibration (not impact, just vibrations in tight NAS enclosures.)

Purple is for surveillance. Recordings form security cameras, etc.

 

Ping @Captain_WD

 

Edit: Oh, he's out of office. Pinging @Boogieman_WD and '].

[NeatSquidYT]

Red = NAS Drive (has features used in NASes)

Green = quiet, power efficient (I think)

Black = very quick, usually used for video editors etc., bit louder than greens

Blue = Combination of green and black, very nicely rounded drive

Purple = surveillance purposes.

[JefferyD90]

Blue = run of the mill

Green = energy efficiency

Red = extreme endurance

Black = performance

There are actual differences between all of them.

[thatguyyouknow75]

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/240122-what-drive-should-i-get-a-guide-to-the-mechanical-hd-market/

[SeanAngelo]

so i know i may sound like a major idiot for this but Western Digital has WD Blue, Red, Green, Black all that i know of... are there any differences?

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

[Mighty_Miro_WD]

Hi there @Fez760!

 

There are pretty good explanations about the difference between the drives, but I would like to add a few things as well.

 

The Black drive is a performance oriented HDD and has build-in features like dynamic cache (which optimizes the cache allocation) and no touch ramp technology (the recording head never touches the disk) that will give you faster loading times. 

 

WD Blue is meant for everyday computing - very good drive with solid performance and typical power consumption. The Green drives on the other hand are energy efficient, secondary storage designed HDDs. The main benefit is that they save power and wear by spinning down when they can, this means they're basically best for things like backup drives which are only in use periodically (e.g - once an hour).

 

WD Red are designed for NAS and RAID environments. Their power consumption is really good, but unlike the Green which is designed to save power between uses, the Reds are designed to just spin constantly for continual use/availability. They're quiet, have good speeds and low operating temperature, as well as reduced vibration. WD Purple is meant for surveillance.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Cheers!

 

@Jade, thank you for the ping!