Western Digital Blue vs Black (gaming + boot drive)

[jak3mac]

Hi, my 1 tB Segate Barracuda drive died recently ( ) and I want to replace it, obviously, and was wondering if I should get a WD Blue or Black. I know everyone says that the black is better but would I actually notice really? Or should I save the money and get a Blue? It'd be a storage and boot drive and I play a lot of games so they'd all be stored on there too, I'd rather save money than experience a tiny amount more lag but other factors are sound level and heat level, is one much louder or hotter than the other because that'd affect my decision quite a lot.

 

Any advice would be much appreciated 

[TheRoss0411]

Blue, the black has barely any better performance 

Or even better gen an SSD

[Andi]

Blue is good enough. Or buy a 2nd barracuda

[dan93]

Go for the WD Blue. It's quite good.

[TheProfosist]

Black!

[jak3mac]

Looks like the general consensus is to go for blue!

[eshbop]

Maybe save the money a Black would cost you and instead get a Green and a 60GB SSD for a boot drive? It'll be quicker, quieter and not cost a lot more.

 

Otherwise, the Black is kinda loud, Blue will be quieter and a little slower.

[dalekphalm]

Hi, my 1 tB Segate Barracuda drive died recently ( ) and I want to replace it, obviously, and was wondering if I should get a WD Blue or Black. I know everyone says that the black is better but would I actually notice really? Or should I save the money and get a Blue? It'd be a storage and boot drive and I play a lot of games so they'd all be stored on there too, I'd rather save money than experience a tiny amount more lag but other factors are sound level and heat level, is one much louder or hotter than the other because that'd affect my decision quite a lot.

 

Any advice would be much appreciated 

I would get a WD Blue, and take the money you saved on the Black to buy an SSD as your boot drive. It'll be an extremely large performance boost for overall computing usage. You can install the games onto the WD Blue HDD (Only a few games benefit from being on an SSD, and that's usually limited to only load times).

[AlwaysFSX]

Oh man Blue's are not as good as people think. They're sooooo sloooooow. I'd get a Black drive instead.

[TheProfosist]

Black!

My reasoning for black is that ive had horrible times with blues. I put this up to the being WD cheapest drive aimed at emerging markets. Their green drives have more reliability but I would never use a green drive as a OS drive. When it comes down to it the black has better build, warranty, speed, and access times.

A good other option is a Seagate SV35 I have been having very good luck with them minus one DOA drive. I might put that up to newegg's packaging which was horrible for HDDs until the new stuff they just started shipping with.

[Viking Kong]

Hi, my 1 tB Segate Barracuda drive died recently ( ) and I want to replace it, obviously, and was wondering if I should get a WD Blue or Black. I know everyone says that the black is better but would I actually notice really? Or should I save the money and get a Blue? It'd be a storage and boot drive and I play a lot of games so they'd all be stored on there too, I'd rather save money than experience a tiny amount more lag but other factors are sound level and heat level, is one much louder or hotter than the other because that'd affect my decision quite a lot.

 

Any advice would be much appreciated 

I'm kind of in the same boat. I just bought a 120GB Samsung Evo and need to replace my 250GB blue drive. Was thinking of the black, blue or green 1TB drives. The blue is $60 after using a promo code.

[TheProfosist]

I'm kind of in the same boat. I just bought a 120GB Samsung Evo and need to replace my 250GB blue drive. Was thinking of the black, blue or green 1TB drives. The blue is $60 after using a promo code.

What are you going to use it for? If its basically just a storage drive the green would be the best option if you going to be running thing like games or programs off of it I would recommend the blue. Truthfully though for a 1TB drive I would recommend this http://goo.gl/4p6oD as it only has a single platter. This will give it far better access times and since it has a 1tb platter density the speed makes it one of the quickest currently. Its also a entry level enterprise dive so you get all of those benefits too.

[Viking Kong]

What are you going to use it for? If its basically just a storage drive the green would be the best option if you going to be running thing like games or programs off of it I would recommend the blue. Truthfully though for a 1TB drive I would recommend this http://goo.gl/4p6oD as it only has a single platter. This will give it far better access times and since it has a 1tb platter density the speed makes it one of the quickest currently. Its also a entry level enterprise dive so you get all of those benefits too.

120GB boot drive with some games on it (BF4) The 1TB drive will be used for games as well, music, general storage etc. 

[TheProfosist]

120GB boot drive with some games on it (BF4) The 1TB drive will be used for games as well, music, general storage etc.

Then check out the drive I link to its the Seagate SV35 1TB on Newegg. Its only $75 currently and last week I saw it at $65 after promo.

[viper1979]

Black. You get a 5 year warranty over the crappy 2 year of the blue.  That is the main difference.

 

-T

[viper1979]

But why do that? Buy a Plextor M5P Xtreme 256Gb drive! It also comes with a 5 year warranty, it is an SSD drive and only costs $220!

 

-T

[TheProfosist]

Black. You get a 5 year warranty over the crappy 2 year of the blue. That is the main difference.

-T

I thought they were down to 1 year now maybe I miss read something...

[TheProfosist]

But why do that? Buy a Plextor M5P Xtreme 256Gb drive! It also comes with a 5 year warranty, it is an SSD drive and only costs $220!

-T

Maybe he needs more than 256gb?

[chos5555]

I have the 1TB WD Black in my current rig. And I'm not really satisfied with it. Yeah it is fast, but it is doing some weird sounds that I found are normal, cause lot of people have them. It is really annoying. I'll go with Blue or Green next time I'll be getting a new HDD.

[brob]

Black. You get a 5 year warranty over the crappy 2 year of the blue.  That is the main difference.

 

-T

 

I don't let warranty affect my purchase decision because if I need to make a warranty claim a) I've already bought a replacement, because I can't wait and b) capacities have increased to the point that I can buy 10, 20, 100 times the storage for the same price. I'm satisfied with drives that have a 1 - 2 year warranty.

[Theo]

i'd even get a green, makes less noise if that is of any concern to you, otherwise blue

[Mooshi]

Outside of added noise, I see no reason to get a black drive over a blue with 64mb of cache. Both will be 'slow' vs an ssd anyway, so why care?

[TheProfosist]

I don't let warranty affect my purchase decision because if I need to make a warranty claim a) I've already bought a replacement, because I can't wait and B) capacities have increased to the point that I can buy 10, 20, 100 times the storage for the same price. I'm satisfied with drives that have a 1 - 2 year warranty.

HDDs havnt been cheap again until recently so buy a 3TB to replace your 3Tb would have been out of the question. Also a longer warranty is always better even if it does die and you buy a new one once you RMA it you have another nice drive.

[TheProfosist]

Outside of added noise, I see no reason to get a black drive over a blue with 64mb of cache. Both will be 'slow' vs an ssd anyway, so why care?

Because for many things when you dont have a ton of money and you need a 1TB+ that added performance and reliability is nice to have?

i'd even get a green, makes less noise if that is of any concern to you, otherwise blue

I agree if your not using it as a boot drive get a green

[Akolyte]

Why not get a green or blue drive and get a small SSD as your boot drive? the HDD might be slow but the SSD won't