WD RED or Black?

TenzoNakami · May 13, 2017

I've been using RED for a few years now and it has never failed me. I've been using 4 RED Drives in my system and are looking forward to buy another 4 since I still has 4 more slots left.

Regarding to https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Understanding-the-WD-Rainbow-674/ it clearly says that the RED do have vibration protection while the Black doesn't.

My system uses a lots of fans and a subwoofer is near, expect lots of vibration. Does all this vibration will shorten the Black's life expectancy or it won't? And are there any real life performance difference between the RED and Black?

The room where my system runs do not have an air conditioner and therefore the temperature stays around 35-40 degree celcius in the noon and 29-33 degree celcius in the night. Average temperatures of the RED is 38 degree celcius under load. I don't know if its good or not. And does HDD's life expectancy also is shortened because of the temps?

My system runs 24/7/365 and is used mainly for gaming/streaming/video rendering. I already have 2x 850 PRO 512GB and it's speed is just amazing. But I can't afford 32TB of those crazily expensive drives!

So which ones do you guys recommend for me? The RED or the Black?

DrMikeNZ · May 13, 2017

WD black operate at a higher RPM, and will have a small boost in read/write performance at the cost of increased power draw and noise.

The biggest vibration issue that will influence a HDD is a bunch of drives vibrating together interfering with each other.

If you are going to have 4+ drives in a case, get the red over the black drives, as they are designed to operate in those conditions.

I have 9 WD red drives in my home file server, and they sit at 37-38°C and been there constantly for several years. Those temperatures will not be a concern for the HDDs.