Western Digital: Black, Blue, Green

[philosofool]

What's the difference between the various models of WD HDDs?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Green is their low-power, low-RPM drive series. 5400RPM, although WD calls it "IntelliPower". They run cooler, so they're good for storage arrays, although being 5400RPM, they probably should not be used for system OS/boot drives.

Blue is their mid-range drive line, 7200RPM, three-year warranty.

Black is their high-end drive line, also 7200RPM, but with a five-year warranty. Most of them also have additional drive cache, and dual-processors. Their 2TB WD Black drives also have better technology, like dual-stage actuators.

For the longest time, the drive with the best price/performance was the WD 6400AAKS, the WD Caviar Blue 640GB drive with two 320GB platters. It had better performance than the three 250GB platter 750GB drive. But now, it seems like the 1TB Black drives might be better. The 2TB Black drives are at the extreme high-end of performance, but they also have an extreme high-end price, so IMHO they aren't that worth it. 6400AAKS can be had for $65 or less if you shop around.
link
Btw, ZipZoomFly packages their OEM hard drives extremely well, I would much prefer to order from them than from Newegg, and their prices are extremely competitive as well.

 

[Denithor]

Close but a bit off on the Green drives. They are adjustable speed - 5400 rpm when idle and crank up to 7200 rpm when active. Meaning they run a little cooler when not working but there is a slight hesitation as it speeds up that you won't experience with the other two series.

Otherwise right on the money - blue is mid level and black is high end with most cache and best warranty.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Denithor
Close but a bit off on the Green drives. They are adjustable speed - 5400 rpm when idle and crank up to 7200 rpm when active. Meaning they run a little cooler when not working but there is a slight hesitation as it speeds up that you won't experience with the other two series.

Nope, not true. Read the storagereview article about the GP drive series.

WD themselves has stated that the drives run at a single rpm, within a product line. They leave open the possibility that future GP drives may run at 7200RPM, but none of their current ones do.

Edit: My opinion of WikiPedia is pretty low, but this is what they have to say: "In 2007 Western Digital announced the WD GP drive touting rotational speed "between 7200 and 5400 rpm", which, if potentially misleading, is technically correct; the drive spins at 5405 rpm, and the Green Power spin speed is not variable"

 

[hclarkjr]

actually virtuallarry they run idle at 5400 rpm and when you use them they ramp up to 7200 rpm. it is called intellipower. read the descriptions at some retail sites and they state that the drive goes from 5400 to 7200

 

[a123456]

They may say they spin at "7200" but if you look at just about any sequential benchmarks on hard drives, the green series is always much slower than the Blue/Black with the same platter density. This points at a speed closer to 5400 than 7200.

Their seek times are also much slower than normal 7200 rpm times.

It's vaguely possible that it actually spins at 7200rpm, but just looking at the data, if its performance envelope for reads, writes, and seek times is comparable to other 5400-5900 rpm, it doesn't matter what the actual spin rate is.

Bottom line, green is good as a storage drive and faster drives would be better for an OS/apps drive.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: hclarkjr
actually virtuallarry they run idle at 5400 rpm and when you use them they ramp up to 7200 rpm. it is called intellipower. read the descriptions at some retail sites and they state that the drive goes from 5400 to 7200

That's funny, since WD doesn't even state that. I'm trying to find the SR article that has a quote from WD themselves, they state that they run at an "invariable" RPM.

Edit: Google for "invariable RPM"

This is simply a lie from WD. Be warned of such a company. And yes, they said that (I saved them for future reference):

On 7th August 2007 their web page stated:
Rotational Speed: IntelliPower (5400 to 7200 RPM)

Since the lie was revealed by Internet, on 28th October 2007 that very same page stated:
Rotational Speed: IntelliPower*
*A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate and cache size designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance. For each GreenPower drive model, WD uses a different, invariable RPM.

LIARS!!! ALL SUCH WD DRIVES ARE 5,400 RPM ALL THE TIME. ALL THE TIME FOR ALL SUCH DRIVES!!! STOP CHEATING US!!!

Edit: Here's the article from SR: link

 

[CoinOperatedBoy]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
For the longest time, the drive with the best price/performance was the WD 6400AAKS, the WD Caviar Blue 640GB drive with two 320GB platters. It had better performance than the three 250GB platter 750GB drive. But now, it seems like the 1TB Black drives might be better. The 2TB Black drives are at the extreme high-end of performance, but they also have an extreme high-end price, so IMHO they aren't that worth it. 6400AAKS can be had for $65 or less if you shop around.
link
Btw, ZipZoomFly packages their OEM hard drives extremely well, I would much prefer to order from them than from Newegg, and their prices are extremely competitive as well.

You can also find the 640GB Black model (6401AALS) for $65 or less, and it will be a better performer than the Blue 6400AAKS.

 

[neodoc]

i have one of those GP drives and they are indeed slow.i feel its one 5400 drive nothing else.

 

[CoinOperatedBoy]

Originally posted by: neodoc
i have one of those GP drives and they are indeed slow.i feel its one 5400 drive nothing else.

...because it is, as designed.

 

[elconejito]

It may or may not matter regarding the spindle speed, but the "GP" line is the older green drives. The "Green" designation is the newer green drives. The new ones have "DS" at the end of the model number instead of CS. As in WD5000AACS vs WD5000AADS. The DS versions usually have less platters, lower power, and better speed than the older GP line of drives. I've noticed though that many of the retail stores interchange GP and Green in the product titles so you really just have to pay attention to the model name.

I thought I recall somewhere (maybe SR) that they tested the drive and after doing some rough calculations it looked like it was spinning at approximately 6k RPM which fit in with the description at the time of "between 5400 and 7200 rpm". FWIW...

 

[ilkhan]

I fail to see the controversy over the green power drives. I got the WD20EADS for the low power high capacity factor. The transfer speeds (long as they're above my usable network bandwidth), don't matter at all. Since they fulfill that quite well, I just ordered a second one. Nobody buys an EADS for speed.

 

[a123456]

Originally posted by: elconejito
I thought I recall somewhere (maybe SR) that they tested the drive and after doing some rough calculations it looked like it was spinning at approximately 6k RPM which fit in with the description at the time of "between 5400 and 7200 rpm". FWIW...

6k RPM seems high.

From here, the 5900RPM Seagate easily beats out the Green and all the other 5400RPM drives in the sequential read/write performance. Although the Green even loses to the Samsung 5400RPM drive in sequential benchmarks, so maybe it's just bad at it.

On another site, it showed that the 500GB/platter Greens lost to the 333GB/platter 7200RPM drives by a large margin.

 

[imported_Scoop]

Noise, power consumption and benchmark results.

 

[Towndog]

CoinOpBoy,
"You can also find the 640GB Black model (6401AALS) for $65 or less, and it will be a better performer than the Blue 6400AAKS. "




I'm needing this deal, can't find one that cheap today..Newegg yesterday had one around that, but I'd have to pay taxes. Anyone know of a good buy out there??

 

[CoinOperatedBoy]

Originally posted by: Towndog
CoinOpBoy,
"You can also find the 640GB Black model (6401AALS) for $65 or less, and it will be a better performer than the Blue 6400AAKS. "




I'm needing this deal, can't find one that cheap today..Newegg yesterday had one around that, but I'd have to pay taxes. Anyone know of a good buy out there??

Yeah, Newegg's was $65 all week, but it's back up to $75ish now. I did find this drive for $70 at ZipZoomFly today.

 

[Towndog]

Got one today from ZZFly..they raised the price , but a $15 rebate, free shipping, and no tax. $61.99 after rebate. oh yea, got $2.31 bing for a final total of $59.68
They lowered the price since then..now$59.99 after rebate before bing.