▷ Western digital blue, green, black and purple. differences and which to choose
Table of contents:
- Differences between Western Digital hard drives
- Western Digital Blue: everyday use, mainstream
- Western Digital Green: No longer exist
- Western Digital Black: more advanced and demanding users
- Western Digital Red: for NAS systems
- Western Digital Purple: Surveillance, DVR and NVR
In recent years, Western Digital's product stack has changed considerably, as has the HDD market in general. We have found it appropriate to explain the naming scheme of the WD Blue, Black, Red and Purple units. We will talk about the best units for each purpose.
Index of contents
Differences between Western Digital hard drives
Unchanged over the years, Western Digital's affinity is to defer colors to identify products, where other HDD vendors prefer strange names (BarraCuda, IronWolf, SkyHawk, etc.). As previously stated, Western Digital has seriously changed its lineup. The WD Green units have been painted blue as they have been located within Blue. Beginning with the latter, Western Digital renamed all WD Green hard drives as WD Blue, selling WD Blues under two different RPMs.
We recommend reading our post on SSD vs HDD: Everything you need to know
Western Digital Blue: everyday use, mainstream
The WD Blue line is perhaps the bread and butter of Western Digital, which aims to mix high capacity, fast sequential read and write speeds, and accessibility. These units are mainly aimed at daily computing and the consumption of basic media; they are the starting point for the average customer. Bafflingly, WD Blue offers two rotational speeds: 5, 400 RPM and 7, 200 RPM. This is the result of mixing on the WD Green unit line. Any model number ending with a “z” is a previous WD Green offering and runs at 5400 RPM. The 1TB model ($ 50) is still the flagship model, running at 7200 RPM and hosting 64MB of cache. WD Blue drives lack advanced features like vibration protection or TLER (RAID specific) and carry the lowest 2-year warranty. In general, we recommend the WD Blue for primary drives and gaming use as they offer a good cost-performance ratio in terms of capacity and speed.
Western Digital Green: No longer exist
As mentioned above, Western Digital Green units have been integrated into the Blue line, shaping its models at 5, 400 RPM. Therefore, we will no longer find WD Green for sale.
Western Digital Black: more advanced and demanding users
Western Digital's Black series is comprised of performance-oriented disk drives. WD Blacks are geared for high capacity with the fastest possible performance. Previously, a WD Blue or Green drive could be slightly faster sequentially than a WD Black, mainly due to the density of the disk. The new WD Black aims to rectify this. The flagship 6TB drive ($ 280) is comprised of 5 1.2TB platters plus 10 read / write heads. This maximizes the data density per platter and helps minimize head drift. The DRAM cache has also doubled from the previous 4TB predecessor, reaching 128MB. In addition, Dynamic Cache technology is designed to be more demanding with data requests and move that data from the platters for theoretically faster performance. Additionally, the firmware has been improved to improve sequential read / write performance. The WD Blacks forgo the power and sound saving features of the WD Blue series, but offer advanced vibration protection and the best available 5-year warranty.
Western Digital Red: for NAS systems
Though not for gaming, the home-based cloud storage community, SOHO, RAID environments, and server investments make the WD Red line worth mentioning. The distinction between WD Reds and their desktop counterparts is that they are designed to withstand the challenges of the always-on NAS environment. NAS units are designed to withstand the constant vibrations and thermal envelope inherent in multi-unit systems. Western Digital uses its HelioSeal technology to fill and seal the unit with helium. Helium is lighter than air, and its purpose is twofold: it allows the chassis to accommodate an additional 1.2TB source (7 total) and allows less turbulence and drag, which equates to less power and heat consumption. The WD Red 8TB uses 14 read / write heads, an LSI-based controller along with 128MB of cache, has RAID error recovery controls, NASware 3.0 and comes with a 3 year warranty.
Western Digital Purple: Surveillance, DVR and NVR
WD Purple is Western Digital's surveillance class storage. These drives are suitable for 24/7 use, and the firmware and caching algorithms are optimized for write-intensive applications, as these drives spend most of their useful life writing data. AllFrame technology is exclusive to the WD Purple series. By reducing video errors, pixelation, and interruptions, AllFrame tries to reduce video frame loss. WD Purple also features TLER and support for the ATA streaming command set. WD Purple drives can support up to 8 drive bays and 64 HD cameras, have an annualized workload of 180TB / year, and are warranted for 3 years. Because these drives write and erase endless data, the increased annualized workload becomes important.
We recommend reading our post on SSD vs HDD: Everything you need to know
This ends our article on Western Digital Blue, Green, Black, and Purple. Differences and which to choose. We hope you liked it and help you choose your new hard drive.
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