# WD Purple or Blue?



## Nabarun (May 22, 2017)

I'm getting a Samsung 850 Evo 250GB and a 2TB HDD. My OS and installed apps/games will be on the SSD while the HDD is for long term storage of data. The Blue has 2 years warranty and the purple, a bit higher priced, has 3 years. I understand the the purple is specifically designed for surveillance systems with 24/7 video recording etc. I won't be doing any of that, but my PC does run 24/7. I am wondering, if the purple actually keeps working 24/7 and whether it would affect it's longevity more than the Blue. I will use it to watch stored videos and download torrents into. Is the purple drive a reasonable choice for desktop use?


----------



## newtekie1 (May 22, 2017)

My suggestion, avoid the Blues at all costs.  I wouldn't trust my data on a WD Blue if WD was paying me to use it.


----------



## remixedcat (May 22, 2017)

Like he said...


----------



## ERazer (May 22, 2017)

Reds not an option? mine has been running for almost 3 years now with np


----------



## Shihab (May 22, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> My suggestion, avoid the Blues at all costs.  I wouldn't trust my data on a WD Blue if WD was paying me to use it.




Care to expand on the reasons against blues?


----------



## sttubs (May 22, 2017)

I paid the extra money for the Black drives as listed in my specs and have had no regrets in my decision.


----------



## Nabarun (May 22, 2017)

Well, I already placed the order for the Blue. I have been using the 1 TB version for over 4 years now. And I have only read good things about it. And I did some reading on the purple one after posting this, and it seems like using that on the desktop for normal use might not be the best of ideas. My personal experience with WD have been good so far, unlike with Seagate. It's not gonna be stressed too much too often. The only "work" it will do is be the target drive for torrent downloads and storage. The EVO will do all the working. So let's hope the Blue will not crash too soon. And thanks for your comments.


----------



## FireFox (May 22, 2017)

Go Black, I have 1TB for my Games.


----------



## remixedcat (May 23, 2017)

Blues are slow and loud


----------



## Toothless (May 23, 2017)

Blues can't be worse than my Green


----------



## Nuckles56 (May 23, 2017)

Toothless said:


> Blues can't be worse than my Green


They can be just as bad as they are the same drives


----------



## FireFox (May 23, 2017)

remixedcat said:


> Blues are slow and loud



I guess it depends if you get the 3.5 inch or 2.5 inch, all my HDD are 2.5 inch and I don't hear anything.


----------



## SnakeDoctor (May 23, 2017)

2 x Wd Blue in raid for 5 years+ no issue . powered on +1500days  2400 stop/start counts
My 2 x WD enterprise noisy as hell not even using the one as too noisy
I have seem some drives that are very noisy for some reason others fine

I have kill two wd blue buy using a usb to sata converter after switching the power off the drives both failed ,different occasions - seem like the heads got stuck some how . (safe to remove hardware Ya Right!)
I managed to get the one drive unstuck by power slamming the corner of drive on my desk was bit noisy but managed to get data and Rma the drives


----------



## FireFox (May 23, 2017)

SnakeDoctor said:


> 2 x Wd Blue in raid for 5 years+ no issue . powered on +1500days  2400 stop/start counts
> My 2 x WD enterprise noisy as hell not even using the one as too noisy
> I have seem some drives that are very noisy for some reason others fine
> 
> ...



Sometimes it's not the hard drive the problem but the people that use it


----------



## Frick (May 23, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> My suggestion, avoid the Blues at all costs.  I wouldn't trust my data on a WD Blue if WD was paying me to use it.



I assume these are new blues, the ones I have are good. Pretty speedy and low noise.


----------



## de.das.dude (May 23, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> My suggestion, avoid the Blues at all costs.  I wouldn't trust my data on a WD Blue if WD was paying me to use it.


Explain? I have a wd blue with all my important data.. i have 2 of them actually...


----------



## FireFox (May 23, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> My suggestion, avoid the Blues at all costs.  I wouldn't trust my data on a WD Blue if WD was paying me to use it.



Whatever.

I have 2 of them will all my important data, a hard drive could fail today, tomorrow, in one year or never, it doesn't matter if it's WD blue, Samsung etc etc, it doesn't matter the brand it just could fail, that said, i wouldn't trust my data in a hard drive.


----------



## 5DVX0130 (May 23, 2017)

For 24/7 go with the Purple. I'd suggest going the Red, if your budget allows for it.
Also look for specials, sometimes you can pick up a 3TB drive for the price of a 2TB.


----------



## Capitan Harlock (May 23, 2017)

Go with Red if you can, Purple is more optimized for 24/7 use so just for data storage Red is enough .
If you can find a good deal you can go with HGST that is Toshiba and is for Nas as the WD Red.


----------



## rtwjunkie (May 23, 2017)

SnakeDoctor said:


> 2 x Wd Blue in raid for 5 years+ no issue


You've got the old blues, which were actual 7,200rpm drives. The new ones have 7,200 and 5,400 models, with the 5,400 model being the old Green drive.

@Nabarun, for long term reliable storage of your data go Red.


----------



## SnakeDoctor (May 23, 2017)

rtwjunkie said:


> You've got the old blues, which were actual 7,200rpm drives. The new ones have 7,200 and 5,400 models, with the 5,400 model being the old Green drive.
> 
> @Nabarun, for long term reliable storage of your data go Red.



Yes they are 7200rpms and my old Wd Green is also 7200rpm
Looking at the wd blues now most are 5400 it seems


@Knoxx29 The drive should not of failed from switching off a power button? don't always blame the user .Just sharing my experience with them.


----------



## Nabarun (May 23, 2017)

Yes, it seems the 2TB and higher capacity ones are all 5200rpm, as are the RED ones. I'm finding it impossible to find the "old" blues with 7200rpm. Can't even find a Black one. pfffffffffffff


----------



## eidairaman1 (May 23, 2017)

Velociraptors!


----------



## rtwjunkie (May 23, 2017)

Nabarun said:


> Yes, it seems the 2TB and higher capacity ones are all 5200rpm, as are the RED ones. I'm finding it impossible to find the "old" blues with 7200rpm. Can't even find a Black one. pfffffffffffff



The Red ones will ramp up in speed though. I use them for my movie collection, and they sustain streaming perfectly.


----------



## Nabarun (May 23, 2017)

rtwjunkie said:


> The Red ones will ramp up in speed though. I use them for my movie collection, and they sustain streaming perfectly.


What capacity do you have? Is it noisy? And How's the 4TB one?


----------



## rtwjunkie (May 23, 2017)

Nabarun said:


> What capacity do you have? Is it noisy? And How's the 4TB one?



I've got 4TB and 2 TB ones.  My oldest 2 TB drives have run 24/7 for 4 and a half years now.  I cannot vouch for noise as they all sit in a server, with fans that have no regard for noise.  I like the 4TB. I see no difference in streaming from the 2TB.  I have yet to have one fail.  I know all HDD fail, and it's a matter of time, but I am still impressed.


----------



## Kursah (May 23, 2017)

The WDBlue I removed from my wife's laptop was supposedly 7.2k, but that damn thing was painfully slow...one of the worst new laptop drives I've ever wasted money on. 

Took over 3 hours to migrate 250GB data over to a 500GB SSD. Ironically the SSD was a WD Blue 500GB I got for around $135 from Amazon recently. That thing is smokin' fast, it put my personal Samsung 850Evo 250GB on alert performance-wise. So far very happy with it...and the wife is too. 

I'll have to give the Red's a try, never have used them in personal builds. But I'm about at the storage limit for my home server's RAID5 array...time to expand.


----------



## rtwjunkie (May 23, 2017)

@Kursah those WD Blue SSD's are basically just the old mainstream SanDisks. You'll recall WD bought them last year.  Anywho, that's why they impress you, because those SanDisks are nice SSD's. I've got a few of them.


----------



## Nabarun (May 23, 2017)

I talked to the seller. He confirmed that the Blues (2TB+) are 5400 rpm. I have cancelled it. Will talk to him tomorrow since it's late at night here. All the Black and REDs are out of stock  Amazon has some with either terrible pricing or imported with no warranty. And the user reviews are not very encouraging.


----------



## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

Kinda miss the old days where they had just black, blue, and green.

Now it's so complicated, black, blue, green, purple, red, rainbow, gray, pink....


----------



## FireFox (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> rainbow, gray, pink....



Your Avatar and colors preferences confuse me


----------



## ironwolf (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> Kinda miss the old days where they had just black, blue, and green.
> 
> Now it's so complicated, black, blue, green, purple, red, rainbow, gray, pink....


I miss the old old days when WD didn't have any color code system on their drives.


----------



## Komshija (May 23, 2017)

HGST HDDs are among the most reliable on the market. Toshiba's are also very reliable, so picking one of these wouldn't be a bad choice. For instance, I've always used 7200 RPM HDDs for storage and never regretted. Currently I have Toshiba X300 4TB for games and storage and external HDD for very important data.

Check Toshiba N300 and HGST Deskstar.


----------



## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

Darn, they should get rid of Deskstar. It keeps reminding of the Deathstar HDD.


----------



## cdawall (May 23, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> My suggestion, avoid the Blues at all costs.  I wouldn't trust my data on a WD Blue if WD was paying me to use it.



Agreed one of the most common failed drives I get into the shop are failed WD Blues or any of the 500GB slim 2.5" drives. Brand doesn't matter on those.


----------



## ironwolf (May 23, 2017)

cdawall said:


> Agreed one of the most common failed drives I get into the shop are failed WD Blues or any of the 500GB slim 2.5" drives. Brand doesn't matter on those.


Really?  I sell ~10/month of 500 GB and 1 TB Blue 3.5" (7200 RPM) and have yet to RMA one in ~2 years.


----------



## cdawall (May 23, 2017)

ironwolf said:


> Really?  I sell ~10/month of 500 GB and 1 TB Blue 3.5" (7200 RPM) and have yet to RMA one in ~2 years.



I get them bad from Dell at least once a month (these are warranty replacement drives).

On top of that I see 3-5 a month bad in a month from myself alone. I run through 40 units a week roughly. This is just talking wd blue.

Seagate I only really see 7200.11/7200.12 drives and those are obviously out of warranty. That and the slim 500gb 5400RPM lappys

HGST I only see the slim 500gb lappy drives.


----------



## Nabarun (May 23, 2017)

cdawall said:


> I get them bad from Dell at least once a month (these are warranty replacement drives).
> 
> On top of that I see 3-5 a month bad in a month from myself alone. I run through 40 units a week roughly. This is just talking wd blue.
> 
> ...


How about the WD Blacks?


----------



## rtwjunkie (May 23, 2017)

Nabarun said:


> How about the WD Blacks?


My experience with them is they usually last quite a long time. Also are pretty fast.  Basically a slightly less robust version of their RE Enterprise drives.


----------



## cdawall (May 23, 2017)

Nabarun said:


> How about the WD Blacks?



7 year old iMac's normally have a dead one in them, but those aren't exactly in the best location for survival and no one seems to know how to shut them off. They normally out last the unit they are in.


----------



## Nabarun (May 23, 2017)

I think I've made up my mind. Gonna get a 2 TB Black. Will talk to the local seller tomorrow about possible availability then decide.


----------



## Vario (May 23, 2017)

Love my blue 1TBs, I got 3 of them  Been running them since 2013 no problems.  Fast drives too.  These are the 7200 RPM with 64MB cache.  Actually seemed faster than my velociraptor 10k but that drive failed in just a few months so maybe it was just junk.

One I use the most is a wd10ezex.  I am not certain of the other two.  All three perform the same.

I would avoid 5400 RPM drives though, so if you get a 2 TB don't get the blue.  2TB black should be a good choice.

Interestingly this site says the 2012 blue is slightly faster than the 2013 black and the 2015 blue is a lot slower than the 2013 black...?  I have the 2012 blue.
http://hdd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/WD-Blue-1TB-2012-vs-WD-Black-1TB-2013/1779vs1822
http://hdd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/WD-Blue-1TB-2015-vs-WD-Black-1TB-2013/3520vs1822

http://hdd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/WD-Blue-1TB-2015-vs-WD-Blue-1TB-2012/3520vs1779
Older is 20% faster than the newer!?

edit:
*WD rebranded greens as blues? If thats the case, avoid them.  Greens are trash.*


----------



## rtwjunkie (May 23, 2017)

Vario said:


> WD rebranded greens as blues? If thats the case, avoid them. Greens are trash.


Yeah, about a year ago.


----------



## eidairaman1 (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> Darn, they should get rid of Deskstar. It keeps reminding of the Deathstar HDD.



That was IBM, When Hitachi Bought the Brand, It kicks ass.


----------



## cdawall (May 23, 2017)

eidairaman1 said:


> That was IBM, When Hitachi Bought the Brand, It kicks ass.



Western digital owns them now


----------



## Beastie (May 23, 2017)

IME greens are fine if you use them for the purpose they were designed for.

 They aren't designed for running your OS.


----------



## Filip Georgievski (May 23, 2017)

WD's Blue and above lineups (Red, Purple and Black) are solid enough in my book.
I've used (and still using as external storage) a WD Green 640GB (produced in 2010) which were considered SHAITE and C**P but mine lasts for like 7 years.
Now I got a 1TB WD Blue and for the money it is very reasonable priced and good quality.
If you have the money to go for a higher end one, go for 4TB Red or Purple, those are meant for server storage so they should be good choice for you.
If you like to save money, the 2TB Blue with 64mb cache and 7200RPM will do the job too.


----------



## Shihab (May 23, 2017)

Beastie said:


> IME greens are fine if you use them for the purpose they were designed for.
> 
> They aren't designed for running your OS.



This.
Greens (and most 5400RPM drives) make for good long-term storage drives. Less speed = less heat and mechanical wear = longer life.

Anecdotes matter little -if they do at all- in this subject.


----------



## fullinfusion (May 23, 2017)

Used WD 1tb black and lasted 7 years. Actually it still works but smart is warning me of issues. 

When I checked for warranty it was 7y and 3months old.. ran great but I needed another drive and for the price, I replaced it with the blue 1tb and tbh I couldn't tell a bit of difference between either version speed wise..


----------



## Nabarun (May 23, 2017)

Filip Georgievski said:


> WD's Blue and above lineups (Red, Purple and Black) are solid enough in my book.
> I've used (and still using as external storage) a WD Green 640GB (produced in 2010) which were considered SHAITE and C**P but mine lasts for like 7 years.
> Now I got a 1TB WD Blue and for the money it is very reasonable priced and good quality.
> If you have the money to go for a higher end one, go for 4TB Red or Purple, those are meant for server storage so they should be good choice for you.
> If you like to save money, the 2TB Blue with 64mb cache and 7200RPM will do the job too.



I have been using a 1TB blue since 2013. There is a couple of bad sectors, but the performance (according to HDDSentinel) is still @100%. Unfortunately, WD have done some re-branding and I can't feel quite as comfortable using the newer Blue ones with 2TB and greater. And as far as the purple and REDs go, they are meant for servers which usually have lots of very high speed fans, and are usually not as quiet as desktop ones. I don't intend to make my PC sound like a factory, but the ambient temps here are >45C in summer. I'm getting a RX 580 which is not known to be as cool as the GTXs. When I keep my cabinet door closed, the heat inside the cabinet (even without a dedicated GPU) makes the HDD temps go up 5-6 degrees. With a Dedicated GPU (I had a GTS 250 for years), the HDD gets well beyond 55C, resulting in bad sectors and data corruption. If I keep my chassis door open, some of my cats may piss on the inside and ... you know. This has happened many times. Hence, I don't think it will be wise to get a drive which needs that extra cooling to stay safe. And the Blacks come with 5 year warranty. That's something I like.


----------



## newtekie1 (May 23, 2017)

Shihabyooo said:


> Care to expand on the reasons against blues?



They fail...alot.  Every WD Blue I've deployed has failed.  Most of the computers that come in my shop with failed hard drives are WD Blues.  The rest of WD's lineup is fine, but the Blues are shit.


----------



## FireFox (May 24, 2017)

cdawall said:


> Agreed one of the most common failed drives I get into the shop are failed WD Blues or any of the 500GB slim 2.5" drives. Brand doesn't matter on those.



Maybe because the defectives one are all in the USA.


----------



## cdawall (May 24, 2017)

Knoxx29 said:


> Maybe because the defectives one are all in the USA.



I probably see more computers than quite a few people on this forum combined and I don't exactly get brought the working ones. Remember my opinion is based on things that have broken.


----------



## Toothless (May 24, 2017)

Nuckles56 said:


> They can be just as bad as they are the same drives


Ever heard of the issue where the Greens would turn off like 5 seconds after no load? And it would keep turning off and on hundreds of times a day? I have THAT Green where it would prematurely kill the drives.


----------



## Norton (May 24, 2017)

Toothless said:


> Ever heard of the issue where the Greens would turn off like 5 seconds after no load? And it would keep turning off and on hundreds of times a day? I have THAT Green where it would prematurely kill the drives.


iirc @Mussels had a posted a thread a while back addressing that issue

@Nabarun - let us know what you decide on. I have a build in progress atm and am looking at a 500GB WD Blue SSD or NVMe for the OS and WD Black drives for additional storage.

Anyone have any input on 2.5" vs 3.5" WD Black drives? Currently leaning towards the 2.5" versions atm


----------



## Nuckles56 (May 24, 2017)

@Toothless Yes, I have and I put one of those drives in my father's PC (this was back when I first started building PCs). though it is fortunate that he uses it so rarely these days that the drive will probably last 20 years before it dies


----------



## cdawall (May 24, 2017)

Norton said:


> Anyone have any input on 2.5" vs 3.5" WD Black drives? Currently leaning towards the 2.5" versions atm



I typically use the HGST 7200RPM drives instead. Larger cache, sata III instead of sata II etc on the 2.5" drives.


----------



## Melvis (May 24, 2017)

Ive never had any experience with Purple Drives so I cant comment on those. WD Blue drivers for the most part are pretty good, I have had alot of good luck with them and use them alot for myself or clients as a cheap drive and ive only had 1 or 2 come back with bad sectors but for the most part there all still running even after 7yrs (including my work PC drive) That been said I only get 1TB Blues or under, I wouldnt trust one of those drives for really important files on anything bigger.

In all honesty id just spend the extra $20 and get a WD Black, better faster drive and you get an extra 3yrs warranty, its worth it in my eyes. 

Ive seen more WD Green drives fail then Blues over the yrs, but there pretty much the same drive I guess. I do see alot more laptop drives in Blues die but thats because of poor use of the laptop, throwing it around, hitting it, dropping it etc. Treat them right and they will last along time.

WD is better then Seagate IMHO so whatever you get your going to be ahead.


----------



## Nabarun (May 24, 2017)

Norton said:


> let us know what you decide on.


I have decided to get tha Black 2TB. The seller (employee, actually) is on his way to the shop and he will update me soon about the cancellation of the Blue and availability of the Black.



Melvis said:


> ...WD Blue drivers for the most part are pretty good, I have had alot of good luck with them and use them alot for myself or clients as a cheap drive and ive only had 1 or 2 come back with bad sectors but for the most part there all *still running even after 7yrs* (including my work PC drive)....
> 
> In all honesty id just spend the extra $20 and get a WD Black, better faster drive and you get an extra 3yrs warranty, its worth it in my eyes.
> ...
> ...



If you read all the posts above, you"ll see that the Blue you used was different from the ones available now, which are the old Greens. Only the 1TB version seems to be the decent one atm. I have made up my mind about getting the Black one. I agree about WD being better than Seagate. I have always had the Seagate ones and they'd always get dysfunctional after a couple of years.


----------



## Toothless (May 24, 2017)

Norton said:


> iirc @Mussels had a posted a thread a while back addressing that issue
> 
> @Nabarun - let us know what you decide on. I have a build in progress atm and am looking at a 500GB WD Blue SSD or NVMe for the OS and WD Black drives for additional storage.
> 
> Anyone have any input on 2.5" vs 3.5" WD Black drives? Currently leaning towards the 2.5" versions atm





Nuckles56 said:


> @Toothless Yes, I have and I put one of those drives in my father's PC (this was back when I first started building PCs). though it is fortunate that he uses it so rarely these days that the drive will probably last 20 years before it dies


Yeah, I'm surprised my Green is still going from 2009 as my gaming drive.


----------



## Melvis (May 24, 2017)

Nabarun said:


> If you read all the posts above, you"ll see that the Blue you used was different from the ones available now, which are the old Greens. Only the 1TB version seems to be the decent one atm. I have made up my mind about getting the Black one. I agree about WD being better than Seagate. I have always had the Seagate ones and they'd always get dysfunctional after a couple of years.



I still use Blue drives brand new even today running my own business I always get new drives. I realise they are different from back then but I still find even todays Blue drives fine, still put them in computers and still haven't had any in recent yrs come back at me. (500GB/1TB/2.5/3.5 mostly). 

Black is the one to get and good choice so well done on that  it should serve you well! 

Yeah ive had alot more seagates just stop working after a few yrs, sad as I liked the older Seagate drives, but resent yrs they just been terrible.


----------



## Frick (May 24, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> They fail...alot.  Every WD Blue I've deployed has failed.  Most of the computers that come in my shop with failed hard drives are WD Blues.  The rest of WD's lineup is fine, but the Blues are shit.



Which models from what years are we talking here?


----------



## Shihab (May 24, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> They fail...alot.  Every WD Blue I've deployed has failed.  Most of the computers that come in my shop with failed hard drives are WD Blues.  The rest of WD's lineup is fine, but the Blues are shit.





cdawall said:


> I probably see more computers than quite a few people on this forum combined and I don't exactly get brought the working ones. Remember my opinion is based on things that have broken.



And how many drives do you see failing in a year, 50? 60? 100? 
Sure, from a single point of view it might look like a big number, but WD alone ships around 200 million drives per year, and they, alongside Seagate control 80% of the market, it doesn't take much thinking to tell why they (both WD and Seagate) would pop up dead more than other drives. 

The HDD market needs more large-scale, third party reliability testing. Heck, all PC components do!


----------



## Nabarun (May 24, 2017)

Melvis said:


> I still use Blue drives brand new even today running my own business I always get new drives. I realise they are different from back then but I still find even todays Blue drives fine, still put them in computers and still haven't had any in recent yrs come back at me. (*500GB/1TB*/2.5/3.5 mostly).
> 
> Black is the one to get and good choice so well done on that  it should serve you well!
> 
> Yeah ive had alot more seagates just stop working after a few yrs, sad as I liked the older Seagate drives, but resent yrs they just been terrible.



Exactly. The 2TB+ Blue models are the re-branded 5400rpm Green ones. The 1 TB is available in both 5400 and 7200rpm (probably the old ones).


----------



## Vario (May 24, 2017)

Nabarun said:


> Exactly. The 2TB+ Blue models are the re-branded 5400rpm Green ones. The 1 TB is available in both 5400 and 7200rpm (probably the old ones).


No the 500 and 1 TB is also a green.  All the blues are rebranded from the greens, so they should all be avoided.


----------



## Nabarun (May 24, 2017)

Vario said:


> No the 500 and 1 TB is also a green.  All the blues are rebranded from the greens, so they should all be avoided.


Well, like I said, there ARE at least 2 versions of the 1TB drive. Probably the 7200 rpm ones are the left overs from old stock. Any way, my drives have arrived just a few minutes ago  Now, I have been using 7-64 for eternity. "tried" the later ones in vbox a bit but didn't like much. Probably because I'm too much used to 7. Anyway, will think about installing 10 on the ssd and try out DX12 games. That'd be the ONLY reason for me to go 10. But I wanna test the drives first. Here's a mobile pic with flash in my dark cave


----------



## Vario (May 24, 2017)

Nabarun said:


> Well, like I said, there ARE at least 2 versions of the 1TB drive. Probably the 7200 rpm ones are the left overs from old stock.



Looks nice.  If you did get a blue, the one to get is the one ending in EZEX.  If it ends in EZRZ, its junk (green).  Doubt theres any ezex left as new old stock at this point, but maybe. Its probably all EZRZ.


----------



## Nabarun (May 24, 2017)

Vario said:


> Looks nice.  If you did get a blue, the one to get is the one ending in EZEX.  If it ends in EZRZ, its junk (green).  Doubt theres any ezex left as new old stock at this point, but maybe. Its probably all EZRZ.


I know. I do have the EZEX one.
This screenshot taken just now:


----------



## newtekie1 (May 24, 2017)

Frick said:


> Which models from what years are we talking here?



Anything with a Blue label on it.  It used to be anything with a Green label too, but they rebranded the Greens as Blues.



Shihabyooo said:


> The HDD market needs more large-scale, third party reliability testing. Heck, all PC components do!



Hardware.fr does a good article about once a year on hardware failure rates based on a large e-tailer's return rates.  Unfortunately it only covers returns in the first year of the products life.

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/954-1/taux-retour-composants-15.html


----------



## Vario (May 24, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> Anything with a Blue label on it.  It used to be anything with a Green label too, but they rebranded the Greens as Blues.


2015 and after.


----------



## The Data Master (May 24, 2017)

I've used WD blue, green, purple, black, and label-less (DVR specific before purple came out) and here are my experiences:
No need for black. It is high performance and you will pay extra just to store data. Will help with transfer rates if you are constantly moving data, but won't do much for your wallet if it is just going to be storage.
Green are garbage. Head parking/intellipark not only makes gaming rough, but actually drops my transfers to the low kb/S range. It is just unacceptable.
Blue I have the older ones as many mentioned above so I think that disqualifies me from talking about blue.
Got a purple 2 years ago and use it for media storage. It is a 24/7 drive and has been running with no issues for 2 years. Transfer speeds could be better, but read speeds are enough to stream a video to 2 devices at the same time. I highly recommend purple in this case. 100% health after 2 years according to S.M.A.R.T.
No label are probably what are now purple. They specifically said designed for DVR in the title and description on newegg. I bought them in 2012 and use them in Raid configuration. Of the 6 I own, 4 are in the Raid now and are all operating 100% health according to S.M.A.R.T.


----------



## cdawall (May 24, 2017)

Shihabyooo said:


> And how many drives do you see failing in a year, 50? 60? 100?
> Sure, from a single point of view it might look like a big number, but WD alone ships around 200 million drives per year, and they, alongside Seagate control 80% of the market, it doesn't take much thinking to tell why they (both WD and Seagate) would pop up dead more than other drives.
> 
> The HDD market needs more large-scale, third party reliability testing. Heck, all PC components do!



They have one. It's in their Financials 1.38-1.42% is RMA percent to revenue for Seagate and WD. They are actually a standard to beat industry wide.


----------



## Rehmanpa (May 24, 2017)

Spend the extra 20 bucks and get a wd black. Mine from 2012 still runs strong


----------



## Derek12 (May 24, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> They fail...alot.  Every WD Blue I've deployed has failed.  Most of the computers that come in my shop with failed hard drives are WD Blues.  The rest of WD's lineup is fine, but the Blues are shit.


Ratio of blue WD vs rest of drives in general purpose computers
I have a 2 TB Blue WD for 1 year and more as gaming drive and 0 issues
Generalization is bad


----------



## newtekie1 (May 24, 2017)

Derek12 said:


> Ratio of blue WD vs rest of drives in general purpose computers
> I have a 2 TB Blue WD for 1 year and more as gaming drive and 0 issues
> Generalization is bad



You have experience with 2 drives, I have experience with thousands.

The price of drives is so competitive at this point, I see no point in risking it by buying a WD Blue drive.


----------

