Western Digital quetion
 

Hi,

Does anyone have comments about the quality/reliability difference
between WD Black and WD Blue? Their ads say the Blue line is for
everyday perforamnce and the Black line is for power computing.
Usually, whne I buy an HD, I choose "power computing" on the assumption
that those should be more reliable and have a longer time before it
fails.

Thanks,

John

Western Digital quetion
 

Yes wrote:

Does anyone have comments about the quality/reliability difference
between WD Black and WD Blue? Their ads say the Blue line is for
everyday perforamnce and the Black line is for power computing.
Usually, whne I buy an HD, I choose "power computing" on the
assumption that those should be more reliable and have a longer time
before it fails.

Blues run at 5400 RPM. Blacks run at 7200 RPM. Faster spin means
reduced seek time hence faster data transfer speed. However, faster
spin means more heat produced. Blacks run hotter than blues. Blacks
also have a larger range for a built-in buffer.

If you use blacks because you want better performance, make sure you
mount the drive so it can be properly cooled. Don't mount other drives
next to it. Don't have cables that block the air flow around it. Don't
have fans competing against each other for airflow through the case.

Blues have a 2-year warranty. Blacks, which you pay more up front, have
a 5-year warranty. Manufacturers have long learned to provide a
warranty that extends far enough into the MTBF (Mean Time Between
Failures) for a product, so the warranty is short of the MTBF. That
way, the product won't fail until after the warranty expires. They
don't want the expense of replacing a failed product, so they aren't
going to warranty much beyond the MTBF. A longer warranty usually means
a longer surviving product. It's in their interests to market the
warranty to draw sales, but not incur the costs of replacement.

See some comparison of color models at:

https://www.windowscentral.com/weste...al-hdd-your-pc
https://www.partitionwizard.com/clon...-vs-black.html

Found using a Google search on "wdc blue versus black hdd".

Western Digital quetion
 

VanguardLH wrote:
Yes wrote:

Does anyone have comments about the quality/reliability difference
between WD Black and WD Blue? Their ads say the Blue line is for
everyday perforamnce and the Black line is for power computing.
Usually, whne I buy an HD, I choose "power computing" on the
assumption that those should be more reliable and have a longer time
before it fails.

Blues run at 5400 RPM. Blacks run at 7200 RPM. Faster spin means
reduced seek time hence faster data transfer speed. However, faster
spin means more heat produced. Blacks run hotter than blues. Blacks
also have a larger range for a built-in buffer.

If you use blacks because you want better performance, make sure you
mount the drive so it can be properly cooled. Don't mount other drives
next to it. Don't have cables that block the air flow around it. Don't
have fans competing against each other for airflow through the case.

Blues have a 2-year warranty. Blacks, which you pay more up front, have
a 5-year warranty. Manufacturers have long learned to provide a
warranty that extends far enough into the MTBF (Mean Time Between
Failures) for a product, so the warranty is short of the MTBF. That
way, the product won't fail until after the warranty expires. They
don't want the expense of replacing a failed product, so they aren't
going to warranty much beyond the MTBF. A longer warranty usually means
a longer surviving product. It's in their interests to market the
warranty to draw sales, but not incur the costs of replacement.

See some comparison of color models at:

https://www.windowscentral.com/weste...al-hdd-your-pc
https://www.partitionwizard.com/clon...-vs-black.html

Found using a Google search on "wdc blue versus black hdd".

It's possible the WDC Black has a two-stage actuator, which
means it resists the vibration coming from other drives
in the PC a little better.

WDC Black 6TB, the spec sheet for mine says 9.1W read/write.
A similar pair of Blue 6TB are 4.8W and 5.3W (5400RPM).
Or about half the power of the WDC Black.

It's not quite as loud as it used to be.

In the 4TB era, both companies managed to make some
"thumpers", which would excite the PC case with the
low frequencies involved. The drives now don't seem to be
quite as bad, and maybe their seek has been turned down
a bit.

Paul

Western Digital quetion
 

On Tue, 16 Jun 2020 01:44:07 -0000 (UTC), "Yes"
wrote:

Does anyone have comments about the quality/reliability difference
between WD Black and WD Blue? Their ads say the Blue line is for
everyday perforamnce and the Black line is for power computing.
Usually, whne I buy an HD, I choose "power computing" on the assumption
that those should be more reliable and have a longer time before it
fails.

Wrong.

Reliability, run-time length before what fails? A mechanical drive
may be shingled;- not shingled has different characteristics, new
technology and arguably less popular on an empirical bases. Western
Digital, sometime ago, shifted its marketing strategy, rather placed
impairments between a sense of precision possible in mechanical drives
and what advertising otherwise means to Western Digital. Whether a
shingled drive is received, or not, is one of consequences, WD
technology does not longer directly place on their drive
serial/manufacturer numbers in direct correlation. Probably, among
the first to that trend was an enterprise class-action lawsuit over
drives WD was timing-out prematurely for "hibernation" states;- that
the nomenclature was and while there meant that WD subsequently
released a program patch to address the drive firmware for optionally
prolonging a time-out sequence;- that later the nomenclature was not
there meant subsequent drives, after the lawsuit, WD did not longer
identify for direct end-user inferences for making the "right choice"
as an informed consumer.

Rather like asking which one, of possible hard drive purchases, is
most of all right among a barrel, if at all, of rotten apples.

How that usually translates is into what warrantee reputability means
to either a failure or dissatisfied situation, a purchaser "contracts"
for a part of the purchase price.

I see all my HDDs as failing, as an illustration, from 1T and 2T, or
one or two odd 1.5T class drives. The only one I do not see failing,
perhaps, is a single Western Digital 640G drive that has been running
24/7 and is over 20-years-old.

A back-up or mirror of a drive is the minimum thickness of cushion
between the rear and an hard surface of road when drives do fail.
Datum is not economic: What is priceless need mean nothing to a drive
manufacturer;- as they will fail, surely to be assured. (Figure
storage remotely for a branch science of computer entropy -- the
tendency for datum to randomize or lose integrity, at some precept
from its fundamental corollary, which is of course an intelligible,
more or less ideal, system back-up.)

Western Digital quetion
 

A black drive doesn't have shingles. A blue 3.5" may be shingled for 2+TB
and 2.5" shingled for 1+TB, so avoid blue

Western Digital quetion
 

On Tue, 16 Jun 2020 03:58:23 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

A black drive doesn't have shingles. A blue 3.5" may be shingled for 2+TB
and 2.5" shingled for 1+TB, so avoid blue

One of that charts I saw said that above 6TB, everything from WD is CMR, so
I'd guess there isn't much of a problem. Who buys the small drives these
days? My last purchase was a pair of 12's, and I'm starting to look at the
next purchase. The 12's and 14's are looking good. The 16's are still going
for a premium price. You'd have to wait for the 20's to come out, in order
to push the 16's down a bit.

Western Digital quetion
 

Yrrah wrote:
VanguardLH :

Does anyone have comments about the quality/reliability difference
between WD Black and WD Blue? Their ads say the Blue line is for
everyday perforamnce and the Black line is for power computing.
Usually, whne I buy an HD, I choose "power computing" on the
assumption that those should be more reliable and have a longer time
before it fails.

Blues run at 5400 RPM. Blacks run at 7200 RPM.

Not always. There are exceptions:
https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-blue-hdd#specifications


Yrrah


The small capacity tells you those are boot drives.

And they can't (or won't) make them smaller than that.
As the platters are 1TB, 1.5TB, 2TB (shingled). You would
think the production pipeline would have a lot more
variation, but that's not how it seems to work in
practice.

I got one 500GB drive here, where a 1TB platter was
used, and the drive is short-stroked. That means both
sides of the platter are used, but only the first half
of the platter gets used. The area nearer the hub is
not used. And the transfer rate has less variation
from outside to inside.

Paul