[SOLVED] Hard Drive color scheme brand question

[OffbeatBryce]

Hello,

Are the different color schemes for hard drives really important or is it a marketing ploy?

For example is the blue WD drives really any different than the Black ones and so on?

If so should I be using the red NAS drives even if I'm using it as a backup drive that isn't in a nas? the red drives say the nas ones last longer than a black so I'm wondering.

thanks

 

[Kevin Enrique]

https://www.unifore.net/product-highlights/wd-hard-drive-color-differences-blue-green-black-red-purple.html

 

[OffbeatBryce]

So I should get the purple drives for regular backup?

 

[SkyNetRising]

WD Purple are for surveillance systems, where data is being written 24x7.
Are you going to run backups 24x7 ? I'd guess - not.

WD Red would be optimal in your situation.

 

[OffbeatBryce]

WD Purple are for surveillance systems, where data is being written 24x7.
Are you going to run backups 24x7 ? I'd guess - not.

WD Red would be optimal in your situation.

so it doesn't matter if RED drives aren't in a nas? It will be in a drive external dock hitched in via USB 3

 

[photonboy]

WD Purple are for surveillance systems, where data is being written 24x7.
Are you going to run backups 24x7 ? I'd guess - not.

WD Red would be optimal in your situation.

so it doesn't matter if RED drives aren't in a nas? It will be in a drive external dock hitched in via USB 3

I don't think it will make ANY difference for this type of use which is very light. Video drives for example are concerned with STREAMING video so the firmware, physical cache etc is tweaked slightly for each category.

Most HDD's for home usage are fine. It's more about reliability and cost. (A few exceptions make a HUGE difference such as using a SHINGLED HDD in a home system is a bad idea.)

GAMING can benefit from faster HDD's too but that doesn't sound like your use case. In fact, I'd get the LOWER RPM drives (i.e. 59000RPM not 7200RPM) unless you know you need the extra performance since the higher RPM drives are noisier.

*I recommend you use 20 minute shutdown in Power Options.... I ended up getting a USB3.0 Switch that has physical buttons on it so I can disable my USB drives completely. If I press a button it's like unplugging the cable... I don't use them very often so why have them startup if I don't need them?

Also, it may not matter but I bought a 4TB WD MYCLOUD and use that for all my videos since it attaches to the router via Ethernet so all devices on the local network can access it.

I use KODI with that on Windows, or my media player connected to my HDTV... it can be confusing though as WINDOWS 10 has this habit if screwing up the network and it sometimes is accessible and sometimes not (though my media devices work fine).

 

[Solandri]

WD Red would be optimal in your situation.

Red is just Black with TLER enabled. TLER is only necessary for RAID arrays.

WD's color scheme is mostly a market stratification gimmick to squeeze more money out of enterprise buyers by removing features they want or need from their other drives. For the vast majority of regular users, a WD Black drive is sufficient. Actually a Blue or Green would be too, but I don't recommend those because they suffer a head parking issue that can cause stuttering.

I'm curious though why OP wants an internal drive for backup. Ideally, a backup is offline, and off-site. Offline so you something like ransomware doesn't encrypt your backup along with your original. Off-site so something like a fire doesn't destroy your backup at the same time as the original drive. So if you want a backup drive, you should buy an external drive. Plug it into the system once a week to make backups. Store the drive at your workplace or relative's house the rest of the time.