WD 6TB harddrive - buy internal or external?

sonyzz

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Jul 14, 2013
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Hi everyone, I want to buy WD Blue 6TB 5400rpm and replace my WD Green 3TB 5400rpm drive which is in WD Elements Enclosure as i originally bought it, then put that 3tb drive inside my pc... but i see that buying external drive "WD My Book 6tb" is about 20 dollars cheaper than buying WD Blue 6TB, but it might have WD Green drive inside, and as we know blue line should be better than green line, so for which one should i go? for External 6tb or for internal 6tb? And what about 3.5" external line are usb pcb is soldered to the drive like it is on 2.5" external drive?Because my WD Elements Desktop USB 3.0 is about 2 years old and it still has normal 3.5" drive and detachable usb pcb
 
External drives are soldered on and they are usb only (they get their required power from USB as well), also internal drives use sata 6g which is faster than the speed usb 3.0 will provide. External drives have larger delay as well due to SATA to USB, then USB to memory, also external drives don't have the cache memory (for example most internal drives nowadays come with a 64mb cache). So unless you have no other option (no space at all in case or you have to move it all the time and you need the usb connectivity), always go for internal.
 

That 3TB WD Green aswell has 64mb cache, yes you are talking about 2.5" they get theyr power from USB but, what about 3.5" external drives are they soldered usb board to hard drive board, 3.5" external drives dont get theyr power from usb, they get it from 12v adapter, and the speed of that WD Green 3TB drive is good for storage because i use ssd for games, programs, and OS....What i didnt liked that WD My Book dont have power off button on the back like WD Elements does
 
So the only reason your WD green has a cache is because it is made to be internal and you use a HDD enclosure. Most budget external drives don't come with a cache and the lower speed is still there, so the internal will again be faster. Sure if you are using an SSD, you have no problem with an external but you will still need to keep it plugged in all the time, make sure you don't disconnect it while doing something, which for most people is a hassle. If being slower doesn't bother you and you prefer mobility, then you could go for external. Personally if it comes to external HDD, I always buy an internal hdd of my liking and combine it with an enclosure. This way it is faster, but still slower (due to the fact that everything has to pass through the usb 3.0).
 


The WD Green-Blue designations have changed.
See this: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2801025/difference-wd10ezrx-wd10ezrz.html

(this from the WD Rep)
"Sorry for the late reply!
The disclaimer on our website is correct. WD Green is going to become part of the WD Blue family However, the WD Blue will be split into two separate RPM classes: 5,400 RPM-class and 7,200 RPM-class.
The old WD Green will fall into the 5,400 RPM-class drives, but yet all its features will stay. However, we won't be calling them 'IntelliPower-RPM drives' like we did till now, but instead you'd know what RPM class the HDDs belong to.
This change is intended to simplify the HDD selection process when you're planning to upgrade your storage. So basically we're just consolidating our mainstream PC product offerings to only the WD Blue family. All current WD Green capacity, cache and form-factor configurations will remain available through their lifecycle, but under the WD Blue brand."
 

it was in enclosure when i bought it, i didnt combine it with encosure nor opened it up, just looked at model numbers entered them to the google and found on forum that my WD Elements has green drive inside :)

 

Say to that WD Rep this - why buy wd black 1tb drive if wd blue 1tb drive is faster than black and cost 30 dollars less, same blue drive as mine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWD0g43ZoEk
 


My WD Blue 10EZEX is one year past warranty and still working with 0 bad sectors :)
 

its a WD30EZRX Drive here is the drive itself in wd elements enclosure http://www62.zippyshare.com/i/7aTFi8rk/41243/DSC_3661.JPG and detachable usb to sata pcb http://www58.zippyshare.com/i/qV4BsrHH/5371/DSC_3665.JPG Drive is 2 years and 2 months old which is 2 months past warranty
 


Yes, I think under normal use any harddrive should be expected to last more than 2 years (even if they only have a 2-year warranty), but I'm guessing the WD Black having a 5-year warranty versus the WD Blue having 2-year warranty must mean Western Digital considers the Black to be a more reliable disk that's less prone to failure?

 


Or the Black is the same as Blue but you just pay more for black to get those 3 years of warranty...
 


I think even if that is the case some people might consider paying that extra premium for a 5 year warranty versus only 2 year warranty for the Blue worth it. I don't know.

Personally I have one WB Blue 1TB (that I use for photos) and one WB Black 1TB (that I use for video editing) in my system right now which I've had for less than one year and the difference in warranty aside I would be very disappointed if not both of them are gonna last me 5 years (under normal use).
I know there are no guarantees they will last me that long (and I may even upgrade to larger capacity drives long before those two fail), but I've owned a dozen of different WD external drives the last decade and so far none of them have failed (knock on wood). :)


 
6TB WD Blue WD60EZRZ is faster than 3TB WD Green WD30EZRX drive 175mb/s vs 147mb/s so even using as external in enclosure with usb 3.0 i will feel slight increase in speed about 28mb/s even both drives are spining at same 5400rpm