WD Blue > 1 TB - phantom ?

[Enkidu of Abydos]

For years the WD Blue series was stuck at 1 TB while the Green and Black went on to 4 TB and more. I like most other people thought the Blue series was pretty much dead, which I didn't like because I was used to buying the Blue series in the past and it was pretty much perfect in what I expected from an HD. On the other hand the stupid Green series is horribly unreliable (compared to Blue and Black) due to the overeager head parking issue which was introduced to save on electricity (and who the f. cares how much electricity their HD consumes !?), while the stupid Black series is too loud, too hot and too expensive for the small speed advantage it provides (compared to Blue and Green). So I had to give up on Western Digital altogether and for a while now I've been planning to buy a couple of Seagate 4TB drives (ST4000DM000). Seagate on the whole isn't as reliable as WD but the model in question is actually very reliable and more so than the Green series (I've studied the numbers). It's also pretty fast for a 5900 RPM drive and runs cool and quiet.
But now suddenly I see WD has Blue HDs from 2 to 6 TB listed on it's website and shops like Computer Universe have recently received the WD40EZRZ. However I can't find a single reputable tech site with a review of the WD40EZRZ !? It's like it's a phantom. I'm not going to buy the WD40EZRZ without knowing anything about it, and there's no info or reviews to be found. So why aren't there any ?

 

[drtweak]

what are you storing on the drives? just regular data? Maybe go with a WD Red or something?

 

[Enkidu of Abydos]

Well I'm storing data, what would one store on an HD, certainly not vegetables ?
The Red series is not bad but still more expensive and reliability is good but not great.
The question of the topic was where to find some hard data (tests) on the new Blues, so I can see if they measure up to what Blues used to be (best WD for general use that is) or if not I go with the ST4000DM000.

 

[drtweak]

Yea for the 4TB blues I have no idea. I have only dealt with the 4TB red's so far.

Me Personally i'm not a Seagate fan anymore (I do have a 4TB drive, not what which one it is, but i just use it for backup so it is in my safe except for one day a month to backup). I just tend to see their 1+TB's die out sooner than WD's though.

I mean performance wise though unless they are files you need now now now you shouldn't see a huge difference in performance in them. Plus larger size hard drives will tend to be a bit faster to their smaller counterparts due to drive density

 

[kalmquist]

I believe the drive in question was originally introduced as a replacement for the original WD40EZRX, which was part of the WD GREEN line. Rather than assigning it a new model number, WD gave it the same model number as the old drive and just started shipping it in place of the old drive. There are no reviews because it was a stealth introduction. WD did put out a spec sheet for the drive, but didn't bother to point out that the spec sheet didn't bother to point out that WD had sold drives with the same model number but different specifications.

Western Digital then decided to merge their WD green line into their WD blue line. They changed the model number of the new WD40EZRX to WD40EZRZ (changing the last letter from X to Z), and started calling it a WD blue drive rather than a WD green drive, but as far as I can tell this was just a naming change, with no change to the drive itself. It's still 5400 RPM rather than 7200 RPM, and I haven't seen anything to suggest that the head parking behavior has changed.

 

[Enkidu of Abydos]

Thanks kalmquist, that's exactly the kind of answer I was looking for (even if it is a bit late). And that's exactly the kind of manufacturer behaviour I despise. Like choosing hardware isn't not complicated enough anyway everyone has to invent a thousand different versions of everything with next to no difference... If the new Blues really are just Greens without the characteristics of the old Blues that's just fraud...