WD Blue vs WD Green

[Guest]

I'm looking for secondary drive to add to my computer because a 120 gb ssd doesn't have the capacity to store 40-60 gb game recordings. Looking for the better drive for my purpose. Looking for better temps, reliability, low noise, and longer lifespan. They are both priced the same on amazon (I live in the US). So blue or green? If you could find a drive better than these two drives you can suggest that to me too.

 

[Enthusiast Builder]

Get the blue. The greens are supposed to be not as fast, but benefit in that they use less energy. For your purposes, you want speed. And the blue should be plenty fast enough to record gameplay - no need for an SSD I don't think.

 

[GameMusic3]

If you want a drive with low noise and heat and do not mind a slower data access the Green is exactly as specified.

Blue is a mix of speed/efficiency while the Green is specialized in efficiency.

 

[digitaldoc]

http://www.buildcomputers.net/western-digital-caviar.html

I would recommend the WD Blue for your application. The speeds are better on the Blue, with a read speed of 140 MB/s vs 110 MB/s for the Green. The access time is also better on the Blue.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there superkill13,

The WD Green has better temps, reliability, low noise, etc. due to its power efficient characteristics. Also, it offers larger capacity models.
The WD Blue has better performance. Though, it's capacity is limited to 1TB.

In case you want to check their features out:
WD Green: http://wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=780
WD Blue: http://wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=770

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[Guest]

Get the blue. The greens are supposed to be not as fast, but benefit in that they use less energy. For your purposes, you want speed. And the blue should be plenty fast enough to record gameplay - no need for an SSD I don't think.

No what I meant is that I already have an ssd in my system, and I'm about to buy a new drive to store gameplay, but I already have my os and programs installed on my ssd. I just wanted more storage space since I'm going to be writing large 50 gb files to it frequently. I just wanted to know which drive has better efficiency, reliability, lower temps, and lower noise.

 

[capt_taco]

I would go with the Blue if buying new. The Green series is designed to be more energy-efficient at the expense of performance. I remember WD nearly discontinued them a few years back, citing stats that showed the energy savings would be something like $5-$10 total over the life of the drive.

Having said that, I've been running a WD Green as the primary drive on one of my machines for several months (it was an emergency replacement borrowed from another machine after a drive failure), and I honestly have not noticed a ton of difference. The noise and temperatures are about the same as its predecessor, a Seagate Barracuda 1TB, and the speed difference is nothing to write home about, mainly a few extra seconds during system boot.

 

[Enthusiast Builder]

Get the blue. The greens are supposed to be not as fast, but benefit in that they use less energy. For your purposes, you want speed. And the blue should be plenty fast enough to record gameplay - no need for an SSD I don't think.

No what I meant is that I already have an ssd in my system, and I'm about to buy a new drive to store gameplay, but I already have my os and programs installed on my ssd. I just wanted more storage space since I'm going to be writing large 50 gb files to it frequently. I just wanted to know which drive has better efficiency, reliability, lower temps, and lower noise.

I understand you have a fast system drive (an SSD).

I think the question here is - aren't you going to be writing to the drive we're talking about (the new Caviar blue or green HDD) when recording, or accessing it when you're editing?

If so, my recommendation is you get the blue, because it will read/write faster and make those operations smoother. The green will take less energy (be more efficient), and probably have lower temps and lower noise due to its variable speed. But you're sacrificing performance - it won't read or write as fast. They both have about the same reliability.