WD Caviar Green or Caviar Black?

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PenguinForce

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Jun 15, 2012
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Hello, I was looking at hardwareversand for HDD. I came across these two HDD.

Which one is better? Why is the Caviar black more expensive than Caviar Green when Caviar Green's buffer size is 64MB and almost everything seems identical?

Thanks.
 



I own a Green, it's great, I think Blue and Black are both faster. I haven't had any complaints though with the speed. I have Greens in all my systems.
 
Green slower so if you only want to store data is the best.
Black is faster so is better to run programs or games.

Between them there is Blue, cheaper and slower than Black but faster and more expensive than Green
 
Thanks for the replies.

I also found this model of Caviar black on newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136704

Is that an older model? From a price checking site in Hong Kong this drive cost $430 HKD. Compared to the other 500GB Caviar Black which is $730 HKD.

Link to $430: http://www.price.com.hk/product.php?p=120225

Link to $730: http://www.price.com.hk/product.php?p=134580

The reason is that I'm building a computer and I am trying to keep the price down. Also I'm heading to Hong Kong as well so I looked up some of the price. Anybody know the performance on the $430 HKD Black to the $730 HKD Black?

I'm planning to use this drive as my main drive and SSD is too expensive so that is out of the question for me.
 
Cost differentce is primarily in the extened warrantee for the Blacks (5 yrs vs only 2 yrs for the green)

User satisfaction a little higher for the Black. Green = 16 % 1/2 eggratings vs only 13% for Blacks.

As far as the "cache" size - NOT that significant for sustaned through put. It only holds 32 or 64 MB, And that is a "Guess" of what is going to be called next. If File that is being read, or written, is large - then NOT difference.

I normally do NOT recommend the green, blue, or yellow with red pokadot WD drives. My current recommendations are for the Samsung F3 and the WD Blacks.

Samsung F3 500 gig ($60 and 11% 1/2 egg ratings)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181
Newegg did have the 1TB Samsung F3's onsale for $80 - Bought two last week.

Ref: on WD drives:
Black http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136795&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&PageSize=10&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo
Green http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136358

Added - Diff on 640 (cheaper) vs more expensive 500 Gig drive.
My guess - 640 is an older drive that uses to platters (density = 320 per platter) while the 500 gig drive uses newer single platter (500 gig/platter)
 
Dangi is correct. The green is more focused on saving energy, and simply storing data that doesn't need to be accessed quickly. The black is more speed oriented.

In terms of the cache, the green's 64MB will speed it up a bit, but probably not enough to catch up to the black, even with the 32MB. They do make blacks with 64MB though, I guess they just don't sell them on that site.

There's also the RE series drives, which are enterprise drives. They're a little more expensive but they're much more reliable, and just as fast, if not faster, than blacks. Currently, I could only find them in SATA 2 (3Gb/s) but most standard HDDs don't quite max out SATA 2 yet, maybe in RAID they would.

Another thing to consider is that blacks and RE4s come with a 5 year warranty, greens only come with a 2 year warranty. That's a big plus considering how iiffy HDDs can be, and right around 4 years is when they start to become unreliable.

Also, a lot of this depends on what you need the drive for. If you're just storing pictures, movies and documents, a green would be the best choice. But if you'll be loading games and OS files off the drive, a black or RE4 would be a better option.

EDIT - A lot of this repeats what Chief said, I guess we were typing at the same time. And check out the WD site for more info: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/internal/desktop/
 
Added - Diff on 640 (cheaper) vs more expensive 500 Gig drive.
My guess - 640 is an older drive that uses to platters (density = 320 per platter) while the 500 gig drive uses newer single platter (500 gig/platter)

The 640 Gig Black would be lower performance due to the lower magnetic domain density. This is simular to two Highways, one 320 Miles long, the other is 500 miles long. If you drive both at a fixed 100 Mile an Hour (this equates to the 7200 RPMs), it will take less time to drive the 500 Miles. But Both have the same amount of data, so 500 miles @ 100 MPH means data is read faster. HOWEVER this is some what offset as the 640's have a higher amount of space in say the outer 20 % of the platter where angular velocity is higher. Reason true performance is not that different untill the drives are say 60% filled. Past 60% filled the 500 gig would definately be faster.

Bottom line.
The 640 gives you more Data space, Slightly slower, Possibly slightly more reliable (newer drives seems to have lower reliability than some of the older models). - If you opt for the the 640's MAKE sure they are NOT used or REBURBISHED. I don't think they are still in production.
 
Wow thank you so much for the all the info regrading the HDDs, its a lot more clearer to me now. I think I will go for the Western Digital Black since my OS and all my game programs will be in this drive.

Now I just have to decide between the older Caviar Black model(640) or the newer 500 one.
 
Myself, I prefer the Samsung F3 drives. Newegg recently had the 1TB drive on sale for $80. It is a sata II drive, but in real life performance there is NO Difference between it and the SAT III WD Black. The F3 has a slightly higher reliability rating then the WD Blacks.

Cavet.
Samsung recently sold the Spinpoint division to SEAGATE. Seagute has a lower reliability rating than WD Blacks, and Samsung F3. It is POSSIBLE that Segate may try to take advantage of this and REBADGE some of their drives as Samsung F3's. You whould need to verify by part Number that you are getting the "REAL DEAL"

Appearently it's just the opposite that is Seagate HD1000DM005 really is a Samsung HD103SJ. Only source looks like Asian market.
 
I would go with the older 640GB version. The overall performance of the newer 500GB version will likely give you a little better read / write speeds but you really need benchmarks to tell the difference.

To put it another way, in the real world if you can notice a difference in the passage of time of 10 seconds compared to 10.00001 seconds, then you will probably want to go with the newer 500GB hard drive which cost much more and provides less storage space.
 
Just to confirm on your previous post. You post this link to the Samsung F3.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=3899435&SID=skim1402X558040X295055f75c6f761600aba50d4e36671b

Is this HDD made by Seagate or Samsung? So far from what I had read Seagate does not seem to have a good reputation for their reliability. The main thing that interest me about this drive is the price.

Also thanks for the informative replies.
 
I just bought two of the 1 TB F3 drives from Newegg.
The 500 Gig F3 drive is still made at the Same Plant, by the same people, and with the same QC, Just that it is now ownd by Seagate - So I would have NO qualls about buying. And I SHARE your feelings on Seagate.The only diff should be on who you go thru for support.
 

I have refrained from using Samsung HDDs because Samsung's support is infamously poor on other products. WD is quite good actually. Do you have any experience with Samsung's support for HDDs?
 
NO, But have had More WD blacks fail on me than the Samsung F3s.
But The F3 support is now provides by Seagate, Not Samsung - This on it self can be a problem.

Nomally for HDDs I bite the Bullet, as I do NOT like sending HDDs thru the Mail with My personal data on it. - One of the reasons I try to pick the LEAST likely drive to fail. I've used maxtor (before part of seagat) -> then to Seagat, untill the -11 fiacso, then -> WD blacks (DO NOT buy their Green and blue models) and then finally to the Samsung F3s, Have purchesd 5 or 6 over the last year and a Half - NO Failures. Same time frame have had 3 WDs fail. One diffenatly MY fault, it was in a enclusure and I knocked it over. Seems a poster dropped his case a Short distance and took out his WD drives. Guess they fail the "G" test - LOLs.

WORST support, I've ever encountered is OCZ when they first came out with their SATA III SF SSD, For about the first 8 Months they were garbage for Many.
 



FYI, I've been using WD black exclusively for at least 15 years and have never lost data until last year. I've had boot sector failures (all in a timely manner) but was able to migrate data to a new HDD easily. I suspect your recent failures may be part of the flood scenario. I haven't had occasion to buy any HDDs since the flood. I have a pair of unused 1TB black that I was unable to RAID on an XP machine. Tried an external floppy and slipstreaming but no joy. In the future I will probably use SSDs for boot drives and WD green externally for bulk data. I like the idea of being able to turn the drive off when not in use because I leave my machines running 24/7/365.
 
1) Only drives I've bought since flooding have been the two F3 that I bought last week - so no that's not it.
2) Not sure, But the WD Blacks are not meant for Raid, think you need to step up for WD "raid" qualified drives.
3) As indicated upto about roughly two Years ago my prefernce was WD Blacks, I think the last one I bought was the WD sata III 1TB drive (still going strong). The two most recent failures were the 640WD Blacks. Had pulled them froma machine awhile back and had been sitting, and WAS going to use one to clone my wifes WD 640 when I found out they were KAPUT.
4) My Backup drives are ONLY powered on while actively doing a Backup, so "power saving" is nill. The WD green's and blues have too low of a rating for me to even consider. Although I would still purchase a "Black"


PS: My hard drive days go back to the 20 and 40 MEG (NOT GIG), MFM and RLL 5 1/4 inch drives.
 



I still own a 5 1/4-3 1/2 combo floppy.
 



The first liar hasn't got a chance around here. 😉
 
LOL, The three systems are from 2000. Ones a P-90, one I upgradded to to P-133 (I think) and Both computers are running windows 3.11. Had to switch out the 2 Gig SCSI HDD and stuck in a 8 Gig PATA SSD (on the 133, the p-90's bios wouldn't allow). Had to partition it on my XP system into 4 x 2 gig Partitions. They were used untill 2004, then stored. Brought them back to life 2009 for use on an instrument that they were used with. They are finally replacing it, reason it took so long is the cost - it not just the computes, but a lot of hardware and software that has to be updated.
 
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