Question WD Gold 16TB vs WD Black 10TB? Which one is more durable?

[farhanAtWork]

I have done many research and I still cannot find a decent answer. Some say Black is good while another say Gold is good.

I am looking to get a new hard drive to store entertainment data, like videos, music, and video games.

Many people say, Black is the best for consumer usage. However, based on the specs, I see Gold have the similar speed as Black or better (Gold has 512MB cache). Plus, Gold has vibration protection that Black doesn't have.

So doesn't it mean Gold is more durable than Black?
On the other, hand some people say Gold IS NOT reliable because it was meant for data center and they always have backup plan in mind in case if it fails. They said Gold sacrifices reliability for speed.

Currently, WD Gold 16TB costs around $300 dollars (with current promotion price) and WD Black 10TB cost more than $300 dollars.

So, based on the current price, WD Gold is much much much cheaper for the storage size they offer.

So, which one is better? In short, I want a HDD that is durable. I always thought Gold is more durable but some article says Black is more durable.

Which one is more durable? Thanks.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Because Gold drives were designed with datacenters in mind, they can be considered more reliable in the long run. However, unless your time is literally money, this doesn't really matter in the consumer space. Especially if you do regular backups. As far as which drive will fail first due to some mechanical failure or whatnot, that's pretty much up to a crystal ball.

My recommendation: since the gold drive is on sale and has higher capacity, may as well go for it. Otherwise, if placed in a vacuum, it doesn't make sense to get one.

 

[USAFRet]

On a single drive basis...the one in your system....'more durable' can't be determined.

My most recent drive death?
16TB Toshiba Enterprise. One destined for a data center.
Living in my NAS, died at 7 months out of the box.

Get the larger one. Or the cheaper one.
Keep good backups, no matter which drive you have.

 

[fzabkar]

The Gold 16TB is probably a rebadged HGST helium model.