WD Green. The right choice?

[jammybstard]

I'm building a small mATX system for under the TV and it's meant to have a split personality. Its using a Kivari APU for gaming but I also want it to run quite at low load so we can use it as a media box as well.
I'm using an old laptop HDD at the moment as a stop gap but its got a horrible whiney noise. As it's payday I've odered a MX100 256GB for the OS and games but I need to replace the noisy HDD as well. WD seem to be the drive of choice in the spinning disk market at the moment and I was about to order a 2TB blue but then I found the green. Is this a quiet drive? I know it's meant to be low power consumption and spins slower I assume it might be quiter as well? It will just be for storing and playing back a video/music/photo etc collection.

 

[socialassassin]

Green drives are marketed as the quiet/power efficient drives and I've owned a few of them, but I wouldn't buy one again. Ive had a couple die on me already. Switched to Red drives in my NAS and imo they are equally as quiet and also seem to be more reliable.

 

[scout_03]

it you want to put that in a gaming system go with the black one .

 

[jammybstard]

The SSD will run the games and the OS the HDD is for media/storage and needs to be quiet and not create too much heat.

 

[scout_03]

the black are good value one 5 years warranty and made for this green is mostly use in office work .

 

[jammybstard]

I'll probably go Red after reading a few more reviews:
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Western-Digital-Green-vs-Red-Hard-Drives-602/#Conclusion
They seem to have all/most of the attributes of the Green with an extra years warranty for just a few quid more.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey jammybstard. The WD Green drive is indeed a very good choice for the purpose you are describing. I wouldn't recommend the WD Red drive to be used as secondary storage, because its main purpose is NAS/RAID configurations, although there are users who sometimes use it even as a main drive. I think that the WD Green drive would do just fine for the intended use. As for the WD Blue drive, unfortunately there's no 2TB model, because they go up to 1TB. The WD Black would be a bit overkill, having in mind what you want to use the drive for. So at the end of the day it all comes down to your personal preference, but if it was up to me - I'd go with a WD Green drive.
Hope this helps.

@socialassassin, hey there. I'm sorry you had to go through such issues with your drives. Unfortunatelly the WD Green drives are not as nearly as suitable as the WD Red drives when it comes to a home build NAS. The WD Red drives are specifically tested and designed with features closely related to NAS/RAID performance, so you've made a good choice by going for WD Reds. I hope you don't have any more problems with your drives.

Boogieman_WD

 

[socialassassin]

Hey jammybstard. The WD Green drive is indeed a very good choice for the purpose you are describing. I wouldn't recommend the WD Red drive to be used as secondary storage, because its main purpose is NAS/RAID configurations, although there are users who sometimes use it even as a main drive. I think that the WD Green drive would do just fine for the intended use. As for the WD Blue drive, unfortunately there's no 2TB model, because they go up to 1TB. The WD Black would be a bit overkill, having in mind what you want to use the drive for. So at the end of the day it all comes down to your personal preference, but if it was up to me - I'd go with a WD Green drive.
Hope this helps.

@socialassassin, hey there. I'm sorry you had to go through such issues with your drives. Unfortunatelly the WD Green drives are not as nearly as suitable as the WD Red drives when it comes to a home build NAS. The WD Red drives are specifically tested and designed with features closely related to NAS/RAID performance, so you've made a good choice by going for WD Reds. I hope you don't have any more problems with your drives.

Boogieman_WD

Hey Boogieman,
The Greens were actually in regular desktop PCs when I had issues. No worries tho, I'd still recommend WD drives to anyone, I have a Black that's been running well for years and 4 x 3TB Reds that have been on 24/7 for almost 2 years with no issues.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

I understand. Either way, that was pretty unfortunate. Hopefully your drives now have a long and happy life. 😀