Western Digital Green and Red Workload Limit

[Shaina11]

Hi, I'm looking at these two hard drives from Western Digital, the 4 TB Green, and 4 TB Red.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=780
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=810

Does anyone know of the yearly workload limit on these two drives? I want to know which one would be more reliable in terms of data backup, and frequent large file transfers? Please reply soon, thank you!

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey My Life Is Tech. Both drives are very reliable when it comes to data storage, but are designed for different usage. The WD Green is for secondary storage and as for the WD Red's purpose - it is designed for NAS and RAID environments.
As for the backup, it's not considered a backup if it's not on an external drive, which is not connected to the system you are using. In your case I'd say that the WD Green will do fine enough for your intended use.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions.
Boogieman_WD

 

[Shaina11]

Hey My Life Is Tech. Both drives are very reliable when it comes to data storage, but are designed for different usage. The WD Green is for secondary storage and as for the WD Red's purpose - it is designed for NAS and RAID environments.
As for the backup, it's not considered a backup if it's not on an external drive, which is not connected to the system you are using. In your case I'd say that the WD Green will do fine enough for your intended use.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions.
Boogieman_WD

I was planning on having two of the same model/color in two different external USB enclosures to use one for my main storage drive, and the other as a backup of the main storage drive.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Well If I were you, I'd still go with the WD Green as my choice, it runs very cool and quiet which I think is something that shouldn't be overlooked when using an external enclosure. And it can handle the frequent large file transfers so you shouldn't have to worry about that. If on the other hand you were going for a 2 bay external enclosure and a RAID environment I'd recommend the WD Red drives, but I don't think they are necessary in this case.
BTW, good job on thinking ahead about a backup solution... it is a lot riskier to try and get your data out of a failed drive (not to mention expensive sometimes and not reliable) than to plan things ahead.

 

[Shaina11]

Well If I were you, I'd still go with the WD Green as my choice, it runs very cool and quiet which I think is something that shouldn't be overlooked when using an external enclosure. And it can handle the frequent large file transfers so you shouldn't have to worry about that. If on the other hand you were going for a 2 bay external enclosure and a RAID environment I'd recommend the WD Red drives, but I don't think they are necessary in this case.
BTW, good job on thinking ahead about a backup solution... it is a lot riskier to try and get your data out of a failed drive (not to mention expensive sometimes and not reliable) than to plan things ahead.

Ah, alrighty then, thank you for your suggestion. Also, when I say large file transfers, I mean like over 50GB+, would this be about where you were thinking? I don't want the hard drive to build up errors quickly, I plan to replace them both every 6-12 months just to be safe.

 

[popatim]

I've several greens running in my home server that are 3+ years old and still working fine. My usage is on the order of 10gb/day

 

[Shaina11]

I've several greens running in my home server that are 3+ years old and still working fine. My usage is on the order of 10gb/day

Do you know how the SMART data stands, and about how many errors they've had?

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Well If I were you, I'd still go with the WD Green as my choice, it runs very cool and quiet which I think is something that shouldn't be overlooked when using an external enclosure. And it can handle the frequent large file transfers so you shouldn't have to worry about that. If on the other hand you were going for a 2 bay external enclosure and a RAID environment I'd recommend the WD Red drives, but I don't think they are necessary in this case.
BTW, good job on thinking ahead about a backup solution... it is a lot riskier to try and get your data out of a failed drive (not to mention expensive sometimes and not reliable) than to plan things ahead.

Ah, alrighty then, thank you for your suggestion. Also, when I say large file transfers, I mean like over 50GB+, would this be about where you were thinking? I don't want the hard drive to build up errors quickly, I plan to replace them both every 6-12 months just to be safe.

I seriously doubt that you'll need to replace them so often, but that's all up to you. I think that you have nothing to worry about when it comes to the size of the files you'd like to transfer. They are recommended for external cases as well, because (as I already mentioned) they run very cool, but from what I've gathered from your posts, you'll use them for pretty sensitive data, so when you choose external enclosures, make sure they are well ventilated, this way you would be able to rely on the drives you have in for much longer.

 

[popatim]

I've several greens running in my home server that are 3+ years old and still working fine. My usage is on the order of 10gb/day

Do you know how the SMART data stands, and about how many errors they've had?

They are replaced when the first sector fails and used for less critical purposes. I have two 3TB ready to drop in but these things just wont quit. I've been thinking about just swapping them out anyways so I can the them out of my desktop (been testing them). LoL