Green drive vs RED drive vs Cheaper Seagate 7200rpm for use 24/7 WHS server/Flexraid?

[Mfusick]

What's everyone's opinion ?

WD Green drive: love the low power consumption but reliability seems to be suspect in 24/7 server use as Intellipark energy savings features park the head after 8 seconds and forces and excessive number on/off cycles lowering life expectancy. Price is ok.

WD RED : No intellipark and better warranty. Designed for server and NAS. price is higher - makes me wonder if its worth it. Energy savings is great and similar to green drives as it operates at 5400rpm.

Seagate 3TB: superior performance. No intellipark. Sells much cheaper than both. $30-$49 cheaper almost always. But uses more energy.

Which should I get ?

 

[taltamir]

red

 

[Mfusick]

red

Any reason why ?

It appears green drives are a poor choice (WD) if you have constant use or run software raid like Flexraid.
If you have one of Western Digital's Caviar Green HDDs then the drives Intellipark technology parks the drives heads and turn off unnecessary electronics after 8 seconds of inactivity to help save power. But the only problem with this is that some software and OS's are incompatible with the Intellipark feature causing endless head parking movement as the HDD continuously goes in/out of idle mode. This abnormal behavior creates stress on the HDD and that could lead to a variety of problems.


I'm wondering if I should call BS on this or not ? Thoughts ?

 

[Soulkeeper]

seagate 7200.14
best performance/$ and best size/$
warranty might only be 1yr and no ERC, but i'm going to get some myself.
Power usage between the 3 is comparable (you'll notice that they shrunk the pcb and components to reduce power).

Only get the red if you are using hardware raid and need the TLER

I give this advice as someone that's only purchased WD drives for over 10yrs years. WD has failed by not upgrading their black series.

 

[taltamir]

Any reason why ?

lowest power consumption (lower then green)
cheap
good features
quality build

 

[Mfusick]

lowest power consumption (lower then green)
cheap
good features
quality build

Thanks

 

[Mfusick]

Not to flame the fire but can someone tell me if I an an idiot....

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2012/-26-Power-Requirement-at-Idle,2917.html

Is this TomsHardware chart not saying that both the Red and the Seagate Barracuda 3TB and 2TBs are using less power than a 2 or 3TB WD green ?

 

[Mfusick]

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2012/-27-Power-Requirement-HD-Video-Playback,2916.html

HD playback too ??

 

[imagoon]

That is what they are saying yes. The reds use slightly more power than the same model as green (the parking save some) but .4 watts is practically nothing over all.

I have been using reds (with hardware controllers) and they have been doing fine streaming video etc.

I haven't seen "HD playback" mentioned in awhile. I though all drives are able to that now a days. The greens I know had an issue if the streamer cached more than 8 seconds since it would power off but other than that I personally haven't seen drive related hiccups in awhile now.

 

[Mfusick]

The chart I was seeing was showing green drives used more power... Not less.

Or I'm an idiot.

 

[Soulkeeper]

the power usage by the green drives various depending on model/size/platters
remember the green drives have been around for awhile now.
Some of the newer ones do actually use less power than the reds, but it's what I would consider within the margin of error.

 

[taltamir]

I haven't seen "HD playback" mentioned in awhile.

Yea, this buzzword didn't seem to stick so much in HDDs ... and yes pretty much all HDDs can handle HD playback.

Its almost cute how excited marketers get trying to impress the clueless about finally getting access to resolutions we PC users took for granted for 10 years before (and had for 15 years before)

 

[imagoon]

Yea, this buzzword didn't seem to stick so much in HDDs ... and yes pretty much all HDDs can handle HD playback.

Its almost cute how excited marketers get trying to impress the clueless about finally getting access to resolutions we PC users took for granted for 10 years before (and had for 15 years before)

I am surprised how many people look at me like I am amazing [or lying] because I tell them I have 1200p on my laptop and 1440p / 1600p on my desktop.

I had an old 21" 1600x1200 tube monitor in 2001 that was 4 years old when I got it. 1080p is a step backwards in my book.

 

[Mfusick]

True.

I only used the hd playback stat cause my home server is usually that or idle so those are the important to me.

If the green uses more power and slower why get it ?

 

[taltamir]

1080p is a step backwards in my book.

In mine too.
What makes me cringe is when people call 720p HD.

 

[imagoon]

True.

I only used the hd playback stat cause my home server is usually that or idle so those are the important to me.

If the green uses more power and slower why get it ?

Green will spend more time idle in a home NAS and as such more time in deep idle which is less than .5 watts for most of the time. Reds don't shutdown [unless the OS instructs them to which doesn't happen for hardware RAID typically] so they run ~3.5 watts all the time. If that wattage delta matters to you then greens are less wasteful. Contrast this to a Black which is near 8 watts idle and 1 watt "deep idle."

FYI: active = actually seeking, idle = spinning but not seeking, deep idle = spun down.

 

[Zxian]

seagate 7200.14
best performance/$ and best size/$
warranty might only be 1yr and no ERC, but i'm going to get some myself.
Power usage between the 3 is comparable (you'll notice that they shrunk the pcb and components to reduce power).

Only get the red if you are using hardware raid and need the TLER

I give this advice as someone that's only purchased WD drives for over 10yrs years. WD has failed by not upgrading their black series.

If you're talking about a storage system that's going to be up 24/7, a 1 year warranty is an instant do-not-buy. I'm planning on upgrading my storage array to 8x3TB Reds, but that's only because I know I'll have warranty support for the next three years.

WD's lack of updates to the Black lineup has nothing to do with their Red series. Blacks have also had a 5 year warranty, so you're getting far more value than you have with any consumer Seagate product.

To the OP - buy the WD Red. Three year warranty, NAS/RAID support if you ever need it, and designed for 24/7 operation. The little bit extra you pay now will mean peace of mind for three years. At that point, you can come back and re-evaluate the storage market.

 

[blastingcap]

VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET.

Vote with your wallet to punish companies that dare to give just 1 year warranties on its consumer hard drives when they were giving 5 years before the floods. Seagate has gone too far in slicing its warranties down to the bone. Toshiba, Hitachi, WD are all at 2 years minimum.

Also, unless Seagate thinks it will incur significant expenses by giving the extra year of warranty, why would they NOT have at LEAST a 2 year warranty? Are Seagates these days made so crappily that many of them will fail sometime in the 12 to 24 month time frame? Just something to think about.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

To the OP - buy the WD Red. Three year warranty, NAS/RAID support if you ever need it, and designed for 24/7 operation. The little bit extra you pay now will mean peace of mind for three years. At that point, you can come back and re-evaluate the storage market.

That's why I just put in a new Red for my data drive.

In terms of the power issue, while it's good to conserve, you're talking about a difference of maybe $3/year in terms of operating cost.

 

[Soulkeeper]

If you're talking about a storage system that's going to be up 24/7, a 1 year warranty is an instant do-not-buy. I'm planning on upgrading my storage array to 8x3TB Reds, but that's only because I know I'll have warranty support for the next three years.

WD's lack of updates to the Black lineup has nothing to do with their Red series. Blacks have also had a 5 year warranty, so you're getting far more value than you have with any consumer Seagate product.

To the OP - buy the WD Red. Three year warranty, NAS/RAID support if you ever need it, and designed for 24/7 operation. The little bit extra you pay now will mean peace of mind for three years. At that point, you can come back and re-evaluate the storage market.

This comes down to how much you value certain key things:

warranty
TLER/ERC
speed
price


It's clear we don't agree, and it's more than likely others don't either.

 

[Mfusick]

If you're talking about a storage system that's going to be up 24/7, a 1 year warranty is an instant do-not-buy. I'm planning on upgrading my storage array to 8x3TB Reds, but that's only because I know I'll have warranty support for the next three years.

WD's lack of updates to the Black lineup has nothing to do with their Red series. Blacks have also had a 5 year warranty, so you're getting far more value than you have with any consumer Seagate product.

To the OP - buy the WD Red. Three year warranty, NAS/RAID support if you ever need it, and designed for 24/7 operation. The little bit extra you pay now will mean peace of mind for three years. At that point, you can come back and re-evaluate the storage market.

Intelligent reply I agree with. Thank you!

But,

TigerDirect is reported to have 3TB Seagates for $89 Black Friday.

For 50$ savings does 1 year warranty make sense ?

Plus it's a flex raid home server. I can to tolerate a random drive failure.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

Depends on what you're data is worth.

And don't discount the warranty issue. It's only a matter of time... I recently had a 2 GB WD Green drive replaced under warranty.

 

[Mfusick]

I've had three WD greens replaced under RMA this year. I get it.

 

[blastingcap]

Intelligent reply I agree with. Thank you!

But,

TigerDirect is reported to have 3TB Seagates for $89 Black Friday.

For 50$ savings does 1 year warranty make sense ?

Plus it's a flex raid home server. I can to tolerate a random drive failure.

Pain in the butt to deal with swapping out drives. Also, drive failures are not completely random. If you buy at the same time it is likely from the same batch. Hit a bad batch and you may see them failing one after another. In worst case scenario, lost data. You are also sending the message to the industry that you do not much value build quality and longer warranties. I would rather wait for wd and toshiba prices to fall than buy a seagate. To each his own.

 

[Mfusick]

Pain in the butt to deal with swapping out drives. Also, drive failures are not completely random. If you buy at the same time it is likely from the same batch. Hit a bad batch and you may see them failing one after another. In worst case scenario, lost data. You are also sending the message to the industry that you do not much value build quality and longer warranties. I would rather wait for wd and toshiba prices to fall than buy a seagate. To each his own.

You have a few valid points but at the end of the day I just don't believe I can predict reliability on my own personal user level with any accuracy so I just disregard the whole thing.

I've had plenty of failures with WD and hitachi and Samsung to know its not much different. I have three Seagates now all working great longer than 22 months too...

For 89$ it makes sense I think.

And I always buy my drives as I need them. I own tons of brands and models now. I have never bought more than one or two at a time.