Is the WD Red faster than my old Black?

[geokilla]

I bought a Western Digital Red 3TB WD30EFRX and I was originally going to use it as a storage drive. However I found out that my SSD is too small to install any other games so now I have to move it all to a HDD. Should I be utilizing the Red or my old Western Digital Black 1TB WD1002FAEX for that purpose? I know my Black is ancient and the best solution is to get a larger, newer SSD but I'm leaving that option out for now.

 

[freeskier93]

The WD Red drives are 5400 RPM drives, so technically slower then the 7200 RPM Black. However, for games I've never noticed a difference between running on SSD, 7200 RPM or 5400 RPM drives.

 

[KingFatty]

Well, the difference in RPM is 7200/5400=one third faster for the black. But the difference in density is 3/1=two thirds denser for the red.

So, maybe the red could end up being faster due to the higher data density, despite the lower RPM? That could help in large data reads like game loads, where the head doesn't have to move all around and wait for the platter to spin the data underneath it (e.g., in random data).

But yeah, you have a point about the game loading times not really mattering with speeds because often times the bottleneck is somewhere else, like how fast your CPU can decode the data being read, and how fast it can be loaded to RAM and GPU/ram. However, some games will dynamically pull data from the drive during the game, where you'll see some pauses if you have a slow hard drive compared to a speedy SSD.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I bought a 3 TB WD Green about 6 months ago.

It's about 10 percent faster than my primary data drive---a Samsung 1 TB 103SJ, which was about as fast a 7200 rpm drive as you could buy when it was new in 2011.

The Greens (and maybe the Reds) have 1 TB platters, which really has an effect on speed and compensates for the slower RPM.

I have no idea which would be a better choice for your game situation, but the Red may be faster than your Black.

 

[rchunter]

OP has a 1 TB Black drive, it has a 1tb platter. The larger black drives only have 800gb platters. I have my steam folder on a 4tb black which has 5 800gb platters. The reds have 1TB platters and the 6TB red has 1.2TB platters.

 

[BlueWeasel]

So the newer, larger "green" 5400-5900 RPM drives are just as fast as older 7200 RPM drives?

I've always recommended the green drives for general data storage and not as boot or gaming drives.

 

[KingFatty]

It's complicated here because you are comparing a newer green/red drive to an older black. Typically when recommending drives, you wouldn't compare new/old tech, so this issue would be moot.

 

[rchunter]

If you want, since you already have both drives, hook them both up and benchmark them yourself. Then you will know for sure which one you want to use.

 

[rchunter]

So the newer, larger "green" 5400-5900 RPM drives are just as fast as older 7200 RPM drives?

I've always recommended the green drives for general data storage and not as boot or gaming drives.

If it was me, i'd rather have a wd black drive for my games. Most likely better random i/o, 7200rpm, and a 5 year warranty.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Here's the figures from HD Tune on my own drives:

Samsung 1 TB 103SJ 7200 rpm numbers first, followed by WD Green 3 TB. Make of it what you will:

Transfer rate minimum 72, 98
Transfer rate maximum 143, 157
Transfer rate average 116, 129
Access time 14.1, 12.0
Burst rate 167, 177

The Samsung was purchased in April 2011; the WD Green was purchased in June 2014.

 

[tweakboy]

Well black takes the cake

 

[rchunter]

Here's mine 4tb black (X58 SATA-II interface)

WDC WD4003FZEX
Transfer rate minimum 94
Transfer rate maximum 177
Transfer rate average 144
Access time 13.1
Burst rate 211

 

[zir_blazer]

Its not only RPMs, there is also platter density and maybe Cache/Firmware. Some old WD Blacks could use 2 x 500 GB platters, so a 1 TB platter would compete happily with it.

 

[rchunter]

Its not only RPMs, there is also platter density and maybe Cache/Firmware. Some old WD Blacks could use 2 x 500 GB platters, so a 1 TB platter would compete happily with it.

Yeah, I didn't realize that. His WD1002FAEX black drive probably has 2 500GB platters. In that case, yeah, a newer red or green drive is probably going to faster.

 

[BFG10K]

Games generally rely on sequential performance, so that new Red is going to be faster than the old Black.

 

[geokilla]

I thought the Red drives were 7200RPM. Since when did they switch to 5400RPM?

If you want, since you already have both drives, hook them both up and benchmark them yourself. Then you will know for sure which one you want to use.

Doesn't the drive have to be empty to run a benchmark like that? Mine is completely filled.

Yeah, I didn't realize that. His WD1002FAEX black drive probably has 2 500GB platters. In that case, yeah, a newer red or green drive is probably going to faster.

Most likely 500GB platters. Most definitely not 1TB platters.

Games generally rely on sequential performance, so that new Red is going to be faster than the old Black.

There goes all my data and partitions. Time to figure out how to move them. I recall reading a long time ago that you should always partition a hard drive in the following order first:

OS and Programs with tons of overhead
Fill up the rest with data that does not require speed

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I could be wrong, but I've never thought the Reds were 7200 rpm. I think they are supposedly optimized for NAS or something like that, but there aren't many differences from the Greens. Possibly warranty?

They both have a pile of horrible reviews, so you just have to ignore that if possible. Not to hard to ignore bad WD reviews when the alternative is Seagate.

Nor have I heard that a drive should be empty for benchmarking.

 

[Deders]

Doesn't the drive have to be empty to run a benchmark like that? Mine is completely filled.

It helps if you have space near the beginning of the drive as the drive speed can be half the speed near the end.

 

[Soulkeeper]

I could be wrong, but I've never thought the Reds were 7200 rpm. I think they are supposedly optimized for NAS or something like that, but there aren't many differences from the Greens. Possibly warranty?

They both have a pile of horrible reviews, so you just have to ignore that if possible. Not to hard to ignore bad WD reviews when the alternative is Seagate.

Nor have I heard that a drive should be empty for benchmarking.

the red "pro" drives are 7200rpm, the standard reds are lower rpm.

 

[MongGrel]

I'd use your Black.

I still use them even smaller on a few systems that are older that I have SSD's in for operating systems.

Still have 4 old 1TB RE3's in a hardware RAID array I use on it, they are similar, but old and still kicking along.

 

[geokilla]

I'm in the process of moving my data right now and I'm wondering here. If I set aside a 200GB partition of my hard drive for video games, that partition will always be on the fastest and outer most part of the hard drive if that partition was created freshly after a format right?

 

[StinkyPinky]

For the record, my 4TB Seagate 5900rpm easily outpaces my old 1tb samsung 7200rpm drive. Almost certainly because of the platters. However my 2tb 7200rpm seagate is a slightly faster

 

[Ukaz]

I have a 500 GB BLACK and a 3 TB RED and I can assure you that the RED is faster than the BLACK (which is old). 105 MB/s for the BLACK, 121 MB/s for the RED in Crystal disk.