Is WD caviar green good for gaming?

[TheAstrohaut]

I am about to order this hard drive and want to know if this 2 tb hard drive good for gaming.

http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=62047&vpn=WD20EARX&manufacture=Western Digital WD&promoid=1223

 

[VirtualLarry]

Green HDs have lower RPMs, thus lower seek times. For games though, I don't know how detrimental that would be. Many games load levels in a largely sequential manner, and the Green HDs have decent sequential rates.

I would say, that for a game that benefits from an SSD, then a Green drive would be proportionately worse.

 

[kmmatney]

My gaming rig has a boot-up SSD for the operating system, and 2 WD drives for most games (I can fit a few on the SSD). While the games on the SSD load noticeably faster, there are no real problems with the games on the WD green drives. Most games will cache a lot of info they need, so can deal with slower hard drives.

 

[nenforcer]

google 'wd green head parking'

that will answer your question

 

[SonicIce]

no lol they suck

 

[greenhawk]

they work, but far from ideal if you have the money for something better

edit: and that is all green / eco drives, not just wd ones.

 

[Soundmanred]

I've used many "green" drives over the years and never had a single problem, gaming or otherwise.

 

[beginner99]

I've used many "green" drives over the years and never had a single problem, gaming or otherwise.

This. Load times sure are higher compared to blacks or ssd but for me no issue.

Head parking can eb turned of no problem also I do not have an issue with it. 2 running for 2 years happily, bought a 3 one 1 year ago. No issues at all.

 

[tweakboy]

Hard drives take up about 6 or 7 watts .. You dont need a green drive, just buy regular or F4 blah or WD Black. gl

 

[thelastjuju]

Its the EARX model, so its supposedly better than the old piece of shit EARS.

But even still, I don't know if I would take the risk. It only hit the market about one year ago, and it took 1.5-2 years for EARX owners to realize just how short the lifespans were on those drives.

 

[Zachboy]

The green drives are alright, just not as tuned to performance as the other WDs....

HDs take up 7 watts? is that on idle/running? I thought HDs took up to 25 watts.....I guess I must of heard wrong...

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[TakeNoPrisoners]

Green drives are for servers and storage. You are better off with a 7200RPM drive.

 

[Zachboy]

Green drives are for servers and storage. You are better off with a 7200RPM drive.

You're contradicting yourself; some green drives are 7200RPM....

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[VirtualLarry]

You're contradicting yourself; some green drives are 7200RPM....

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Never seen a HD advertised as "Green" that was 7200RPM. Got any links?

I've seen WD drives advertised as "IntelliSpin", which is between 5400-7200, but the reality is, those drives actually spin at 5400RPM all the time.

 

[The_Golden_Man]

I have a WD green 1TB. I've tried to run games from that one, and they loaded super slow when compared to my SSD setup. I will never run anything that is installed on my computer from harddrives. Just use them for storage and backup.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Depends on the game. If you play anything with frequent loads you're going to want to stay away from the Green.

 

[Vinwiesel]

Short answer: Get a cheap SSD and a cheap HDD.
Seek times are terrible on all hard drives. You may get 7ms on 7200, 4ms on a 10k, and 12ms on a green, but they are all 1000 times or more slower than even a cheap SSD. The green drive is great for storage because it is cheaper, quieter, and cooler, but you will notice it being sluggish if used as a primary drive.
If you own a green drive disable standby on it. Go to advanced power options and set "Turn off hard disk" to never. Windows 7 enables it by default and then it hangs the system every time you launch explorer, even if you don't access the drive. I was cursing the green drive until I discovered this.

 

[BFG10K]

Green drives are slow for games and the amount of power they save is trivial for a desktop. Actually a 1TB VelociRaptor would probably use about the same amount of power while loading games far faster.

I personally see no point to green drives, not when you can get a 3TB Barracuda for 6c/GB.

 

[beginner99]

Green drives are slow for games and the amount of power they save is trivial for a desktop. Actually a 1TB VelociRaptor would probably use about the same amount of power while loading games far faster.

I personally see no point to green drives, not when you can get a 3TB Barracuda for 6c/GB.

Greens are about saving money not energy...

2 TB WD green: 119.-
2 TB WD black: 201.-

thats 1.7 times more.

Maybe depends on the games you play but for those I do no issue.

And they are inaudible. No annoying seek noise all the time.

 

[Soundmanred]

When load times differ in fractions of a second when comparing loading games from my SSD (Intel 320) and my WD Green, I just stopped caring.

 

[Zachboy]

Never seen a HD advertised as "Green" that was 7200RPM. Got any links?

I've seen WD drives advertised as "IntelliSpin", which is between 5400-7200, but the reality is, those drives actually spin at 5400RPM all the time.

:\Um, I saw somewhere where it advertised that the green drives did 7200RPM...but that was a long time ago, they probably had changed it now...oh well... ..probably a typo or something went wrong with "details"...and you're right.

If they do spin at 5400RPM, then how come one of my other HDDs (which is 7200RPM)writes/transfers slower than the green drive I had?

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[VirtualLarry]

:\Um, I saw somewhere where it advertised that the green drives did 7200RPM...but that was a long time ago, they probably had changed it now...oh well... ..probably a typo or something went wrong with "details"...and you're right.

If they do spin at 5400RPM, then how come one of my other HDDs (which is 7200RPM)writes/transfers slower than the green drive I had?

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Because platter density is what largely determines STR of a HD, and Green drives, being newer, tend to have higher platter density than older 7200RPM HDs.

For a boot drive, though, you would still probably prefer a 7200RPM HD, given similar STR specs.

 

[Zachboy]

Because platter density is what largely determines STR of a HD, and Green drives, being newer, tend to have higher platter density than older 7200RPM HDs.

For a boot drive, though, you would still probably prefer a 7200RPM HD, given similar STR specs.

Uh-huh.....

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[palladium]

The only reason I stay away from Green drives is because of the abysmal warranty compared to their Black counterpart. If that is not an issue for you, I don't see why they aren't feasible for gaming, for reasons already mentioned. Head parking may be an issue if you're doing RAID, but there are fixes for that too....

 

[jacktesterson]

Ive got a WD Green 2TB

Played tons of games off it without issue.

Saying anything else is simply not true, which is what he's asking.



EDIT: Now my own opinion, buy a 7200 RPM drive. The value of 5400's are far less compared to the benefits.

Ive owned many Greens without issue though. If they are cheaper than 7200 RPM's, go for it. If not, go 7200