Looking for a Hard Drive

[b4u]

Hi,

I'm looking for a hard drive, and need some help choosing between models.

For hard drives, I always likes western digital, so I start looking there, to the 1Tb models:

Western Digital Caviar Green, WD10EADS, 1 TB - 110$
Western Digital Caviar Black, WD1001FALS, 1 TB - 130$

What would be the best choice? At first it looks like the money difference is not enough to go Green, but maybe I'll spare some bucks on electricity an will be a quieter drive ... if only it would give good performance for buck ...

I will use an external case to connect through USB, and move around some massive amount of data. Latter, since I'll buy a new PC, it will be installed as an internal drive on the new machine, not for booting, but also for data storage.

Would it be a better choice going for Green? Would the Black edition be a better choice?

I just saw some minutes ago that there is already a Green with 2Tb :Q ... if Green ends up being the best choice, I *might* choose that brutal archive space. --- Uhm ... no I won't, it costs more than twice the 1Tb version

Thanks

 

[AstroManLuca]

The Green might be good for a storage-only drive where speed isn't that important. It does spin down to lower RPMs when it's not in use to save power. The Black is the fastest though.

If it's for data storage only (as you say it will be) then maybe going for the green is a better idea.

 

[b4u]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
The Green might be good for a storage-only drive where speed isn't that important. It does spin down to lower RPMs when it's not in use to save power. The Black is the fastest though.

If it's for data storage only (as you say it will be) then maybe going for the green is a better idea.

I will in fact use it for data storage, and in the process will play some divx videos out of it. It will not be used in any server environment.

In the future, it will be connected as an internal disk, on a computer that MAY be running 24/7 for certain periods, for example when downloading data from the internet, but as I said, not running a server.

 

[Denithor]

Greens are great for storage.

The concept: when not in "active use" they spin down to 5400 rpm to save power & run quieter. When you start accessing stuff they spin up to 7200 rpm for faster transfers etc. In theory it's great - in practice not so ideal, as there is a momentary lag while the disk spins up.

For storage only you'll never notice the lag but don't use one of them for a primary or you'll be as frustrated as some of the early adopters of SSD drives with the craptastic JMicron controller (stutter issue).

 

[heyheybooboo]

Might help your decision ...

WD Green WD10EADS 1TB 32MB Cache: $100 with promo code EMCLNMV45 (valid till 02/23/2009)

 

[Krynj]

I have a Green and a Black, both 1TB. The Green, is of course slower than the Black. The Green was my primary drive for a while, and the only times it ever showed its lack of speed was extracting large .rar archives. Could watch HD rips just fine.

Everest HDD test:

1TB Green.
1TB Black.
300GB VelociRaptor.

http://i23.photobucket.com/alb...uscakemix/hddbench.png