Western Digital Green - life expectancy?

[spandexninja]

I plan to buy a WD Green 2TB as a storage drive. How long do these drives usually last?

The computer will be on 24/7 and there will be read / write activity on the drive for about 9 hours a day. I plan to get rid of the 8 second head parking by using wdidle3 or by changing the APM.

Also according to some newegg reviews-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo
-the green drives have an issue with pulsing video. Can anyone confirm this? I will be getting the WD20EZRX and I don't know if this applies.

 

[Rifter]

Ive had a WD 2TB green in my server on 24/7 for a little over 2 years now. I also have a few 1 and 1.5TB seagate LP's that are coming up on 4 years now. They are used for media storage and streaming. Ive never had any issues with any of them.

 

[Mfusick]

Why not get a RED ?

 

[birthdaymonkey]

I've owned three greens from the older EARS series. My 1.5TB died after a little more than two years, while the two 2TB drives I still use are working fine after around 1.5 years.

 

[rsutoratosu]

Get red, i have my green runnin in 24/7 operation, last month, all 4 decided to die close to 1.5 week after another.. at least they were under warranty.. when I say server, Its a Dell R510 2u server living in a server closet with 24/7 AC @ 69 degrees.

 

[beginner99]

I have 2 WD20ERS (2 TB) that are 2 years and 9 month old and a third that is about 1 years and 7 month old. No issues so far. The newer one AFAIK has 3 platters the older ones 4.

One of the older ones is the "torrent drive" so it gets more "action" than the others. But I did not bother with disabling head park. But I always turn my pc off over night.

Designing on price difference I would go with a red. I think the difference is maybe $30 dollar for the 3 TB version.

 

[Binky]

Almost any drive will live for approximately 1 minute to 5.3 million minutes (i.e. DOA to 10 years). Anybody that tells you otherwise is lying or doesn't understand statistics.

Positive or negative reviews aren't worth the pixels they are "printed" on. Get something that performs as needed, has a good warranty (I'd ebay any RMA return and buy a new HD), puts out the heat you require, draws the power you require, and has the capacity you need at a good price. Then back everything up twice, constantly.

 

[assassin24]

Almost any drive will live for approximately 1 minute to 5.3 million minutes (i.e. DOA to 10 years). Anybody that tells you otherwise is lying or doesn't understand statistics.

Positive or negative reviews aren't worth the pixels they are "printed" on. Get something that performs as needed, has a good warranty (I'd ebay any RMA return and buy a new HD), puts out the heat you require, draws the power you require, and has the capacity you need at a good price. Then back everything up twice, constantly.

Great post.

I like the 5400RPM drives for storage and playback of media personally. Red if it is $10 more for the warranty alone. Otherwise I get whatever is the best bang for $:TB.

I have multiple Green/5400 RPM from Samsung and WD that are all well over 2 years old. Most of them are in my FlexRaid server. No issues at all and never had a failure (knock on wood).

 

[Zorander]

I have had my 1.5TB Green for 3 years now and still counting.

My 500GB Samsung drive still takes the cake though: 6 years running in various systems, now working as primary drive in my HTPC.

 

[jaiello]

I thought that the Red was best for a RAID system only and that there would be no tangible benefit to having Red over green in a single drive scenario?

 

[assassin24]

I thought that the Red was best for a RAID system only and that there would be no tangible benefit to having Red over green in a single drive scenario?

There is an awful lot of marketing behind the Red drive.

Haven't seen any actual data that supports any of it.

 

[Cerb]

I plan to buy a WD Green 2TB as a storage drive. How long do these drives usually last?

Maybe 20 years. But yours will probably corrupt irreplaceable data within 6 months.

Don't get a storage drive larger than what you can back up to other devices. Period. Always expect that any given HDD is going to be unreliable, so that when one turns out to be, you will have been prepared. Why? Because you don't know, and often won't find out until too late, even though the rate of failures within a typical service life is not large.

I just threw out a recently-deceased Barracuda IV, a little over a week ago. Now those were reliable drives.

 

[Mfusick]

Get red, i have my green runnin in 24/7 operation, last month, all 4 decided to die close to 1.5 week after another.. at least they were under warranty.. when I say server, Its a Dell R510 2u server living in a server closet with 24/7 AC @ 69 degrees.

All at the same time ? That sucks!!!

 

[rsutoratosu]

It was one after another.. basically 1 disk failed, so I bought a new one, took the old one out and ran the wd datalife guard test, error was too many bad sectors, disk still worked but it keeps on erroring out. So when the rma drive came back, the next one error out, did the same thing, pull the drive out, ran the wd datalife guard and got it rma. When that one came back, the next one failed, & etc.

The raid 1 boot drive on the server is seagate 7200, they' were all bought in the same time but only the wd failed. Now that every wd drive has been replaced, its all working again. Luckily when they first came out the warranty is longer I believe. I have warranty till jan of 2014. So if they die again, ill replace them with WD red, im sure these are better.. but thats what raid and backup are for.. in case the whole thing blows up at once

 

[beginner99]

There is an awful lot of marketing behind the Red drive.

Haven't seen any actual data that supports any of it.

has longer warranty and the price difference is small enough to justify it especially if you want to run it 24//. If you just put it in your desktop which runs 4 hours a day it's a different story.

 

[tweakboy]

I plan to buy a WD Green 2TB as a storage drive. How long do these drives usually last?

The computer will be on 24/7 and there will be read / write activity on the drive for about 9 hours a day. I plan to get rid of the 8 second head parking by using wdidle3 or by changing the APM.

Also according to some newegg reviews-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo
-the green drives have an issue with pulsing video. Can anyone confirm this? I will be getting the WD20EZRX and I don't know if this applies.

They will last 10 years +

 

[assassin24]

has longer warranty and the price difference is small enough to justify it especially if you want to run it 24//. If you just put it in your desktop which runs 4 hours a day it's a different story.

Yes, I am fully aware of the marketing claims and *theory* as to why it may be a better drive. Is there actually any data? What about for the average user who is using it for mainly storage as you say? What typical home PC user outside of a business is really using these 24/7?

As I said I think the extra year of warranty is worth about $10 more. With all things being equal I would buy the Red over the Green. However, that doesn't mean that I think the Green is a "bad" drive. I just think the Red is a better at the same price or at most $10 more mainly for the warranty.

I have a FlexRaid server and have multiple Green drives that have never failed.