New HDD - which one to get of these 2?


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I am looking for a new HDD as my old one is basically dead (not only s.m.a.r.t. status says so, but the system becomes unusable if i do hdd intensive tasks, while gpu intensive tasks run just fine and webbrowsing and chatting is also no problem, but i better don't fire up the file manager uh oh :( )

 

out of these 2 (i can get a good deal on both of them, factory refurbished):

 

 

1.

Western Digital WD Red 1TB, 3.5", SATA 6Gb/s

 

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or:

 

2.

Western Digital WD Blue 1TB

 

 

 

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they have both identical specs, with few execptions:

 

the red only goes up to 5400rpm while the blue 7200.

the red on the other hand is much lower on energy and power consumption and as it is designed for server purposes has double ammount of start/stop cycles (600000 vs. 300000 for the blue).

 

 

i tend to go for the red personally as i think it will prove more durable and i want to use it for at least as long as i used my current wd one (ca. 7 years).

however i am open for suggestions.

price difference is 9euros favoring the blue.

 

anyone got experience with using wd red edition as a workstation hdd?

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After being spoiled by the SSD drives, I don't think I would want to put up with 5400rpm drive.

 

As for reliability, and the start/stop cycles -  I don't believe it matters too much.   Unfortunately, in my experience, it is more of a gamble, and if you are lucky to get a good drive. No guarantees.

 

So I would get the Blue.

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7 years for a disk? :laugh: By that time your disk is more then payed up.

 

Go for a performance disk (SSD) and get a bigger one for storage, with low consumption.

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Is this for the OS, User data, media, backup or on the razor's edge (everything)?

 

Going off assumptions:

 

The Red would serve you better for working as a secondary data drive or for backups (where write performance isn't that critical but the data is). It will be quite horrible as an OS drive as if you want performance, you need multiples of these in a performance style RAID configuration.

 

The Blue will serve you as an OS drive but due to lacklustre performance, I would personally buy an SSD for the OS and use the Blue for secondary or supplemental storage (e.g. /home or My Documents).

 

I prefer to buy Green for my server RAID's (as it's on 20-24hrs a day), Blue as secondary storage and I have one Red I use in a removable USB3 caddy as a backup drive.

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As mentioned multiple times already SSD, I would not get either of those drives for OS.. If you have SSD for your OS, programs and such and just looking for storage then the blue would be your better choice for desktop.

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If I had to choose between the two, I go with WD Red.

 

I have two running in Raid 0, and not as fast as SSD, noticeable faster then single HD drive.

 

Red suppose to have better readability, and longer life, designed for NAS.

 

The SSD + Large HD route is also good option. 

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I'd go SSD for main OS and Apps and Red for Data. I just like the red drives, they are made to take a beating.

 

The bad thing about having an SSD in every single one of my systems, is when customers bring their computers over for repair they seem soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo slow.

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