-
Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!
Deciding between WD black and blue.
- Thread starter laci90
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2005
Before the days of SSD being the norm I'd say grab the WD Black, but.... Just grab a Blue if it's cheaper then grab a cheap SSD as an OS drive 
There are lots of deals on JET right now, someone over at [H] picked up a WD 4TB Black for $151.
You can use the coupon code SURPRISE20 for 20% off anything.
https://www.jet.com/
There are lots of deals on JET right now, someone over at [H] picked up a WD 4TB Black for $151.
You can use the coupon code SURPRISE20 for 20% off anything.
https://www.jet.com/
The black line is faster than the blue line. I'd grab the black if you want to afford the small premium. While the difference between them isn't night and day, I can tell which is which on my pc when dealing with the drives.
- Thread Starter
- #5
I read that the blue is faster because there is 1tb on 1 platter while on the black there is 1tb on two platters which means they are split in 2x500gb also to me the black seems a bit overpriced for the long warranty my hard drive is around 8 years old it has no problem never had any maybe im lucky but i need a new one because 160gb isn't enough nowadays.
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2011
There is also this:
http://techreport.com/news/29251/western-digital-paints-its-green-hard-drives-blue-in-rebranding
So, the blue drives will soon have significantly variability in speed amongst the individual models. It will no longer work to simply pick a blue drive and assume it's decently fast, you might end up stuck with the 5,400 drives that park the head at bad times.
WD provides specific information regarding the model numbers.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=770#Tab8
Among all the 3.5 inch drives, the models ending in Z are intellepower (5,400 rpm-ish), and the ones ending in X don't.
http://techreport.com/news/29251/western-digital-paints-its-green-hard-drives-blue-in-rebranding
So, the blue drives will soon have significantly variability in speed amongst the individual models. It will no longer work to simply pick a blue drive and assume it's decently fast, you might end up stuck with the 5,400 drives that park the head at bad times.
WD provides specific information regarding the model numbers.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=770#Tab8
Among all the 3.5 inch drives, the models ending in Z are intellepower (5,400 rpm-ish), and the ones ending in X don't.
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2014
Hi there.
It depends more or less on what are you gong to use the drive for.
The difference between WD Blue and Black, the first one is meant for everyday usage and it's fully capable to run most games as well as many programs for editing or programming, while on the other hand WD Black is a performance oriented hard drive that has firmware features like a built-in dual-core CPU that makes it a good choice for multitasking, and it is designed for heavy gaming, big workloads and intensive file usage. The other difference is in the warranty - WD Black has a longer 5 years warranty.
Hope this helps and fee l free to ask any questions you may have.
Cheers!
It depends more or less on what are you gong to use the drive for.
The difference between WD Blue and Black, the first one is meant for everyday usage and it's fully capable to run most games as well as many programs for editing or programming, while on the other hand WD Black is a performance oriented hard drive that has firmware features like a built-in dual-core CPU that makes it a good choice for multitasking, and it is designed for heavy gaming, big workloads and intensive file usage. The other difference is in the warranty - WD Black has a longer 5 years warranty.
Hope this helps and fee l free to ask any questions you may have.
Cheers!
- Joined
- May 30, 2004
Heads up, some Blues are the same as the Greens! Western Digital decided to eliminate the Green badging and instead put then in the blue lineup!
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2014
Yes, there are modification in the WD consumer line. Basically speaking with this transaction the new WD Blue model numbers inherit the same nomenclature as the prior WD Green generation products, but end with a ‘Z’ instead of an ‘X’ (example: WD60EZRX to WD60EZRZ):
http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=1GWy5s
The RPM of the drives will be 5400, and the whole idea is to simplify the hard drive selection process for customers by streamlining the model families for mainstream PCs to only the WD Blue line. The official press release says that:
"All currently shipping WD Green models will remain available through their lifecycle, as they transition to the WD Blue label. WD Black® models will remain in the PC drive family, yet designed for high-performance applications such as gaming and workstations and for those building high-end systems for creative professionals.
WD’s color-coded product portfolio enables customers to easily choose the right hard drive designed for their intended application. Its other colors include WD Red® for network-attached storage (NAS) appliances and WD Purple™ for video surveillance systems. WD’s datacenter drives are identified with gold labels."
http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=1GWy5s
The RPM of the drives will be 5400, and the whole idea is to simplify the hard drive selection process for customers by streamlining the model families for mainstream PCs to only the WD Blue line. The official press release says that:
"All currently shipping WD Green models will remain available through their lifecycle, as they transition to the WD Blue label. WD Black® models will remain in the PC drive family, yet designed for high-performance applications such as gaming and workstations and for those building high-end systems for creative professionals.
WD’s color-coded product portfolio enables customers to easily choose the right hard drive designed for their intended application. Its other colors include WD Red® for network-attached storage (NAS) appliances and WD Purple™ for video surveillance systems. WD’s datacenter drives are identified with gold labels."
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2005
With respect, and knowing that WD tends to be my general go-to HDDs for my primary setups, this whole thing screams that WD wants to make it more difficult for consumers. WD has already established "streamlining" their color coded system by making it very apparent which drives are which, but now, a non-tech savvy individual may go about purchasing a WD Blue drive only to find out later as they use as a primary drive in whatever machine that it's slow downs are terrible as they unknowingly picked up a 5400rpm drive.
Honestly it seems a bit deceiving.... It also seems as if WD seems to have trouble selling the greens as of late, thus the incorporating into the established Blue line to try to sell there to unknowing consumers who missed a Z or an X at the end of a model number.
