2014 WD 1 Tb black vs blue: sound vs speed vs price

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Robomcduff

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Nov 28, 2013
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My 2-year old desktop needs another HDD, getting crowded here. Read a lot of reviews, but all of them are 6 months and older.

Currently I have a 240 Gb OCZ vertex 3 SSD as OS disk and a WD Blue 1 Tb (WD 10EALX) as main storage, no other disks. Occasionally do video editing with Premiere Pro CS6, for the rest some design work and a lot of simple office work. Real back-ups are to an old external 500 Gb drive and on our second desktop (also over-full)

I think of adding a 1 Tb HDD as main work disk, and only store there my pics (160 Gb), video stuff I am working on, and the most recent often used folders. The secondary storage HDD would work as back-up with the bulk of the old document folders, ready video's I am not working on, and stored media like music and movies etc.

Options I see (keep in mind that the OS and all programs run off the OCZ SSD, no files stored there).

I) New black and old blue ... a new WD Black 1 Tb (FZEX) as main, old WD Blue 1 Tb (WD 10EALX) as storage. $ 90

2) New blue and old blue ...new WD blue 1 Tb (WD10EZEX) as main, old one as storage. $ 60

3) old blue and large green ... old WD Blue 1 Tb (WD 10EALX)WD continues as main work HDD, with a green 2 Tb (WD20EZRX) as home-network storage. $ 90


I am a sucker for silent computers, so a very loud HDD is off the list immediately. I can spare the $90 but the question is if the black is worth the extra money in working speed handling during manipulating and sorting pics, video editing, given the louder noise and higher energy consumption and the fact that the main OS work is done by the SSD.

Option 4) Maybe the best would be a new blue 1 TB and new green 2 TB in my desktop and use the old blue 1 Tb as main drive in our second desktop? Any remarks on that?








 
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Someone Somewhere
No point in black, IMO. Especially for a storage drive. Most 7200RPM drives perform pretty much the same.


I'd be looking at getting a big barracuda 7200, as blues don't go above 1TB, and green is 5400RPM.
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Robomcduff

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Nov 28, 2013
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Maybe I use the drive description confusing.

SSD holds the OS and programs, No file storage there, ONLY programs.

STORAGE DISK is basically a BACK-UP HDD also holding media files and stuff I do not need to access often. The music and movies will be played directly from that disk.

WORK DISK - is where I would save the pictures (I often have to look quickly through thousands of pics), the video's I am editing and the folders containing files I often use (like all this year's work). I thought a WD black might speed up that process of sorting through pics and working with vids, certainly if my background music is coming from the other disk. Question is if it really speeds up compared with a WD blue. As work disk, I do not need a 2 TB drive provided I have a separate storage disk.

So with the trio SSD - work - storage, is a black better or worth is as work or is blue enough.
How loud are those black HDDs?
 
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JPNpower

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Jun 7, 2013
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Blacks should be faster for general purpose stuff. If I recall correctly, the main advantage it has over blues is the larger DRAM cache and the longer warranty. Thus, speeding through bulk photos and videos shouldn't make a big difference.

Green drives are IDEAL for what you describe as 'storage'. They are quiet and cool, with fast enough speed for slow access.

So, the black would be much better than the blue for OS stuff, but not really for bulk work stuff. If you want an advantage there, you need to go full out 10k rpm loud drive, or SSD.

Another choice could be Toshiba drives. They tend to be cheaper, but aren't the absolute fastest. I think their 7.2k rpm drives are in between the performance of blues and blacks, but are often cheaper than both.
 
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