2TB WD Black Or 3TB WD Red? Which should I buy?

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Mugglensu1984

Mugglensu1984

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Jul 24, 2008
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I am in a dilemma between two hard drives: 2TB WD BLACK OR 3TB WD RED?

Both of them cost pretty much the same.

It will be a secondary drive where I'll store media files and install my games.

It will not be a storage-only drive

I have read on forums that the WD Black drives are overrated. But I haven't been able to find much about the RED drives.

Since the price difference between them is negligible I am wondering whether to get the Red (with extra 1TB) or to get the 2Tb Black.

Please help me out with some suggestions!!
 
Solution
SuperSoph_WD
Hello, Mugglensu1984!

Since you want to use the HDD as a secondary storage solution. I guess either one can do that for you.
The difference is that if you plan to install and play games from this drive, the WD Black would perform much better than the WD Red.
This is due to the fact that the WD Red incorporates IntelliPower because it is designed to run in 24/7 environments as a NAS/RAID drive, it spins down a bit faster than regular drives, when it's not accessed. This feature balances the spin speed, transfer rate and caching algorithms to save power and deliver solid performance. Besides, the NASware 3.0 advanced firmware is specifically built-in for NAS/RAID environments, so I'm not sure how many of the WD Red's advantages you...
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Mugglensu1984

Mugglensu1984

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Thanks but you just repeated the marketing pitch.

What I would like to know is,

in terms of actual daily usage (like pc gaming, or downloading/torrenting)

what is the difference between a WD Black Or Red drive?

Which drive would be beneficial or be detrimental to my usage?
 
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Archaic59

Archaic59

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Red drives are made for servers running 24/7 so the focus is on reliability and not so much performance. Red uses Intellipower which means it spins at varying speeds, overall not really good for gaming. Black drives are performance oriented drives, plain and simple. Black is the one you want.
 
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

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Jul 30, 2014
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Hello, Mugglensu1984!

Since you want to use the HDD as a secondary storage solution. I guess either one can do that for you.
The difference is that if you plan to install and play games from this drive, the WD Black would perform much better than the WD Red.
This is due to the fact that the WD Red incorporates IntelliPower because it is designed to run in 24/7 environments as a NAS/RAID drive, it spins down a bit faster than regular drives, when it's not accessed. This feature balances the spin speed, transfer rate and caching algorithms to save power and deliver solid performance. Besides, the NASware 3.0 advanced firmware is specifically built-in for NAS/RAID environments, so I'm not sure how many of the WD Red's advantages you will be able to experience using it as a stand-alone secondary drive.

The WD Black, on the other hand, is going to deliver high-performance even as a secondary drive. The 7200 RPM would surely out-perform the IntelliPower if you put them side-by-side. Another advantage the WD Black has is the 5-year limited warranty that seems rather attractive to customers.

I hope I was helpful! Let me know if you have more questions! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 
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