Many of our business clients ask which type of hard drive they should buy. Most of our clients allow us to make these technical decisions for them. We decided to share some of our knowledge with the world.
When it comes to which type of drive is best, there is no black-and-white answer. A consumer should evaluate each drive’s strengths and weaknesses and its intended use.
First, when it comes to HDD, Western Digital is one of the best brands on the market. Research proves these drives tend to see a low failure rate.
Additionally, the team at Tekie is in the habit of deploying Western Digital HDDs due to their reliability.
Of course, reliability depends on how intensively the drive is used. For instance, deploying a Western Digital Blue drive in a file share or server would not be wise.
Before we give you the breakdown of WD Blue vs. Black vs. Purple, Red, and Gold, we first need to question if an HDD is the best drive for you. With the technology available in SSDs, that may be a better option.
For most basic PC tasks and regular file storage, an HDD is the best value. However, if a user will be doing video rendering, gaming, or vigorous file reading/writing, an SSD is likely the better choice.
This post only covers the WD Blue vs. Black vs. Purple & Red HDDs.
If you are looking to compare HDD vs. SSD drives, click here
If you’d like to contrast the WD 2.5-inch solid state drives, see this post
WD Blue, Red, Purple, Gold, Black – See the differences below
| Specification Compared | WD Blue | WD Purple | WD Red | WD Black | WD Gold |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intended Use | Basic file storage | Surveillance cameras and DVRs | File Sharing and NAS Devices | Workstation and server use | Enterprise |
| Performance Rating |  |
 |
 |
 |
|
| Value Rating | |
|
|
 |
|
| Price Point | $49.09 – $249 | $46.99 – $300 | $49.99 – $257.88 | $49.09 – $273.87 | <$79.99 – $976.00> |
As you can see from the basic comparison table above, the price points for standard HDDs have dropped considerably over the years. With the introduction of higher-capacity SSD drives, the manufacturers of typical HDD drives have lowered their prices. The intended purpose of the drive is the primary consideration one should contemplate when considering an HDD purchase.
Ensure you buy the correct drive for the intended purpose. Although it is tempting to purchase WD Blue drives due to their low price point, they will not last long in a file share.
Even though WD Black drives are the best for servers and workstations, using this drive class for surveillance systems would be a mistake as they are not correctly optimized. Each drive class is optimized depending on the intended purpose, and it is imperative to keep this in mind before buying. Below, we have included another comparison chart that outlines the technical specs so you can compare apples to apples.
Key Technical Differences: WD Blue vs. Purple, Red, Black & Gold
| Specification Compared | WD Blue | WD Purple | WD Red | WD Black | WD Gold |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capacity Range | 500GB to 6TB | 1 TB to 10 TB | 1TB to 14TB | 500GB to 10TB | 1 TB to 20TB |
| Sustained Transfer Speed | 147 MB/s to 180 MB/s | 110 MB/s to 145 MB/s | 150 MB/s to 210 MB/s | 202 MB/s to 227 MB/s | 255 MB/s to 291 MB/s |
| Form Factor | 3.5 inch | 3.5 inch | 3.5 inch | 3.5 inch | |
| RPM Class | 5400 RPM, 7200 RPM | 5400 RPM, 7200 RPM | 5400 RPM | 7200 RPM | 7200 RPM |
| Cache | 32 MB, 64 MB, 256 MB | 64 MB, 128 MB, 256 MB | 64 MB, 256 MB | 128 MB, 256 MB | 256 MB, 512MB |
| Operating Temp | 0 to 60 Celsius | 0 to 65 Celsius | 0 to 65 Celsius | 5 to 55 Celsius | 5 to 60 Celsius |
As we mentioned earlier in the article, it is essential to remember the intended purpose of each hard drive.
As you can see in the table above, the WD Black Drive offers a good balance of performance to the price point. The best drive overall is the WD Gold series. One of the essential factors in comparing hard drives is the sustained transfer speed.
The faster the sustained transfer speed, the quicker one can read and write files to/from the drive. Below we will dive into deeper depth on the types of WD drives available and how to use them.
Intended Purpose for WD Gold (Best option for Enterprise)
The Western Digital Gold 3.5-inch Hard Disk Drive is an Enterprise drive. Enterprise drives are often prone to constant abuse in grueling server environments. An intelligent consumer with the proper budget should pick this drive up.
With a total cache double that of its siblings on the highest capacities, the Western Digital Gold Drive will be better able to handle constant commands from the CPU. While a solid-state drive will offer much better read/write speeds, the sustained transfer speed of the Gold series drives helps solve a bottleneck compared to the drives in other color groups.
When comparing WD Black vs. Gold, the clear differences lie in the storage capacity, available cache, and sustained transfer speed. For a consumer intent on constantly accessing, reading, and writing files the extra transfer speed is worth the added cost.
Intended Purpose for WD Black (Best option for power users)
The Western Digital Black drive is the crown jewel of the WD consumer-grade drives. The intended use of the WD Black is for graphic designers, gamers, and other resource-intensive users.
The faster-sustained transfer speed offered with the WD Black Drive will ensure that one will receive the best performance possible while using a standard HDD drive. That said, a primary user will not make a mistake by purchasing the WD Black drive. As in most other life scenarios, one is better off spending a bit more for better quality, which is valid for the WD Black series.
That said, purchasing the WD Black drive for cold storage is overkill. If one intends to store files and occasionally retrieve them, they would be better suited to try the WD Blue drive for the lower price point. After seeing the price drop on the WD Black Drive over the last couple of years, the current pricing of this model is undeniably attractive. After reading all this information, you are still unsure which drive to purchase; the WD Black Drive would be the best choice.
WD Blue Best Uses (Occasional usage, basic desktop computing, cold storage)
The WD Blue Drive series is great for users on a budget. That said, do not be fooled into thinking the WD Blue drive is suitable for performance. The lack of a target audience on the manufacturer’s product spec sheet shows this is a budget drive. The Western Digital Blue Drives should be used solely for primary purposes and cold storage. For one that frequently stores and accesses essential files, the WD Blue Drive will not deliver the reliability that somebody would expect. Out of all the Western Digital Drives, the Blue series is where we see the most frequent failures.
The performance and reliability differences are apparent when comparing WD Blue vs WD Black. At Tekie, we strongly advise our clients against using the WD Blue Drives. The added costs and aggravation of recovering from a failed drive are not worth the few dollars saved. The WD Blue Drive is discouraged even further when the end user plans on using this drive for anything more than everyday PC usage.
Best Use of the WD Red Drive (File Storage, NAS Devices)
The WD Red Drive Series is excellent for file storage on network devices. Keep in mind that even though the reliability of the Western Digital Red series is remarkable, one should always take precautions and have backups of their data. Tekie always recommends having a RAID array set up in all NAS devices, and RAID 1 is a great way to keep a mirrored copy of your data at all times. Although doubling the cost of your drives may seem unattractive, you will be thankful you have RAID in the case of a drive failure.
The WD Red Series should not be used in an enterprise server as the WD Gold Drive is engineered specifically for servers.
WD Red Drives are designed exclusively for network-attached storage and should be used solely for file sharing.
WD Purple Drive recommended use (Surveillance Systems)
The Western Digital Purple Drive Series was built for surveillance systems. Tekie uses WD Purple Drives exclusively for our clients that maintain surveillance systems.
Outside of video storage and surveillance systems, the WD Purple Drive has little benefit over the WD Black, WD Blue, and WD Red series. It is strongly recommended not to use the WD Purple Drive in anything other than video storage. Our experience with the WD Purple Drives has been that they do not last long for anything other than surveillance systems and video storage.
Wrapping Up: WD Black vs. Blue vs. Red vs. Purple vs. Gold
This article covers the technical differences between the WD Black vs. Blue vs. Red vs. Purple vs. Gold Drive series.
One should use a WD drive for the manufacturer’s designed purpose.
Failing to use the proper hard drive can lead to data loss, aka hard drive failure. At Tekie, we have been called on several occasions to assist clients with hard drive failures. In many of these cases, failures were caused due to an improper drive type.
Another consideration when it comes to hard drives is SSDs. After all, SSD drives have also come down significantly in price.
The best performance can now be found with an SSD drive. On the other hand, many people do not need the performance upgrades that SSD drives can offer. With that said, as SSD drives command more market share, one can only wonder how long HDDs will be viable in the market.
You must be logged in to post a comment.