WD Caviar Green - Reliability?

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ElectroPulse

Limp Gawd
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Aug 19, 2013
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Hello, all!

I've recently been keeping an eye out for a decently-priced 4TB hard drive in preparation for the clean install I will be doing when Windows 10 releases. (EDIT: I intend to use it for bulk storage, as I've got an SSD for boot drive)

I checked on Slickdeals, and it looks like Fry's will be running a deal tomorrow on 4TB WD drives for $100. On the Slickdeals thread (http://slickdeals.net/f/7973183-kas...-2-5-sata-iii-ssd-for-329-00-ac-more-frys-com), it says that they are WD Green, but on the Fry's page they link to (http://www.frys.com/product/8078024), it says that it's a "Desktop Mainstream" drive. I did some Googling, and it looks like it's just a renamed Caviar Green.

So, I am here to request information about the Caviar Green line. When looking around online, most of the threads were just people asking about the differences between WD's drive colors... So far I have been unable to find much information about its actual reliability. Any differences in terms of reliability between the newer WD Green drives and the older WD Caviar Greens?

In addition, I'm not entirely sure how comfortable I am purchasing an older hard drive. Are there any issues with this model?

Thanks!
ElectroPulse
 
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I've had greens last as short as 1 year, the 3 I have in use right now are 2TB units and have been in operation 24/7 for the past 3 years now.
3770k-drives-and-space.jpg
 
I've had good luck with Green's as storage drives, as long as the load cycle period is extended to 5 minutes.

I hope you don't plan to use it as a boot drive.
 
Thank you for the replies!

Is there any difference between the newer Greens and the Caviar Greens? (in terms of reliability) Forgot to specifically mention that in original post.

And no, I've got an SSD for my boot drive :) Would us it for bulk storage, so don't care so much about the lower performance.
 
My newest green drive is a 2TB I bought in December but I am not currently using it, put a 4TB Black (this drive is very expensive compared to the greens) in it's place since I needed more space and I hated to wait for it to spin up when I'd access it. This is my 4790K setup with only an SSD and 1 spinner in it in the front removable bays. I didn't feel like opening the case and installing it internally so I just put it in a box and placed in a drawer.
 
WD's RMA process is pretty painless if you have to use it.
I had a 1TB Black start making a strange grinding sound and told WD about it and they said it wasn't normal and to RMA the drive. I opted for the Advance RMA so that I could copy the stuff off of the 1TB,
and they emailed me saying they didn't have any 1TB Blacks in stock and if I would accept a 2TB Black instead. I was like, Hell Ya, I'll take a 2TB Black instead.

crystaldiskinfo-WD2TB-Black.jpg
 
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While I haven't used any recently in the past few years, I have some old 2TB WD Green drives, model WDC WD20EARS-00S8B1 in an array, 16 of them actually, well 12 of them are the EARS model and 4 of them are this model WDC WD20EZRX-00DC0B0. The EARS models have to be over four years old or more and I've had no issues with them. Going forward if I were to look for 4TB drives to use just for storage on their own and not in an array I might consider a WD Green however up here in Canada there is only $30 difference between a 4TB Green and a 4TB Red, so I'd probably pay the extra and get the RED.
 
The main difference in the red is the firmware and the extra year warranty.
 
Haven't had issues with my Greens either (3 x 2TB). I forget if WD provides a tool that increase the time between head parking but you should look into to extend the lifespan of your drive; especially if you run your system 24/7.

I've had older drives die and a DOA Red, but WD is really good about their RMA process and will put a small charge/hold on your CC and ship you a replacement first. I've had them send me a 1TB Black before when they didn't have an older 500GB (forget which model) on hand.
 
Backblaze's hard drive reliability data shows a 3.8% failure rate for a 1TB model of Caviar Green, which is not bad.

Personally, I have a 2TB Caviar Green which has been in operation 24/7 for over 3 years and is still fine. I have no trouble with excessive wear due to head parking because the drive is constantly being accessed, so it never parks.
 
I have 3 TB Green drives sitting in my media pool that were the originals. Going on 3 years now they are doing great.

Aside from my anecdotal experience, these drives are very cool running. I used to have a RAID5 array of 5x 750gb BLACK's and holy cow those got HOT.
 
Trimlock said:
I have 3 TB Green drives sitting in my media pool that were the originals. Going on 3 years now they are doing great.

Aside from my anecdotal experience, these drives are very cool running. I used to have a RAID5 array of 5x 750gb BLACK's and holy cow those got HOT.
Click to expand...

speaking of hot drives, I bought a pair of Seagate 36GB 10,000rpm Cheetahs back in the day, and was testing them out before I installed them. I went to touch one to see if it was warm and almost burnt my fingers. they were so hot you could probably cook on them.
They also sounded like jet planes when they were spinning up.
36gig_cheetahs.jpg
 
Zepher said:
speaking of hot drives, I bought a pair of Seagate 36GB 10,000rpm Cheetahs back in the day, and was testing them out before I installed them. I went to touch one to see if it was warm and almost burnt my fingers. they were so hot you could probably cook on them.
They also sounded like jet planes when they were spinning up.
36gig_cheetahs.jpg
Click to expand...

Those must be based on the maxtor designs, those old maxtors although 5400RPM ran very hot, you could not touch them. Never seen any seagate drives that hot but the 1.5TB 7200 rom drive would hit 70C easily.. The maxtors I think would be 80-90C.. But they also failed 100% of the time. I doubt 10K drives are made to work except in a server chassie with high air flow..
 
I don't think Maxtor was owned by Seagate at that time so I can't comment on them being based on Maxtor.
I do know that they were pretty quick at the time. I still have them and they were working when I pulled them out of the system but I have no way of using them anymore, my old 2940UW controller is PCI.

I still have a screenshot from when I was using them
drive_list.jpg
 
I had similar Seagate drives, I ran them in R0, one failed but I didn't use the full capacity (played EQ1, didn't need the space honestly) so I ran a single drive and that one failed 3'ish months after.

Swore off 10k drives after that :D
 
Usually all drives 7200rpm and higher will exceed proper operating conditions (~50°C) without active cooling.
There are a few exceptions, notably cases where they are screwed to more solid metal parts.
 
I still have a 160GB Raptor SATA drive that was installed in 2007 and was still working when I replaced it for a 500GB drive a couple of years ago. That one has the clear cover so you can see the platter and head.
 
Greens should be MUCH more reliabie than they are IF you turn off the constant head parking. This is a must for every green drive I buy.
 
Remember.. before the Western Digital Red's and Purples came out.. all there was were the Blue's , Greens and Blacks.. I'm sure it is all marketing, to a certain extent..
 
I've had 3 1.5TB Greens for like 3 or 4 years now and they have held up. However, I did immediately disable head parking on all 3 as soon as I bought them.
 
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