WD Selling Green Drives in Regular Boxes but I'm still not sure if I should return it

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shantd

Gawd
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Today at Frye's I saw this: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...dbh2d0030hnc_nrsn_3tb_internal_drive_for.html

- WDbh2d0030hnc-nrsn

3TB, 64MB Cache, 7200 RPM, AND the damn thing was just under $100. Needless to say I was sold.

What I got when I opened the box? This: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136874

Same specs, but the RPMs are...well..."Intellipower" or some nonsense that basically means 5400-5900. It even specifically states it's not an optimal drive for gaming.

Thing is, I'll probably just use it for storage, so I don't know if it's worth taking back. Not sure I can do much better for $100 anyway. What do you guys say? How much slower is this thing compared to 7200RPM really?

Thanks for the help guys! Could really use some input here...
 
Take it back there are 3 TB 7200 RPM drives that can be had for $99 shipped.
 
wow I'm in the exact same boat. My lady bought me this same drive from BB at the beginning of the month as a anniversary gift and I was just about to install it a few hours ago. I decided to look online for the reviews on it and I found out it's basically the green one. I'm planning on returning to BB for a Seagate instead.
 
Did you happen to catch the price? Just curious. It was marked down greatly at my local Frye's which makes me suspicious that they may be aware that the drive in the box is different than the one on the box. I wonder if I can get them to match the same price I paid for an equivalent drive with 7200 RPMs...would love to get the Seagate version. Really I'd take most any drive over WD. In 20 years of building rigs, the only HDDs that have ever failed on me (with only 2 exceptions) have been WDs.

I know getting them to switch brands for the same price is a long shot, but at the very least they should have to order me the right HDD at no additional charge. Retail outlets are supposed to honor the price on the box, no? Then again, if they told me this was completely WD's fault and therefore their responsibility, I really couldn't argue with them. Clearly this is being done intentionally. The only question is does Frye's know about it and selling them anyway....
 
snypa2k3 said:
wow I'm in the exact same boat. My lady bought me this same drive from BB at the beginning of the month as a anniversary gift and I was just about to install it a few hours ago. I decided to look online for the reviews on it and I found out it's basically the green one. I'm planning on returning to BB for a Seagate instead.
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No! Hitachi.

Unfortunately I also bought a Seagate external recently :/ and a few other Seagate drives - but fortunately all of them are higher-end drives except the external.

All data I've seen recently points to Seagate being the new Maxtor as far as reliability goes. Not good.
 
dandragonrage said:
No! Hitachi.

Unfortunately I also bought a Seagate external recently :/ and a few other Seagate drives - but fortunately all of them are higher-end drives except the external.

All data I've seen recently points to Seagate being the new Maxtor as far as reliability goes. Not good.
Click to expand...

Well, I can vouch for Hitachi. I've been having problems with a number of my hard drives, you can read about it here http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1812801

Of all the HDDs I own, only the Hitachi still hasn't shown a single read error. For what that's worth.
 
shantd said:
Today at Frye's I saw this: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...dbh2d0030hnc_nrsn_3tb_internal_drive_for.html

- WDbh2d0030hnc-nrsn

3TB, 64MB Cache, 7200 RPM, AND the damn thing was just under $100. Needless to say I was sold.

What I got when I opened the box? This: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136874

Same specs, but the RPMs are...well..."Intellipower" or some nonsense that basically means 5400-5900. It even specifically states it's not an optimal drive for gaming.

Thing is, I'll probably just use it for storage, so I don't know if it's worth taking back. Not sure I can do much better for $100 anyway. What do you guys say? How much slower is this thing compared to 7200RPM really?

Thanks for the help guys! Could really use some input here...
Click to expand...

Does the BOX say GP or GP-AV?

Both the GP and GP-AV are EcoGreen drives, with the AV series aimed at the media-center extender market (or replacement drives for such extenders or STBs, such as Tivos).

They CAN be used as PC platter drives - however, to get them to work at the full supported speeds (which actually IS 7200 rpm), you have to switch the energy-saving features off. I have two such drives - both are, in fact, used as boot drives in different Windows-based desktop PCs. Both have the energy-saving features disabled (in Windows Vista or later, go to Power settings->Advanced->Hard drives - change the setting to Never spin down; if you run Windows 7 or later, choosing the High Performance preset automatically makes this change).

The smaller of these two drives was part of a massive lot clearanced out via Best Buy - the boxes were, in fact, labeled correctly. The other drive (1 TB unformatted/931 GB formatted NTFS) was originally in a MyBook (the exterior electronics got fried due to a plugology error by the drive's owner).
 
Very sorry about the late reply, I thought the thread was dead. I do have an update which should clarify things. Firstly, as to your question:

PGHammer said:
Does the BOX say GP or GP-AV?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what GP or GP-AV stand for, but I can tell you I don't see those letters anywhere on the box. These boxes are either mis-labeled, or the drives inside are mis-boxed.

I took the drive back to Frye's. The clerk compared the S/N & the S/N on the drive and said "we can't take this back, it's not the drive that came in the box". Not only did the serial numbers not match, neither did the model numbers. I explained that's the whole point, they don't match. She just repeated "if the S/N doesn't match, I can't take it back." So I simply told her to wait, grabbed a brand new box and opened it in front of her (to her protests, lol). Sure enough, same story. A green drive with different numbers, so she then gave me the refund.

PGHammer said:
They CAN be used as PC platter drives - however, to get them to work at the full supported speeds (which actually IS 7200 rpm)
Click to expand...

Hmmm...I'm not sure we're talking about the same green drives, but if we are, I'm fairly certain that even in performance mode they're not going above 5900 RPM. My understanding is, when they list the RPMs as "Intellipower" as opposed to listing an actual number, the RPM ranges from 5400RPM to 5900RPM. If the drive is capable of 7200 they will state that number proudly.

You can see here, going off the box, this site advertises the RPM as 7200: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...dbh2d0030hnc_nrsn_3tb_internal_drive_for.html

Here however, going off the drive itself, the same drive is listed at 5400RPM: http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Green-Desktop/dp/tech-data/B004RORMF6/ref=de_a_smtd

Lots of people have been complaining about this apparent mistake on the part of WD. It seems the only people who aren't surprised when they see a green drive in the box are those who didn't know know the difference: http://www.amazon.com/review/R29M1W...Thread=TxA0WGIBOYEC2L&store=pc#wasThisHelpful



PGHammer said:
The smaller of these two drives was part of a massive lot clearanced out via Best Buy - the boxes were, in fact, labeled correctly. The other drive (1 TB unformatted/931 GB formatted NTFS) was originally in a MyBook (the exterior electronics got fried due to a plugology error by the drive's owner).
Click to expand...

All this info does for me is reinforce that indeed WD has a history of mis-representing what's in the box. Either it was an honest mistake where WD decided that the "Mainstream Classic" line (which used to be blue) will be green from now on for drives larger than 1TB and simply forgot to clearly state this fact, or it was an error on the manufacturing line mis-matching drive. If it's the latter, WD should have discovered and corrected the error by now. Who knows.

IN the end I went with the smaller 2TB black (high-performance) version. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236533

It was $134.99 at Frye's. Substantially more than the green drive with 33% less space, but I'll live. It was $35 less than the newegg & Amazon prices at least.
 
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