HD difference?

[yaya]

I'm looking into buying a 1 TB hard drive and I'm interested in the WD Caviar Green and Black. What are the main advantages/disadvantages of these? I can get the Green for $160AUD and the Black for $170AUD. Good deal or a big rip off? I'm not really looking for performance, more just reliability.

Cheers.

[Bubba]

Green has some type of negligible power saving feature or something like it. Just get the Black and forget the green. It's WD's attempt at going green and a sad one at that. Why would I care about a few watts here and there when I'm pushing 1000 watts? Not like I'm ever going to see any benefit in my power bill b/c of a green drive.

Helps enable eco-friendly PCs - WD Caviar Green drives yield an average drive power savings of 4-5 watts over standard desktop drives making it possible for our energy-conscious customers to build systems with higher capacities and the right balance of system performance, ensured reliability, and energy conservation. This power savings equates to reducing CO2 emission by up to 13.8 kilograms per drive per year - the equivalent of taking a car off the road for 3 days each year*. By using environmentally-conscious PCs with our WD Caviar Green drives on board, large organizations with many desktop computers can minimize their carbon footprint and save real money on electricity costs.

Then the disclaimer:

*Assumes that a car produces 1.60 CO2 pounds per Kwatt/hours/year. Calculation of automobile emissions depends on the car's g/km emission levels and km/year of driving.

From this site:
WD Caviar Green 1 TB SATA Hard Drives ( WD10EACS )

Sounds good but I bet somehow it doesn't exactly save as much as they claim. But it's all up to you. If you think we are all doomed b/c of our current carbon emissions and really think buying eco-friendly hard drives is going to make a difference in the grand scheme of things then that is completely your decision. They spin it well enough to almost believe it. But then again I just have to make a few more runs to Best Buy or to the grocery store per year and your little hard drive's contribution to the environment has been completely negated.

Here's an idea for WD. Stop trying to swindle people into buying a hard-drive that just as well could be manufactured as the Black one yet also have the power savings and features of the Green one. I mean wouldn't someone who really 'cared' for the environment embed that type of technology into their mainline products instead of marketing them as some overpriced overhyped separate line?

[Mario F.]

Originally Posted by yaya

I'm not really looking for performance, more just reliability.

That's the Green. With the added benefit of more storage space (up to 2GB) and lower consumption (6 & 3 watts against 8 and 7 watts). An excellent hard drive.

The price seems high though. I'm looking into buying one myself and have seen them in the 80s to 100.

EDIT: Bubba makes some interesting points. My reasoning is concerned only with the electric bill, not the so-called green planet. In any case the difference is indeed negligible even concerning electricity costs. But every bit counts I guess. This come from someone who only buys <20 watt light bulbs.

[SlyMaelstrom]

Originally Posted by Mario F.

This come from someone who only buys <20 watt light bulbs.

A two packs of cigarettes daily that more than offsets all of the little bits that count.

[Mario F.]

Well, I still didn't find a light bulb I could smoke yet

[cyberfish]

According to this website, How much does electricity cost? What is a kilowatt-hour? (kWh), the average cost of electricity for US residence is 12c/kWh. That is 12/1000=0.012c/Wh. Assuming your computer is on 12hr a day, and the harddrive spends negligible time active. The difference in idle power draw is 7.8-3.7=4.1W. Difference in power draw per day would be 4.1W*12hr=49.2Wh. If you run the harddrive for 3 years, that would be 3*365.24*49.2=53909Wh, which will cost you $6.47 (that's how much the green will save over black, over 3 years of running 12hr/day 365.24days/year).

If you do a lot of I/O, though, things can be very different. Even though the green eats less power active, it will need to spend more time in active mode, since they are slower. Green may end up not saving any power at all.

I have a black and it's pretty fast (close to 100MB/s). Still nowhere near my SSD, though... .

[cpjust]

Originally Posted by cyberfish

If you do a lot of I/O, though, things can be very different. Even though the green eats less power active, it will need to spend more time in active mode, since they are slower. Green may end up not saving any power at all.

Kind of like those "low flow" toilets. How do they save water if you need to flush them about 2-3 times to flush everything?

[zacs7]

Well, just abide by this motto "If it saves the environment something, it costs you something"

[Elysia]

You need to stop thinking in lines of "if I do this, then I save this," and more like "if I and others do this, we can save a lot."
Sure, 4W can seem insignificant. But when 10 000 people save 4W, you get 40 000 W of total savings. And a lot of people tend to leave the computers on, while they really shouldn't.
So one should do a favor and go green as a role model for everyone else. But don't feel pressured to really go green if it costs too much.

[yaya]

Ah, thanks for the replies.

My aim isn't to aid the environment, I just want a decent HD that won't die on me in the next year or so. But it looks like I'm leaning towards the black.

Thanks.

[bithub]

Also keep in mind that since the green hard drive uses less power, it also runs cooler. This will aid the drive's longevity. It your main concern is reliability, then I would go for the Green over the Black.

[carrotcake1029]

If you want to look for a good deal for a HDD, check out this website. Multiple times a week they post good deals on drives. They actually have a green one on the front page right now:

Slickdeals.net - The best coupons, lowest prices, and hottest deals.

[abachler]

Originally Posted by bithub

Also keep in mind that since the green hard drive uses less power, it also runs cooler. This will aid the drive's longevity. It your main concern is reliability, then I would go for the Green over the Black.

That's not necessarily the way it works. A drive that is constantly spinning up and down will wear the bearings out faster than one that stays running 24/7.

[bithub]

Originally Posted by abachler

That's not necessarily the way it works. A drive that is constantly spinning up and down will wear the bearings out faster than one that stays running 24/7.

I don't think the Green drive spins up and down any more or less than the other WD drives. It saves power mainly by running at a lower rotational speed. The specifications on their website don't even give an average latency time, so it's probably not a good selling point for them.

[cpjust]

Black has a 5 year warranty, Green is only 3 years.