Revisiting the WD Red vs WD Green discussion

Hello All,

With all the discussion about the new 8TB Seagate's (which I am buying) dying down I have switched focus to my main server again, which I need to add drives to. I currently have 5 WD Red 3TB's (1 parity) and need to add more space. However the difference in price between the Greens and the Red's in Australia is just making me pause.

As I note in the topic, I know this has been discussed and in summary it appears that while the Red's are more $$ than the Greens the extra $$ is worth it for an extra years warranty and the reported longer lifespan.

That opinion is also reflected here: http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Western-Digital-Green-vs-Red-Hard-Drives-602/

However at the moment in AUS the difference (at the cheapest price point) between 6TB Green (AUD$307) and 6TB Red (AUD$389) is $82.

So when I buy 3 new ones I have to justify to myself an extra AUD$246 for an extra yr warranty on one drive and a longer advertised lifespan which in reality doesn't make much difference.

I can run WDIDLE3 on the Green's and make it more like a red in operation anyway too.

I know it comes down here to what I want to pay for and if the extra $$ is worth the warrenty but other than that am I missing something?

Daniel

Very much a personal choice ... as you noted, "...  it comes down here to what I want to pay for and if the extra $$ is worth the warranty ..."

For the price difference you've noted, you may very well want to just "self insure" for the extra year.  I've found both of these series to be very reliable ... with virtually all of the problems I've seen of the "infant mortality" type, where a drive failed my initial testing.  Once past that, they've both been exceptionally reliable.

As you noted, the Reds have an extra year of warranty and they are rated for twice as many load/unload cycles (600,000 vs 300,000 for the Greens).    Otherwise they've very similar. 

Considering you can buy 5 of the Greens for less than 4 of the Reds, I can understand the temptation to simply buy the Greens.  That would give you a "free" spare relative to buying 4 of the Reds 

I DO think the Reds are better drives, but the Greens are certainly GOOD drives ... and at that price difference it's a tough choice.

Thanks. Nice to get another opinion.

I think I am going to make the decision and get the Greens plus a spare. Feels like more value to me.

A side question (without starting another thread - but while I have your attention). How many PC cycles would YOU run on these? I only did 1 on the red's but that was when I was impatient and setting up my first rig. I'd like to follow best practice this time.

I test my drives on a PC before putting them in the UnRAID box.

My testing process is as follows:

With Data Lifeguard I run a Quick test; then an extended test; then a full write zeroes; then repeat the quick & extended tests.    ANY errors and I return the drive for a replacement.

Then I run one pre-clear cycle so the drive's ready to add without any need for UnRAID to clear it.

If I didn't do the Data Lifeguard tests, I'd run 2 pre-clear cycles.

Just replaced some of my smaller disparate drives with 4tb wd green 5400's. Seem to be fine fine so far. Parity check my be a bit slower though.

I'd be surprised if it was much slower or slower at all TBH. The only performance related differences I can see in the drives is the cache. 64MB vs 128MB.

Makes no difference, at the current price point I've decided to bite the bullet. I'm going with the Green's - I'm just going to give the suckers a bloody good Garycase style workout before they go in the Array and also WDIDLE3 them to the same spec as the Red's!

...and WDIDLE3 them to the same spec as the Red's!

I'd be interested in how you do this.

...and WDIDLE3 them to the same spec as the Red's!

 

I'd be interested in how you do this.

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=609&sid=113

Once you have created the boot usb and WDIDLE3 is on it you boot from it in a PC where the WD drive is installed. As a precaution I would NOT boot from your Unraid box, I wouldn't like to give Data Disk access to any other OS but Unraid. I guess you could just disable the drives first - but I'd just use another computer to be safe and avoid costly mistakes. Anyway, configure your bios to boot from the new USB. You should be presented with a DOS prompt. Execute the following and follow whatever prompts you're given:

Essentially what you are going below is checking the current head parking delay of the drive (note I think WDIDLE3 will only recognise WD Drives) to see if you "need" to change it and if so then execute a command that changes the head parking delay on the drive to 300 seconds (same as the Red's).

See what the current timer is (8 seconds default for Green's): WDIDLE3.EXE /R

Set the timer of the Green Drive to the same as the Red Drives (300 second default for Red's): WDIDLE3.EXE /S300

As noted above, WDIDLE is very easy to use.  The biggest shortcoming in the utility is it doesn't provide a "drive select" option.

So what you want to do is simply connect one drive at a time to the system you're using it on; boot with the DOS flash drive; run WDIDLE and make the change; then shut down;  connect the next drive you want to change the setting on; and repeat this process until all the drives you want to change are changed.

I just used WDIDLE on three WD green drives and it was very simple to use. I did exactly what Gary outlined above. It took all of five minutes to do all three.

So does this WIDDLE3 include something to boot the USB drive, or does the OS do this?

What I'm asking is...Is WIDDLE3 the only file you put on the USB drive and your windows puter boots to DOS via the USB??

The WDIDLE3 utility will only work in a DOS environment. You need to create a bootable USB stick, and stick a copy of WDIDLE3 on it. The following link has a method for creating a bootable USB stick you can follow.

http://www.bay-wolf.com/usbmemstick.htm

The WDIDLE3 utility will only work in a DOS environment. You need to create a bootable USB stick, and stick a copy of WDIDLE3 on it. The following link has a method for creating a bootable USB stick you can follow.

 

http://www.bay-wolf.com/usbmemstick.htm

Ahh...that makes more sense. Much appreciated.

Sorry for dropping here, but I was lurking some threads as I'm choosing between Reds and Greens too. {going to Greens for data and Red for parity, btw}

You can download WDIDLE for linux too: http://idle3-tools.sourceforge.net/

One important thing about WDIDLE3 is that you absolutely must power cycle the drive after running the utility. Because many people use a different computer to run it on the power cycling happens anyway, possibly without them appreciating it. But if you use WDIDLE3 to tweak a drive and use it in the same computer, you must power cycle. Simply rebooting to your normal OS will leave the drive in a very unhappy state. You'll notice that trying to run WDIDLE3.EXE /R after you've run WDIDLE3.EXE /Snnn doesn't work until you've power cycled it. I just mention this because it's easy to convince yourself that you've just destroyed the drive!

Just a note that WDIDLE3.EXE doesn't work at all on the 6TB Green.  Tested on two different drives on several different machines. 

Just a note that WDIDLE3.EXE doesn't work at all on the 6TB Green.  Tested on two different drives on several different machines.

Worked for me.

Interesting result (or, more accurately, interesting conflict between two different users).    HellDiverUK => was the 6TB Green the ONLY drive connected to the system you were running WDIDLE3 on ??

FWIW I still recommend buying Reds unless the price differential is significant ... as it is (or at least was 6 months ago) in Australia.  In the US, for example, a 4TB Red is ~ $150 (actually I just bought a couple for $145), vs. $134 for the Green ... not, in my opinion, enough of a difference to buy the greens.    For the 6TB, it's $250 for the Red, $223 for the Green => still not, in my view enough difference to matter ($27 = $4.50/TB).  But the $80+ difference in Australia clearly leans in favor of using the Green drives ... you can in fact buy 5 of the Greens for less than 4 of the Reds at that difference -- and have effectively a "free" spare drive 

Just to resurrect this thread with my own recent findings.

I've had two Greens and a Red (all 3TB) that I ran Data Lifeguard on. I did both extended tests and a full write zeroes. Here's the timings:

• Greens: the extended and write zeroes took around 8 hours 20 minutes
  
• Reds: the extended and write zeroes took 7 hours
  

So going by my completely unscientific tests, it seems the Reds are a little faster. In real world use for unRAID I'm not sure how much, if any, difference it would make.

does a 5 TB WD Red have EXACT SAME capacity as 5 TB WD Green?  I now have a 5 TB Red for parity drive.  I would not like to buy a 5 TB green and be unable to add it to array because it has one more byte of capacity than the Red parity drive. 

If you have Red and Green drives of the same advertised capacity and one of them is your parity drive, how has that worked out?

does a 5 TB WD Red have EXACT SAME capacity as 5 TB WD Green?  I now have a 5 TB Red for parity drive.  I would not like to buy a 5 TB green and be unable to add it to array because it has one more byte of capacity than the Red parity drive. 

 

If you have Red and Green drives of the same advertised capacity and one of them is your parity drive, how has that worked out?

They all have the same capacity, except some disks harvested from external enclosures, those can be a little smaller.

Just to resurrect this thread with my own recent findings.

 

I've had two Greens and a Red (all 3TB) that I ran Data Lifeguard on. I did both extended tests and a full write zeroes. Here's the timings:

 

• Greens: the extended and write zeroes took around 8 hours 20 minutes
  
• Reds: the extended and write zeroes took 7 hours
  

 

So going by my completely unscientific tests, it seems the Reds are a little faster. In real world use for unRAID I'm not sure how much, if any, difference it would make.

WD reds and greens have the same performance, there are however 750GB and 1TB platter models, looks like your greens are the former. 

Just to resurrect this thread with my own recent findings.

 

I've had two Greens and a Red (all 3TB) that I ran Data Lifeguard on. I did both extended tests and a full write zeroes. Here's the timings:

 

• Greens: the extended and write zeroes took around 8 hours 20 minutes
  
• Reds: the extended and write zeroes took 7 hours
  

 

So going by my completely unscientific tests, it seems the Reds are a little faster. In real world use for unRAID I'm not sure how much, if any, difference it would make.

WD reds and greens have the same performance, there are however 750GB and 1TB platter models, looks like your greens are the former.

I think it's obvious, but the comment that "reds and greens have the same performance" is only true for the 1TB/platter versions.    There were no 750GB platter models of the Reds.

Besides the platter sizes, is there any other differences in the 750GB vs 1TB platter models?

Basically I bought these Greens new from Amazon and it turns out the manufacture date is December 2013. Still unsure whether to keep them but they both passed all the Data Lifeguard tests perfectly. Still waiting on WD to confirm they'll honour the warranty (when I tried to register them on the WD site I get an out of warranty message)