Series wd red. New Western Digital color. Why choose PURPLE discs for video surveillance

More recently, when purchasing HDD, the buyer paid attention to only two of its characteristics - speed and volume. The remaining parameters, as a rule, did not play a big role, and therefore almost no attention was paid to them. However, over the past few years the situation has changed radically and the company played a significant role in this Western Digital, offering customers various options for their products, dividing them by color for convenience.

Each color indicates in which system and for what purpose the disk is most appropriate to use:

• Blue rims WD Blue capable of providing basic performance. Such drives are universal and suitable for most systems.
• Drives W.D. Green with a green sticker are characterized by quiet operation and resistance to overheating.
• Discs WD Black designed for network storage devices.
• WD Purple best suited for uninterrupted operation under high load. Most often, such disks are installed in video surveillance systems.
• Discs WD Red ideal for organizing small servers or NAS.

The direct opposite of the WD Green series can be considered WD Black hard drives. Their main advantage is high performance, which was achieved thanks to the high rotation speed and 64 MB cache memory, which is controlled by a powerful dual processor. In addition, the WD Black series drives have new technology TLER, which allows you to minimize the likelihood of sudden downtime of a RAID array caused by errors in one of the system disks. Necessary correction procedures will occur while the system is idle.

The WD Red line also has a 64 MB cache, but is noticeably inferior in performance.

WD Purple drives, as already mentioned, are designed for high loads and uninterrupted operation. These characteristics are key when choosing hard drives for video surveillance systems. WD Purple supports AllFrame technology, which significantly reduces the likelihood of errors that can damage the image or cause the loss of important frames.

The reliability of each drive, as stated by the manufacturer, can only be guaranteed when the drive is used for its intended purpose.

Today there are four models on the agenda. The smaller capacity is only 1 TB, which is already a minimum in this class: so much fits on just one platter. But they are very different in characteristics, despite the fact that all four models “belong to the pen” of the same company. Let's get to know them better.

Western Digital Green WD10EZRX

A representative of the “green” series with all that it implies - after Seagate refused to produce low-speed models, these remained only in the WD range and in the form of only two families. Red is a completely different story: they are intended for use in NAS and similar equipment, so even on the company’s website they are listed outside the desktop models section. But Green is included in it, and sometimes they are even the main and only ones in the computer. However, as we already know, this is not entirely correct, since the plate rotation speed reduced to 5400 rpm has a disgusting effect on performance, but many are ready to do this for the sake of silence and low power consumption such models. Moreover, this time we have a hard drive with a smaller capacity than in the previous article, but it has only one platter with a capacity of 1 TB, which has a positive effect on the characteristics mentioned above and increases performance. So let's see how much, taking this model as the base one.

Western Digital Blue WD10EALX

Although in fact the Green series is not the youngest in the WDC assortment. The Blue line claims this role, which can most accurately be described by a line from an old song: I made him out of what was:) In fact, this is true - in the blue family, for example, there are still models with a PATA interface, and the maximum capacity is only one terabyte. However, in the latest modifications (namely WD10EZEX), this volume is achieved using only one plate, so it differs from WD10EZRX only in the spindle rotation speed. But we took a slightly different model: lower density, but without Advanced Format. And let’s try to see how a double-plate with a higher rotation speed will look against the background of a single-plate with a lower one.

Western Digital Black WD1002FAEX

If in the segment of laptop drives the “blue” and “black” lines differ very clearly in rotation speed, then in the desktop market there is no such thing. Formally, Black is faster, but today it’s difficult to understand why. Is it the cache memory capacity? for a long time was different, but after the introduction of Advanced Format, 64 MB became the standard for everyone. WD1002FAEX, however, does not use it yet. In general, the technical characteristics of the mechanics are identical to the WD10EALX, but it is superior in cache and, possibly, firmware. So let’s compare these two hard drives in practice.

Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1000DHTZ

This drive appeared on the market quietly and unnoticed, which greatly distinguishes it from its predecessors. Although this is not surprising - circumstances have changed.

The highlight of everyone Western drives Digital (WD) is free program « Acronis True Image WD Edition", which allows you to backup copy operating system and data. All WD hard drives are divided into series depending on their purpose.

Different series of WD disks have their own characteristics and are designed for different ways their use, and to distinguish them they came up with the use of color marking, which is quite convenient. The user can only determine the range of tasks for which the disk will be used.

WD Blue

If you use your hard drive to store travel photos, a wedding album, or a collection of your favorite TV series, then WD Blue is exactly what you need. WD Blue drives are designed and tested to suit your needs and come with a 2-year warranty. Enhanced data protection is based on contactless read technology, which ensures the recording head is securely positioned above the drive surface. This is the most popular inexpensive series of hard WD disks with a standard spindle speed of 7200 rpm.

W.D. Green

A series of quiet and economical hard drives. They are also low-cost solutions like WD Blue, but have a reduced spindle speed of up to 5400 rpm. This ensures reduced noise and heating levels. Also, hard drives from the green series periodically turn off themselves to reduce power consumption. In general, they are more suitable for file storage that is accessed infrequently. As the main disk for the system or the second disk with which it occurs Full time job During the day, they are poorly suited, since frequent starts and stops of the disk lead to increased wear.

WD Black

The WD Black line is designed for advanced users and is perfect for photographers, designers and, of course, gamers. Dynamic caching optimally allocates cache memory to achieve maximum performance regardless of the disk usage scenario, even in such heavy tasks as video editing and modern cinematic games. High speed Operation is also achieved through a 2-core processor. The WD Black drive keeps your data safe and comes with a 5-year warranty. These drives are fast, reliable and perfect for use as the main or second drive for gaming and professional PCs.

WD Red

For stable operation of a NAS network drive, it is best to use the WD Red line. The scope of their application is very wide - from home storage or small offices to corporate sites. NAS Hard technology reduces power consumption and increases performance hard drive and is optimized for NAS storage systems. Media in the Red line are designed for 24/7 load and have a 3-year warranty. They also use power-off technology when there is no activity, which is good for file archives in periodically used NAS, but bad for use as part of a PC.

WD Purple

WD Purple is perfect for working with video surveillance systems, with the ability to connect up to 64 HD cameras in some drive models. This type of drive is considered the best in solving video surveillance problems, since it is designed on the basis of a network video recorder and allows you to record simultaneously a large number of data streams. Reduced power consumption is a huge plus for systems operating 365 days a year, and silence and minimal vibration are ensured thanks to the Intel SIK system. The manufacturer guarantees 3 years of continuous operation of the drive. The high reliability of WD Purple is ensured by its resistance to external factors and the ability to operate at high temperatures.

WD Gold

It is best to build a data center or server on a model from the WD Gold line. They are thoroughly tested for compatibility with all popular server storage systems and are perfect for both small companies and corporate giants. The dual-drive head positioning system provides faster and more accurate data search on the disk. These disks are designed for a huge number of simultaneous requests from the network.

WD Re

WD Re (RAID edition) drives are specially optimized for work in large RAID arrays hot-swappable and expandable. With this in mind, they are equipped with special RAFF vibration prevention technology and STABLETRAC vibration protection technology. They are not designed for use as the main server drive and many simultaneous accesses like drives from the Gold series, but are more suitable for backup data storage. They have an increased rewriting resource and MTBF, which is important for large data centers. They can also operate at high temperatures and do not cut off power.

W.D. Se

WD Se drives are also designed to work together, but in a small array of 6 to 12 drives. They are more focused on small corporate customers and work in the SMB (file access protocol) segment. These disks are not designed for such volumes of rewriting and time resource as disks from the Re series, i.e. are their simplified and cheaper version. However, they are equipped with TLER array error correction technology and come with a 5-year warranty. They have a lower operating temperature threshold, but they also do not use a power cut.

Hard drive WD WD4002FYYZ
WD WD20PURX Hard Drive
Hard drive WD WD10EZEX

WD Red hard drives from Western Digital have gone on sale.
Tell me, what is the difference between the WD Red series and others?

WD Red hard drives are the latest so-called. "red" series from Western Digital.
This series is created directly for storage (NAS).
It originates from the “green series” (WD Green), which has already proven itself to be excellent.

The WD Red series has absorbed all the best that the “green” has, and there are innovations for long, reliable battery life.
The key difference between WD Red and WD Green are several hardware features and firmware tweaks that make Red a more suitable option for NAS use.

The firmware of WD Red drives includes NASware technology, which increases reliability and performance, reduces downtime and simplifies their configuration.

First of all, the emphasis is on increased reliability - the time between failures has increased by a third, and the warranty period has been extended.
The firmware has been modified to take into account the peculiarities of operation in storage facilities - for example, read heads are prohibited from being parked too often, and a hard drive that begins to fail will not suspend the entire system and will be “carefully removed” from the array.

WD Red by default does not park the heads at all (when the power is turned off, this happens automatically).

No engine stop.
By default, the firmware does not allow WD Red to stop the engine: the spindown (standbly) timer value is zero.
Which again maintains a stable disk response time.

Error correction timeout.
WD Red has an option SCT ERC (SMART Command Transport Error Recovery Control), WD calls it in its own way: Time Limited Error Recovery (TLER).
This is a fundamental parameter for disks in a RAID array, controlling the behavior of the hard disk when bad sectors are detected.
Desktop drives stubbornly try to read data - this in extreme cases leads to the disk sinking into itself for 20 minutes.

For disks in a RAID array with redundancy, this is unacceptable: if the HDD becomes dull for a long time, the controller will simply throw it out of the array.
Therefore, it is better to signal “I’m alive” to the controller as soon as possible, and the lost data will be restored from neighboring disks.
In WD Red, the default error correction time is 7 seconds (like the WD RE series).

Completing commands.
NASware technology minimizes data corruption or loss in the event of an unexpected power loss by terminating the currently executing command before exiting.
This further improves reliability.

Western Digital does not disclose the response time of the drives.
There is only a phrase on the official website that WD Red has “optimized search”, which leads to “best-in-class performance”.

Also, the carriers have been tested with a large number of equipment, so you can be absolutely sure that there will be no misunderstandings “between the pieces of hardware.”

One of the features is the almost complete absence of vibration.
This is achieved by 3D balancing. Like car wheels.
The block of magnetic plates is secured to the spindle with several screws.
By adjusting their length, vibration and noise can be reduced.
During tests, the hard drives showed absolutely no signs of vibration, and due to a competent cooling system and low heat generation, the temperature in all tested modes remained within 35 °C.

The ATTO and CrystalDiskMark benchmarks estimate linear read speed at 158 ​​MB/s, write speed at 156 MB/s.
When the Total Commander manager copies a file “weighing 5 gigs” to Computer SSD the exchange was at the level of 154 MB/s.
Among hard drives with spindle speeds up to 5400 rpm, this is one of the best indicators.

The average time between failures for WD Red is 1 million hours.
Although this does not mean that a single hard drive will work without failure for 114 years.
Just one out of 114 disks will fail in a year.

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Quiet operation with low power consumption. The budget series of WD Green drives is designed for desktop computers. The disks have sufficient volumes and an attractive price; their rotation speed is in the range of 5400-5900 RPM. Now Western Digital has decided to rebrand the green series, combining it with the blue series (WD Blue). WD Green is no longer produced.

Stable performance and reliability for everyday PC use. Hard disks WD Blue is available in capacities from 250 GB to 6 TB, with a rotation speed range from 5400 to 7200 RPM and a cache of 16, 32 and 64 MB. One of the most important innovations in this series was 1 TB magnetic platters, which increased the speed of the disk due to a higher recording density. Among the WD Blue series drives there is a Blue SSHD model (solid state hybrid drive), which combines the large capacity of hard drives with the speed of a solid-state NAND flash drive. Blue SSHD comes in 2.5" format for laptops and 3.5" format for desktop computers. The former have a capacity of 1 TB, and the latter – 4 TB. The drives are equipped with 8GB of NAND flash memory and use a self-learning algorithm that stores frequently accessed data on the solid-state portion of the drive. Blue HDD and Blue SSHD are connected via SATA interface 6 Gbps. WD Blue 5400 rpm hard drives WD Blue 7200 rpm hard drives WD Blue Hard Drive Tests

Maximum desktop performance. The Black Series is Western Digital's high-end family of hard drives. These drives offer capacities from 1 TB to 6 TB. The black series of wheels is known for its reliability and suits both ordinary users, and for gamers or advanced users. Latest version disk of this family WD Black 6 TB with 128 MB cache shows much top scores compared to previous version WD Black 4 TB. The rotation speed of all disks in this product line is 7200 RPM. Black series HDDs are some of the most reliable on the desktop computer market. In our tests, the WD Black demonstrated a data transfer speed of 180 Mb/s and an access time of 8.5 ms. WD Black Hard Drives WD Black hard drive tests

The purple series is intended for video surveillance systems. IntelliPower RPM technology allows Purple series drives to vary their rotation speed from 5400 to 7200 RPM, thereby reducing power consumption and increasing hard drive life. WD Purple Hard Drives WD Purple hard drive tests

Productivity and increased reliability. The WD Red Pro Series is designed for Network Attached Storage (NAS) but is also perfect for your desktop computer. Compared to WD Black, these drives are quieter and more reliable, but also significantly more expensive. According to test results, the WD Red Pro transfers data at a speed of 180 MB/s, and the access time is 8.5 ms - the same results as the Black series, but the Red Pro are much quieter thanks to the built-in vibration damping system.