WD Caviar - Blue vs. Black

[Nine Iron]

Phase One of my build - upgrade to 1155 - is complete. Now contemplating Phase Two: SSD boot drive and mechanical storage - my pair of mech HDs are now bottlenecking the new hardware.

SSD is pretty much decided (Vertex 4, 64 GB), and I'm trying to decide bewteen the WD Cavair Blue and Black for the 750 GB/1 TB data drive. All my games and "big" programs will be on there, so my priority is application loading speed - is there a clear winner between the two in this regard? I don't mind paying extra if it's real-world better, especially given the 5-year warranty on the Black.

I'm also concerned with the respective noise levels, if anybody can offer any insight.

Much obliged,

9I.

 

[dugdiamond]

Performance: The Black is optimized for performance at the expense of noise and power consumption, the blue is a general use drive, designed to be a good balance of performance, power consumption, and noise, and the green is designed to use as little power and make as little noise as possible at the expense of performance.

 

[BesiX]

Err... dugdiamond, Blues are 7200 rpm (at least every single one I've seen)

 

[Feronix]

^Pretty sure Blues are 7200RPM as well mate

 

[nothingspecial]

I'm just going to chime in and say go for a Seagate Barracuda. Always used them, and they've always been solid. The only WD Black I've ever had is/was a bit temperamental (worked on one PC, wouldn't show on another, don't use it now).

 

[dragoonk]

Blues are 7200rpm... greens are made to be silent, draw less power, be more environmental friendly ( notice the "GREEN" ) at the expense of performance.. Blacks are exactly the opposite and Blues are somewhere in between.

 

[yassarikhan786]

I would go for the Black. When I had mine, games loaded pretty quickly. For me, noise levels weren't too bad at all.

 

[YbrFinX]

-Black drive is a high-performance drive that has dual processor and 64Mb cache, spinning rate is 7200 rpm and it won't create a lot of noise (Have one myself)
-Green was meant to be eco-friendly drive with low heat production, low noise and power consumption. Higher capacity ones have 64Mb of cache but there are some 32Mb versions as well. They use intellipower which means variable speed between 5400-7200rpm.
-Blue drives are for everyday use, meaning an average drive that has 32Mb cache and performs average in every section.
You stated that you need high performance and are ready to pay extra for real-world performance differences, then your choice is definitely the WD Black
EDIT: And as you may have figured out yourself, Blue and Green drives come with 3-year-warranty, whereas Black comes with 5 years.
CrystalDiskMark results for 1Tb Blue drive:

And 1Tb Black drive:

 

[dugdiamond]

ah well !!! i stand corrected

alot has changed, since the caviar drives 1st came out, with their speeds.

but the rest of what i said IS correct

 

[Spoon_E11]

I use 2 500 gb blues in raid 0 (off the south-bridge) and I really think they are good. I had used them as a boot for a while and they worked pretty well. What I can say is that they are near silent and they aren't noticeably slow (as far as mechanical drives go, compared to my 330 series they are, but that's not really fair.)

However having not used blacks I can't make the comparison.

 

[Nine Iron]

CrystalDiskMark results for 1Tb Blue drive:

And 1Tb Black drive:

This is a pretty significant bump over the Blue in pretty much every area, so it looks like I'll be hunting for a Black.

Power consumption isn't really an issue - I've gone from an E8500 with DDR2 to an i3 3220 with DDR3, so I'm a fair few watts in the black.

 

[CPMFW]

go for the black you wont be disappointed

 

[dragoonk]

Yeah, go for a Caviar Black, it might be louder but if you suspend it in elastic cords you will significantly decrease the noise level if it turns out to be annoying.

 

[Nine Iron]

Yeah, go for a Caviar Black, it might be louder but if you suspend it in elastic cords you will significantly decrease the noise level if it turns out to be annoying.

Any problems sitting a mechy on top of a slab of sponge at the bottom of the case? That way I can get rid of my HDD cage and leave more room for a beefier video card. There'll be a 120 fan blowing over the top of it.

 

[dragoonk]

Any problems sitting a mechy on top of a slab of sponge at the bottom of the case? That way I can get rid of my HDD cage and leave more room for a beefier video card. There'll be a 120 fan blowing over the top of it.

Absolutely no problem at all, any thing soft that looks good or that it's easy to hide. Cooling for a HDD is not necessary , they can live without.

 

[Nine Iron]

Absolutely no problem at all, any thing soft that looks good or that it's easy to hide. Cooling for a HDD is not necessary , they can live without.

I think I've got some soundproofing foam left over from a previous build... I can tape my SSD somewhere out of the way.

 

[dragoonk]

I think I've got some soundproofing foam left over from a previous build... I can tape my SSD somewhere out of the way.

If it's in the way you can mount your SSD on the back side just like in this pic

to make room for the HDD on the bottom of the case with double soundproofing foam ( make sure you secure it so it doesn't slide around ) or you can mount it in the back too if you have enough space and don't care about it being loud maybe.

 

[Deejeta]

Is it too late to change from the horrid ocz ssd? Those drives are only good at being frisbees. Change to something like intel, crucial or samsung.
Go black wd. Great drives.

 

[dragoonk]

Or you can keep it. Intels and Samsungs are known fore being a little bit more reliable. I think it's because they have more money to invest in quality control.
Other than reliability issues the OCZs should be fine, not all of them things are bad. Shame though... all the bad reviews across the net, all the people they disappointed...

 

[Nine Iron]

If it's in the way you can mount your SSD on the back side just like in this pic

to make room for the HDD on the bottom of the case with double soundproofing foam ( make sure you secure it so it doesn't slide around ) or you can mount it in the back too if you have enough space and don't care about it being loud maybe.

My mATX case has piss-poor clearance behind the motherboard tray - horrible for cable routing. I may have to get my Dremel out...

Is it too late to change from the horrid ocz ssd? Those drives are only good at being frisbees. Change to something like intel, crucial or samsung.

Any of these have the Marvell controller and synchronous NAND? There seem to be fewer failures with the V4 than the V3 or, especially, the Agility 3. I just want a 60 GB boot drive with fast boot and good application response; don't care about benchmarking.