WD Caviar Greens or Caviar Blacks

[frownsarefun]

I just ordered my Mac Pro and am eagerly awaiting shipping and arrival. In the meantime, I`d like to get the remaining 3 hdd`s ordered and on their way to me and am looking for some sound advice.

With so much debate and back and forth with WD`s Caviar Green vs Caviar Black: 5400-7200rpm variable speed vs 7200rpm / performance use vs storage use / whether the variable speed will lessen the lifespan of the Green drive / etc, etc, etc...

I am wondering if I can get some sound, sage advice based on my needs for these drives so I can move forward and not be so concerned or down right terrified that they aren`t going to live up to my needs.

Simply put...

Bay/Drive 1 will be a 2tb that Apple includes (stock drive), which seems to be the WD Caviar Black - perhaps. I will keep my personal/business photos/videos/documents and massive itunes library on it.

Bay/Drive 2 will be personal photo/video/document and itunes library backup.

Bay/Drive 3 will be business photo/video/document and contracts backup.

Bay/Drive 4 will either be a backup for Bay/Drive 1.

No RAID or other setup. Just plug in and go as is. Since my drives 2-3 are being used for storage purposes and backups...it seems on paper that the WD Green 2tb will be fine with variable 5400-7200tb because the large majority of MY performance is coming from Bay/Drive 1. The rest are merely places where I will keep copies of everything else.

I see the WD Caviar Green 2tb for $110 on Amazon (OEM). I see the WD Caviar Black 2tb for $150 - $180 (retail version) and higher. Am I going to see any difference in these drives, in real world terms for MY usage?

Just dragging and dropping files from one drive to the next. Or running Time Machine to make a copy. If I truly had a drive fail me, I`m not concerned about the read/write speed of the back-up drive, as I would just replace the faulty drive with the same type it was.

Thanks.

 

[js81]

From my personal experience, Caviar Blacks are LOUDER than just about anything else. That said, they're pretty fast, too.

If its purely backup, get the Green. You'll save money and (a little) power.

If you want a good balance, have you considered the Blue series? IMHO, they seem to be the best compromise of all.

 

[talmy]

You do have an external backup as well, don't you? Internal backups aren't sufficient for a number of reasons (equipment failure, accidental deletions, fire, theft...).

Put in a single Caviar Green and use it for TimeMachine. Some applications (like Photoshop) will benefit from a scratch drive. You can use a Caviar Black for that, but it doesn't have to be a big drive.

 

[AppleNewton]

For as much as i like western digital, ive had great luck with Hitachi.
You can get a 2TB hitachi 7200RPM drive for $99:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...410-Index-_-InternalHardDrives-_-22145298-L0A

 

[Allan in T.Dot]

I've been using my WD Black in an external enclosure for the past 1.5 years now I think? Two things I know of: it runs bloody hot, it runs pretty fast. I can't tell if it's noisy though but that could be the positioning of the enclosure on the desk. Also, it could just be really hot because it's an aluminum enclosure with no fan and it's supposed to radiate the heat too.

Overall, no complaints here.

 

[vistadude]

Why so many drives? You computer is going to be super loud. Just go with 1 drive and 1 external backup, so not all the drivers are on all the time.

 

[AppleNewton]

Why so many drives? You computer is going to be super loud. Just go with 1 drive and 1 external backup, so not all the drivers are on all the time.

One of the points of a MP is internal storage...honestly I have never had a noise issue with the entire MP full of HDDs, I had 4x2TB hitachis which are sometimes audible during high performance use, and had 6x2TB external drives connected to the MP and it wasn't very loud.

 

[Funkatronic]

Blacks run really hot, and are considerably faster than the Greens. But unless you're using it as an OS drive or RAIDing them, you dont really need the Blacks.

If its purely for backup, as you've mentioned, Greens are the way to go.