Caviar Green vs Black

cheburns · 10-30-2009, 10:17 PM

I need to get a 1TB or bigger drive for my desktop. I stream a lot of video over our network off of these hard drives and was wondering if I would notice a difference between a caviar green or black drive. You can get a 1.5TB green drive for the same price as a 1 tb black. I am a big WD fan (I have 7 or so in my house and none have failed me and all perform well) and I remember a few years ago Seagate was having a lot of issues with drive failures, have they fixed that? The seagate 7200.12 (I believe) 1TB is like 20 bucks cheaper than the caviar black... what do you guys think of seagate drives?

Any advice would be great.
Thanks

**johnb35** · 10-30-2009, 11:01 PM

With the caviar black, you get a 5 year warranty compared to a 3 year warranty with the caviar green. And I think the caviar black is a higher performance drive.

cheburns · 10-30-2009, 11:24 PM

what do people think of a seagate drive vs a western digital these days? aka

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...black%201%20tb
vs
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148433

**johnb35** · 10-30-2009, 11:28 PM

I've had way too many WD's fail me the last few years. I'm sticking to Seagates, I've had no problems with them. I bought 2 WD's for a raid 0 a couple months ago and one was bad.

ScottALot · 10-30-2009, 11:26 PM

You're gonna get much better service with WD. Try to get a combo deal, because I saved 15$ by buying a Caviar Black 1TB and a copy of Win Vista (+ Win 7 Coupon)

**The_Other_One** · 10-30-2009, 11:28 PM

Any drive can be a bad drive/bad batch. Personally, I've had the best luck with Western Digital drives, but I know people who have not and swear by Seagate. It's really up to you. I'd look for recent reviews of both drives and see if there are a number of people having similar problems. Aside from that, either drive would essentially be the same in the end.

Just for the record, I got a Seagate for my previous build and the drive squealed right out of the box. It worked, just made all kinds of noises. Then at work we had a brand new Dell that wouldn't POST at all. Turned out as soon as I removed the Seagate drive, it started working.

Be different. Get a Samsung or Hitachi

ScottALot · 10-30-2009, 11:32 PM

There is no such thing as a working hard drive... they all do something after a while.

Green hard drives aren't green at all. They are just very slow and consume less power/second... however there are more seconds so it makes it just the same as a black.

**The_Other_One** · 10-30-2009, 11:37 PM

Wow ScottALot, such as pessimistic post

And yes, while all drives will essentially fail at some point, some fail sooner than others. I've had some fail out of the box, and I've had some that still run after nearly 20 years (my Macintosh SE FDHD for example). But even the best drives can fail prematurely.

Again, I stick with what I said before. See if people post any consistent problems in reviews. Guess I should also add; Go with a drive with a good warranty, and be sure to keep backups of everything.

Jamin43 · 10-31-2009, 01:16 AM

i see Cavier Greens on sale all the time on discount deal sites. Black cavier - not so much.

cheburns · 10-31-2009, 02:52 AM

yea thats the reason i ask cuz you can find 1.5tb green drives on sale for significantly less than a 1tb black... but if they're noticeably slower then i don't want that since i'll be streaming video from them over a network. Think its just find the best price on the 1tb caviar black... thanks guys

10-30-2009, 10:17 PM	#1 (permalink)
cheburns Platinum Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 581	Caviar Green vs Black I need to get a 1TB or bigger drive for my desktop. I stream a lot of video over our network off of these hard drives and was wondering if I would notice a difference between a caviar green or black drive. You can get a 1.5TB green drive for the same price as a 1 tb black. I am a big WD fan (I have 7 or so in my house and none have failed me and all perform well) and I remember a few years ago Seagate was having a lot of issues with drive failures, have they fixed that? The seagate 7200.12 (I believe) 1TB is like 20 bucks cheaper than the caviar black... what do you guys think of seagate drives? Any advice would be great. Thanks __________________ Ultra X-Blaster ATX Mid-Tower Case with 2 x 120mm Thermaltake Fans ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ 2.8GHz Processor with Zalman 9500 and AS5 CORSAIR ATX12V 520W Power Supply Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin PC2 6400 Memory BFG Tech GeForce 7950GT 256MB Video Card Western Digital SATAII Hard Drives - 2 x 400GB, 1 x 640GB Memorex 16x DVD+/-RW IDE Drive Samsung 20" 2ms Widescreen 206BW Windows XP Pro x64

10-30-2009, 11:01 PM	#2 (permalink)
johnb35 Moderator Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Near Joliet Illinois Age: 39 Posts: 3,644	With the caviar black, you get a 5 year warranty compared to a 3 year warranty with the caviar green. And I think the caviar black is a higher performance drive. __________________ Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R CPU - E8400 Memory - 2GB Corsair XMS2 (2x 1gb) Graphics - ATI HD3870 Hard Drives - 250GB Seagate DVD Drive - Lite-On DVD Burner - Lite-On Power Supply - Rosewill RP600V2-S-SL 600W 22" Acer widescreen AL2216WBD

10-30-2009, 11:24 PM	#3 (permalink)
cheburns Platinum Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 581	what do people think of a seagate drive vs a western digital these days? aka http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...black%201%20tb vs http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148433 __________________ Ultra X-Blaster ATX Mid-Tower Case with 2 x 120mm Thermaltake Fans ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ 2.8GHz Processor with Zalman 9500 and AS5 CORSAIR ATX12V 520W Power Supply Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin PC2 6400 Memory BFG Tech GeForce 7950GT 256MB Video Card Western Digital SATAII Hard Drives - 2 x 400GB, 1 x 640GB Memorex 16x DVD+/-RW IDE Drive Samsung 20" 2ms Widescreen 206BW Windows XP Pro x64

10-30-2009, 11:28 PM	#4 (permalink)
johnb35 Moderator Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Near Joliet Illinois Age: 39 Posts: 3,644	I've had way too many WD's fail me the last few years. I'm sticking to Seagates, I've had no problems with them. I bought 2 WD's for a raid 0 a couple months ago and one was bad. __________________ Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R CPU - E8400 Memory - 2GB Corsair XMS2 (2x 1gb) Graphics - ATI HD3870 Hard Drives - 250GB Seagate DVD Drive - Lite-On DVD Burner - Lite-On Power Supply - Rosewill RP600V2-S-SL 600W 22" Acer widescreen AL2216WBD

10-30-2009, 11:26 PM	#5 (permalink)
ScottALot Diamond Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Janesville, Wisconsin Posts: 1,266	You're gonna get much better service with WD. Try to get a combo deal, because I saved 15$ by buying a Caviar Black 1TB and a copy of Win Vista (+ Win 7 Coupon) __________________ http://www.scottalot.webs.com/ For Quality Computers Built by Yours Truly Scott a Lot, a lot of Scott. GAMERTAG: XxScotTrickxX , ADD ME DREAM AS IF YOU'LL LIVE FOREVER, LIVE AS IF YOU'LL DIE TODAY -- James Dean MotherBOARD

10-30-2009, 11:28 PM	#6 (permalink)
The_Other_One Super Moderator Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Lexington, NC Age: 25 Posts: 13,426	Any drive can be a bad drive/bad batch. Personally, I've had the best luck with Western Digital drives, but I know people who have not and swear by Seagate. It's really up to you. I'd look for recent reviews of both drives and see if there are a number of people having similar problems. Aside from that, either drive would essentially be the same in the end. Just for the record, I got a Seagate for my previous build and the drive squealed right out of the box. It worked, just made all kinds of noises. Then at work we had a brand new Dell that wouldn't POST at all. Turned out as soon as I removed the Seagate drive, it started working. Be different. Get a Samsung or Hitachi __________________ Primary- i7 920 \| 6GB RAM \| 9800GT \| 160+160+500GB Secondary- Athlon X2 4200 \| 2GB RAM \| 7600GT \| 80+250GB Netbook - Atom N280 \| 2GB RAM \| GMA945\| 160GB Last edited by The_Other_One; 10-30-2009 at 11:30 PM.

10-30-2009, 11:32 PM	#7 (permalink)
ScottALot Diamond Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Janesville, Wisconsin Posts: 1,266	There is no such thing as a working hard drive... they all do something after a while. Green hard drives aren't green at all. They are just very slow and consume less power/second... however there are more seconds so it makes it just the same as a black. __________________ http://www.scottalot.webs.com/ For Quality Computers Built by Yours Truly Scott a Lot, a lot of Scott. GAMERTAG: XxScotTrickxX , ADD ME DREAM AS IF YOU'LL LIVE FOREVER, LIVE AS IF YOU'LL DIE TODAY -- James Dean MotherBOARD

10-30-2009, 11:37 PM	#8 (permalink)
The_Other_One Super Moderator Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Lexington, NC Age: 25 Posts: 13,426	Wow ScottALot, such as pessimistic post And yes, while all drives will essentially fail at some point, some fail sooner than others. I've had some fail out of the box, and I've had some that still run after nearly 20 years (my Macintosh SE FDHD for example). But even the best drives can fail prematurely. Again, I stick with what I said before. See if people post any consistent problems in reviews. Guess I should also add; Go with a drive with a good warranty, and be sure to keep backups of everything. __________________ Primary- i7 920 \| 6GB RAM \| 9800GT \| 160+160+500GB Secondary- Athlon X2 4200 \| 2GB RAM \| 7600GT \| 80+250GB Netbook - Atom N280 \| 2GB RAM \| GMA945\| 160GB

10-31-2009, 01:16 AM	#9 (permalink)
Jamin43 Platinum Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 947	i see Cavier Greens on sale all the time on discount deal sites. Black cavier - not so much. __________________ CPU - Intel i920 @ 2.66Ghz MOBO - Gigabyte x58 - UD4P GPU - EVGA - GeForce 9800 GTX+ TV Tuner - Powercolor ATI 550 Pro PSU - Corsair TX650W RAM - 6 GB G.Skill x1600 ( Thanks Bodaggit23 for timing changes ) Case - Antec 300 HDD - WD 500 GB Black Cav x 32 cache

10-31-2009, 02:52 AM	#10 (permalink)
cheburns Platinum Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 581	yea thats the reason i ask cuz you can find 1.5tb green drives on sale for significantly less than a 1tb black... but if they're noticeably slower then i don't want that since i'll be streaming video from them over a network. Think its just find the best price on the 1tb caviar black... thanks guys __________________ Ultra X-Blaster ATX Mid-Tower Case with 2 x 120mm Thermaltake Fans ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ 2.8GHz Processor with Zalman 9500 and AS5 CORSAIR ATX12V 520W Power Supply Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin PC2 6400 Memory BFG Tech GeForce 7950GT 256MB Video Card Western Digital SATAII Hard Drives - 2 x 400GB, 1 x 640GB Memorex 16x DVD+/-RW IDE Drive Samsung 20" 2ms Widescreen 206BW Windows XP Pro x64

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version Email this Page	Search this Thread: Advanced Search
Display Modes
Switch to Linear Mode Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
What is the difference between Caviar blue and Caviar green?	Drastik	Computer Memory and Hard Drives	3	08-15-2009 11:17 PM
have you use Caviar Green technology HDD from western digital?	UpskirtHayley	Computer Memory and Hard Drives	1	07-26-2009 03:42 AM
Western Digital Caviar Black Connection	cliaru	Computer Memory and Hard Drives	2	04-26-2009 06:40 AM
Help a question that needs to be solved!	AndrewxChau	Off Topic Chat	17	11-14-2005 12:51 AM