Yeah, those were a drive model that traded in speed for reliability. They were a low-power low-heat model specifically designed for use in NASes and laptops where cooling was almost non-existent. The problem is they were among the first that used 4k sectors and unless the OS blocksize was synced to the disk, then their transfer speed was abysmal. As a result from a marketing perspective they had a terrible reputation which is why WD retired the color in 2015 although there's still plenty of them floating around that are either New Old Stock (NOS) never used, or are used ones...
Rule of thumb I've always used is never buy used disk drives unless they are going into mirrors or other RAID arrays, though. Ted -----Original Message----- From: PLUG <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Rich Shepard Sent: Tuesday, December 9, 2025 9:04 AM To: Portland Linux/Unix Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PLUG] Hardware advice: replacement internal desktop drive On Mon, 8 Dec 2025, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > Now for ultra reliability you can't beat a pair of WD Greens running > at > 5400 rpm. I have a pair that the mirror has gone through 3 PCs now. > The drives have outlasted motherboards and power supplies. Ted, No longer manufactured. Regards, Rich
