What is the difference between the WD Colours – Blue, Red, Black, Green, Purple and Gold

Understanding the difference between WD Blue, Red, Black, Green, Purple and Gold Hard Drives

UPDATED FOR 2023

Western Digital have been in the hard drive and SSD market since the 1970s and I think it is safe to say that are one of the biggest and best storage media providers in the world. A lot of this success and market dominance is down to 3 factors.

1. Pricing their products correctly so as to ensure that a home user can buy hard drive media priced in their budget that performs to that degree, whereas a highend business users has the option to pay more and get more.
2. En-devouring to make their products are designed with the task in mind, rather than a single HDD or SSD for all purposes. You wouldn’t use a hammer to screw an IKEA table together, you wouldn’t use a screwdriver to paint a fence. Likewise, WD has Hard Drives that are tailored for intensive cold storage in data centers, as well as HDD that are designed for basic PC use and Desktops – this not only allows for grading pricing for consumers, but also that you are buying a tool that perfectly befits the task at hand.
3. Ever heard the expression K.I.S.S? Keep It Simple, Stupid! This is possibly the most important factor in WD’s structure these last 5 years or more. Rather than bombarding users with ill-formed part numbers and flashy names, WD has just stuck to a simple colour code system of Drives. Once you know what each colour means, then you can pretty much narrow down every WD drive easily.

What are the WD colours and what do they mean?

So, now you know why Western Digital is widely regarded as one of the best HDD manufacturers in the industry, let’s delve a little deeper into what each of the colours mean. Currently the WD HDD and SSD range can be broken down into 6 colours, and each corresponding intended storage environment (basically  the machine they will go in!). Below are each of the colours and what they are used for.

The WD Blue Hard Drive for Basic Desktop Use

We start with the most cost-effective and budget drive of all, the WD Blue HDD series. These are designed with low-level access and long-term use in mind. Once these would have been recommended for use for your operating system inside a non mission-critical PC (general browsing etc), but now with the inexpensive of SSD in 128-512GB and it becoming ideal for your operating system, start-up and primary apps, the WD Blue hard drive has been demoted to basic storage use. You should not use WD Blue in a RAID and is chiefly designed for everyday storage needs where Read and Write speeds are not paramount.

Interface	Form	Size	RPM	Cache	Warranty	Model	Amazon
SATA	3.5″	8TB	5640 CMR	128MB	2 Years	WD80EAZZ	FIND
		6TB	5400 SMR	256MB		WD60EZAZ	FIND
		4TB	5400 SMR	256MB		WD40EZAZ	FIND
		3TB	5400 SMR	256MB		WD30EZAZ	FIND
		2TB	5400 SMR	256MB		WD20EZBX	FIND
		2TB	5400	256MB		WD20EZAZ	FIND
		1TB	7200	64MB		WD10EZEX	FIND
		1TB	5400	64MB		WD10EZRZ	FIND
		500GB	7200	32MB		WD5000AZLX	FIND
		500GB	5400	64MB		WD5000AZRZ	FIND

Laptop Sized WD Blue

Interface	Form	Size	RPM	Cache	Warranty	Model	Amazon
SATA	2.5″	2TB	5400 SMR	128MB	2 Years	WD20SPZX	FIND
		1TB	5400 SMR	128MB		WD10SPZX	FIND
		500GB	5400 SMR	64MB		WD5000LPZX	FIND
		320GB	5400	64MB		WD3200LPCX	FIND

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The WD Red Hard Drive for NAS and RAID needs

Possibly the most well know WD HDD Color we will talk about today, WD Red is the Drive you need for your NAS Server. If you are looking at buying a brand new Synology NAS for your home or a beefed up QNAP NAS for your business, then it is paramount you get HDD Media that is designed to not only be ready for sporadic and irregular read and write (as your access to the NAS Server will differ constantly) but also Hard Disk media that is designed to be on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In this environment, a  WD Blue is just not suited and though will perfect the job, will do so much slower and is susceptible to errors and potential HDD Failure. Moreover, if your network-attached storage data is mission critical, of sentimental value or just plain impossible to replace (thinking of my original recording of ‘Bernard and the Genie’), then you will no doubt have more than one HDD in the NAS enclosure, in a RAID volume. Drives in a RAID have to work that little bit harder as data is spread over the drives for redundancy (so the data is duplicated) like butter over toast! WD Red Drives are designed to be used in these RAID environments too, and for greater lengths of time. Finally, WD Red HDDs have firmware onboard that controls the disks behaviour in a NAS server, catering from everything vibration and temperature sensitivity, all the way through to intelligent spin speed and cache allocation. So, if you are looking to populate a NAS, then definitely go for WD Red. Also, see below for the WD Red Pro series for Enterprise NAS use above 8 HDD Bays.

Standard WD Red NAS HDD

Interface	Form	Size	RPM	Cache	Warranty	Model	Amazon
SATA	3.5″	6TB	5400	256MB	3 Years	WD60EFAX	FIND
		4TB	5400	256MB		WD40EFAX	FIND
		3TB	5400	256MB		WD30EFAX	FIND
		2TB	5400	256MB		WD20EFAX	FIND

 

WD Red Plus NAS HDD

Interface	Form	Size	RPM	Cache	Warranty	Model	Amazon
SATA	3.5	14TB	7200	512MB	3 Years	WD140EFGX	FIND
		12TB	7200	256MB		WD120EFBX	FIND
		10TB	7200	256MB		WD101EFBX	FIND
		8TB	5640	128MB		WD80EFZZ	FIND
		6TB	5640	128MB		WD60EFZX	FIND
		4TB	5400	128MB		WD40EFZX	FIND
		3TB	5400	128MB		WD30EFZX	FIND
		2TB	5400	128MB		WD20EFZX	FIND
		1TB	5400	64MB		WD10EFRX	FIND
	2.5″	1TB	5400	16MB		WD10JFCX	FIND

 

WD Red Pro NAS HDD

Interface	Form	Size	RPM	Cache	Warranty	Model	Amazon
SATA	3.5	22TB	7200	512MB	5 Years	WD221KFGX	FIND
		20TB		512MB		WD201KFGX	FIND
		18TB		512MB		WD181KFGX	FIND
		16TB		512MB		WD161KFGX	FIND
		14TB		512MB		WD141KFGX	FIND
		12TB		256MB		WD121KFBX	FIND
		10TB		256MB		WD102KFBX	FIND
		8TB		256MB		WD8003FFBX	FIND
		6TB		256MB		WD6003FFBX	FIND
		4TB		256MB		WD4003FFBX	FIND
		2TB		64MB		WD2002FFSX	FIND

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The WD Green Series of Hard Drives

Lower Power Consumption for quieter and Cooler requirements. The WD Green series, once very popular, is largely overlooked these days. This is once again largely due to the manufacturing technique of HDD becoming far more efficient, as well as SSD media becoming lower in price. That said, if you require a single HDD for backup storage, a secondary media source or just to be used occasionally, then the WD Green series may well be for you. They are designed to use less power than other Hard Drives as well as producing less vibration or heat whilst in use, due to their lower activity hard drive build (5400RPM, 32MB, etc). This, of course, does mean they are available in smaller capacities and the read and write is of a lower speed, so these shouldn’t be used as a primary OS Boot drive or for a large-scale RAID enclosure (early variants were but since then much more tailored drives have been released). Overall, WD Green HDDs are largely only available in 2nd hand eShops and/or OEM bulk leftovers that are long since outside of the manufacturer’s warranty.

The WD Black Series for those that need rugged, enduring, fast long-term data stability

Another Hard Drive type that those with a background in PC building and Photo Editing will be aware of. WD Black HDD are designed for high-performance Hard Disk media use. If you require a large capacity HDD for your files for editing, or in a large-scale Direct Attached Storage (DAS) enclosure, then the WD Black series will more than likely be the drive for you. They are seen as the drive of choice of large-scale media editors due to their balance of large capacity vs access speeds.of course, you will get faster speeds from using an SSD but you shouldn’t really RAID SSDs beyond a RAID 0 or RAID 1 and moreover, the price per GB of an SSD is still higher than that of a WD Black Drive. With a dedicated 7200 RPM and 5 Year Warranty, the western digital black drive is the choice for those that was reliability, speed and long-term peace of mind.

 

Interface	Form	Size	RPM	Cache	Warranty	Model	Amazon
SATA	3.5″	10TB	7200	256MB	5 Years	WD101FZBX	FIND
		8TB		128MB		WD8002FZWX	FIND
		6TB		128MB		WD6004FZWX	FIND
		4TB		128MB		WD4005FZBX	FIND
		2TB		64MB		WD2003FZEX	FIND
		1TB		64MB		WD1003FZEX	FIND
		500GB		64MB		WD5003AZEX	FIND
	2.5″	1TB 9.5mm	7200 SMR	32MB		WD10SPSX	FIND
		500GB 9.5mm				WD5000LPSX	FIND
		500GB 7mm				WD5000LPLX	FIND
		320GB 7mm				WD2500LPLX	FIND

 

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The WD Purple Series for CCTV, Network and Direct Recording Surveillance needs

Released only a few years ago, the WD Purple HDD series is designed for Surveillance requirements. You might think that when using multiple IP or Cable Surveillance cameras in the home, office or retail sector, that you should only really think about the quality of the cameras. This is sort of true – the better the camera, the more features and better recording. However, if will all come to nothing if the Hard Drive media you are writing to is unsuitable. Unlike almost all other HDD use across all environments, Hard Disks used in Surveillance are more than 95% used for Writing and 5% for reading – i.e footage is recorded and written to the drives constantly and only accessed rarely by comparison (the reading of the disk). So, if you have x5 or x10 Relatively high recording cameras sending 2 or 5MB of recorded footage constantly, then you will need to ensure that both the recording server can keep up and that the drives are designed to record the incoming data as fast as it arrives! This is where WD Purple shines.

They are designed to keep up with this heavy writing behaviour in a NAS or DAS system, suitable for doing this whilst in a RAID 5 or RAID 6 and are designed to be powered on and in use for weeks and months at a time. So if you need a Drive for recording footage from CCTV IP cameras or Cable-to-Camera cables, or are even just looking for drives for a NAS that you plan to use as for surveillance in the background, then go for the WD Purple series as it will provide the most stable and reliable result possible. Additionally, if you are using a Network video recording device (NVR), that you use the NVR specialised WD Purple NVR HDD. In recent years, the WD Purple Pro drives arrived which are designed for advanced AI-enabled recorders, video analytics servers and deep learning solutions requiring additional capacity,
performance and workload capability.

AI Drive = WD Purple Drives for Smart Video AI and Deep Learning Servers

HD = 720p/1080p Camera Quality Feed

AI = Deep Video Analysis Cameras (Face+Thing Recognition, People Counting, License Plate Recog, etc)

Interface	Size	RPM	Cache	Camera Support	Warranty	Model	Amazon
SATA	8TB	5640	128MB	64 HD/16 AI	3 Years	WD84PURZ	FIND
	6TB	5640	256MB	64 HD/NA	3 Years	WD63PURZ	FIND
	4TB	5640	256MB	64 HD/NA	3 Years	WD42PURZ	FIND
	3TB	5400	64MB	64/NA	3 Years	WD30PURZ	FIND
	2TB	5400	256MB	64/NA	3 Years	WD22PURZ	FIND
	1TB	5400	64MB	64/NA	3 Years	WD22PURZ	FIND
	22TB (AI Drive)	7200	512MB	64 HD/32 AI	5 Years	WD84PURZ	FIND
	18TB (AI Drive)	7200	512MB	64 HD/32 AI	5 Years	WD63PURZ	FIND
	14TB (AI Drive)	7200	512MB	64 HD/32 AI	5 Years	WD42PURZ	FIND
	12TB (AI Drive)	7200	256MB	64 HD/32 AI	5 Years	WD30PURZ	FIND
	10TB (AI Drive)	7200	256MB	64 HD/32 AI	5 Years	WD22PURZ	FIND

 

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The WD Gold Series

Data Centers, Bulk Cold Storage solutions and High Capacity Workloads

The most recent addition to the WD Colors collection. The WD Gold series is designed for Data Centers (or Data Centres!) or long-term cold storage in smaller RAID arrays. They arrive with a much more rugged, long-term chassis design as they will be HEAVILY used! To back up this level of use, WD provide a 5 Year warranty on these drives. Also, it is well known that Data Centers get through drives much quicker than most HDD Media environments and though the WD Gold Series are more expensive than most hard drives, this cost will pale into comparison to if you filled your data center with WD Blue or WD Green drives and they required replacement more often – as well as the Read and Write operations on the non-gold drives being efficiency and productivity down too. WD Have a long history of Data Center hard drives before they rebranded to the Gold series. Each kind of drive (tailed to different center and use types) was built with longevity in mind, but with names like Xe, Re and Se, they simplified matters and created the Gold Series to make it easier to comprehend.

Interface	Form	Size	RPM	Cache	Warranty	Model	Amazon
SATA	3.5″	22TB	7200	512MB	5 Years	WD221KRYZ	FIND
		20TB		512MB		WD202KRYZ	FIND
		18TB		512MB		WD181KRYZ	FIND
		16TB		512MB		WD161KRYZ	FIND
		14TB		256MB		WD141KRYZ	FIND
		12TB		256MB		WD121KRYZ	FIND
		10TB		256MB		WD102KRYZ	FIND
		8TB		256MB		WD8004FRYZ	FIND
		6TB		256MB		WD6003FRYZ	FIND
		4TB		256MB		WD4003FRYZ	FIND
		2TB		128MB		WD2005FBYZ	FIND
		1TB		128MB		WD1005FBYZ	FIND

 

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Are there any other WD Hard Drive types I should be aware of?

Of course, the HDD and SSD market is so big that even a fantastic system like the WD Colors Guide will not quite cover it all. There are a few other models and terms that you should be aware of. Some are older and have since ceased production, some are more enterprise versions of the drives above and others are just…well…plain weird and don’t fit in the spectrum of WD Colours whatsoever. Have a look below a few little nuggets of WD HDD past below:

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