WD Purple

[no_connection]

So... Yet another color to look at.
From what I see the price is pretty much the same as Red.

http://www.pcper.com/news/Storage/W...urveillance-oriented-WD-Purple-series-35-HDDs

Not sure how the drive can be optimized to read/write faster with multiple continuous operations like streaming though.
Streaming large files like movies is a common workload for a NAS so there might be some benefit.

Worth is or just more marketing hooey?

 

[gpsguy]

I wouldn't use them for FreeNAS. They are surveillance drives for use in DVR's. Search the forum for more info.


Sent from my phone

 

[Yatti420]

I didn't look at pricing / read in depth.. I'm starting to get the yicky feeling again with WD.. I'd be curious to see red/green vs blue/blacks long term.. I wonder if these are rebranded blues/blacks or now red/green/purple from the same batch.. I'm going to assume since WD has the low powered AV drives covered that these will be 7200rpm so hopefully blues/blacks.. Still not great for NAS use I don't think.. Unless you wanted to record(write) video from tons of cameras.. This all assumes the features work as advertised.. I'm not sure what "AllFrame" is but it could very well be "AllFud"

AllFrame™ - When combined with ATA streaming support, AllFrame™ technology helps to reduce video footage loss with a proprietary cache policy management technology to help improve data flow and playback. WD Purple includes exclusive firmware upgrades that protect against video pixilation and interruptions within a surveillance system

 

[no_connection]

I wouldn't use them for FreeNAS. They are surveillance drives for use in DVR's. Search the forum for more info.

I found one topic with "Purple" in it in regards to WD and it's this thread.

The marketing material says that they are specifically made for dumping surveillance streams from multiple cameras onto a RAID based server. (Not DVR, the AV-GP is for that.)
So they are meant to sustain continuous workload 24/7/365 as cameras never sleep.

Besides, Green is not meant for NAS yet people use that.

Red vs Purple any one?

Is there any merit to the Purple hardware beyond marketing propaganda or is it another re-brand of Green/Red drives?

 

[Yatti420]

They'll be optimized for writes..

 

[cyberjock]

Not to burn anyone(this is properly in off-topic) but why are we discussing WD Purple drives as it's pretty clear they aren't really cut for NAS use? ;)

 

[no_connection]

What is so clear about it?
There aren't any reviews out yet and you are already discounting it for use in a NAS.

 

[cyberjock]

So let me ask these questions:

-What information is going to come out in a review that would make it appropriate or not appropriate for a NAS?
-Do you really expect people to be super hardcore to review a hard drive for something that is relatively obscure as a hard drive for security video?

For #1...

What I mean is, regardless of performance, latency, and all the standard reviewer's info, there's really nothing to go on as to how "good" or "bad" they will be for a NAS. If it stores data and has anything above about 50MB/sec then it'll be just fine for 99.9999% of us FreeNAS users. Why so low a speed? Because the read performance multiplies so even a 5 disk RAIDZ2 can saturate a Gb LAN connection. If Purple drives have lower resilience to data corruption a reviewer isn't necessarily going to find this out by doing some benchmarks on a brand new drive they are reviewing. If the hard drive has any "special features" that make it better for a particular application you can be assured that WD is going to put that in their propaganda. And any reviewer is simply going to cut and paste from that. No reviewer is really going to have the required technology and experience at their disposal to prove or disprove some of these features.

Weird quirks like the wdidle tool, firmware bugs, and things that REALLY do matter for people that want a 24x7

For #2...

Yes, some people will probably review the drives. And the market for these drives is currently rather small, and there's virtually no competition. So how are you going to compare a drive that is basically making a new market with ... something else that doesn't really exist?

-----------


Now, if these purples turn out to be 4TB drives for $100 each(which is significantly below current market value for other 4TB drive, then it's going to blow my hair back and make me(and probably MANY other people) look at the drives very closely. But, until then, I don't think we're really looking at much for NAS. To some extent, I'm somewhat expecting these drives to be higher priced than your standard drive because they're being sold as "superior" for a specialized market. And anytime you start selling a product for a specialized market that's a 'feature'. And "features" means "more profit!"

Overall, I'm interested in reading about them, but if I don't see a review or any information for the next year I won't feel like I missed out on anything. This isn't a major game changer in the world of NASes or hard drives since it's clear that standard hard drives are more than adequate for the task. Just look at how many users have surveillance cameras at their home and store the video feeds on their FreeNAS box.

I feel as if this is a solution in search of a problem. And the problem doesn't exist, but WD is going to obviously convince a while bunch of people that this WD Purple is clearly better!

 

[aufalien]

http://wd.com/en/products/internal/desktop/

Not meant for multi drive installs (RAID/etc...)

I don't think reviews are needed as the vendor docs say it all, but call em for further clarification. We did on there SE models which are meant for 12 bay installs according to there docs but when called, 16 works fine as well. You have things like vibration etc to contend with, etc...

And I don't see why home use would be valued any less then pro use, our personal data is VERY valuable to family.

 

[9C1 Newbee]

3Tb Green vs 3Tb Purple, there is a $15 difference. Purple comes with a 3 year warranty. Ah hell.......it has a hexagon on it so it HAS to be good.

 

[Raiz]

As far as I can tell, this is still the only thread about the WD Purple drives. Has anyone been running them for the last year and a half? I'd love to hear peoples' experiences. Mainly because I found some 3Tb drives for $80 or so and was thinking of picking them up.

 

[9C1 Newbee]

Smarter people than I have said to stick with the red/green flavors over the purple. I would have to agree as they are a well known quantity. If you do choose to boldly go, please let us know what you observe as well as wdidle details please.

 

[joruss]

I hope that digging a one month thread will be only light necrophilia but I was just looking the web for some wd related info (I'm about to buy more disks to my NAS) and stumbled upon this thread so I thought I'll share, since none else did or was willing to.

I'm using 2 WD40PURX drives in RAID1 (mirror) for 18 months now. They are supporting TLER out of the box (opposite to green/blue line) so I couldn't see the reason why not use them in NAS environment.

They are mounted in hot swap bays (for convenience) running, obviously, 24/7, serving files over the samba and even some light video encoding / office / media playing, games on wine / xming (I have there regular ubuntu 14 installed so it's like another pc)

So far (knock on the wood) there was no problem whatsoever with these drives.
Yes, they are slow for today's standards, but I can easily clog my network interface with transfers.
Yes, they come with shorter warranty, but I can imagine that if they are dedicated to continuous reading/writing that'd shorten their lives significantly and manufacturer anticipating that cuts (from his point of view - reasonably) the warranty time.

Hope that information helps someone in the future, but again... with drives it always a gamble and you can't put a price on lost data.

 

[Raiz]

Thank you joruss. I think you're the first real datapoint we have. Glad to know they are working fine and I hope other people report in as well.

 

[joeschmuck]

I've been using my 3TB Purple in my DVR external enclosure since 9/2014 and it's been running great. That doesn't help someone running a NAS system but the drive still works without issue and has likely been powered down less times than the number of fingers on my hand. I still don't feel it's a safe alternative to WD Red's or a true NAS drive but others will experiment.

EDIT: So it's Feb 2017 and the WD Purple is still going strong. Again, it's not in a NAS environment and it's been continuiosly powered on and recording/playing video the entire time (such is the nature of my DirecTv DVR). I still don't think I'd buy a WD Purple for my NAS but it does have some longevity.

 

[joruss]

Hi.

While I'm around again.
Year on, everything is still hunky-dory.

 

[CaptCox]

I will be trying this with a couple of purple drives to see if they work as well as my red drives in the same nas. Will report in a few months. Following this.

 

[Tominaattori]

I decided to boldly go and build a raidz volume with 3*8tb Wd Reds and one 8tb purple. Will report which one dies first.

Lähetetty minun Nexus 6P laitteesta Tapatalkilla

 

[MasterOfDesaster]

I have two of them in my 6drive raidz2 and have had a few uncorrectabel pending sectors on one of them
Discussed in the german forum: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/current-pending-sector-count.57563/

The first disk is now rma and i'm rebuilding with a new one. Again a purple
Let's give it a second chance, but i see the possibility that the all-frame-tech ins't made for raidz-use
Perhaps other nas-builds like mirrors will do it better

 

[tfran1990]

In the last couple weeks i have seen adds with the WD purple about 10 -15 $ cheaper then the reds.
Im almost tempted to try a couple out.
5400 rpm , HE filled, tler enabled what can go wrong?

This is an old thread, can anyone report/share back on what there experiences are?
@CaptCox
@MasterOfDesaster