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  1. Member DB83's Avatar
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    I lost the capture partition on my HDD (not main drive) so am contemplating a replacement.

    The last time I bought a WD SATA I am sure there was only one type but now I see 'Green', 'Blue' and 'Black'

    I read that the 'Green' dives turn themselves off for power-saving so my question is, as this drive will be used particularily for video capture, is this really suitable or should I go for the more expensive 'Black' or the middle-ground 'Blue'
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    All I ever buy is Black. They cost a little more but I don't like the idea of a hard drive turning itself off. Plus the black drives have a five year warranty. I do own a couple of Seagate drives with five year warranties and although I've heard complaints about Seagate, I've never had a problem with any of mine. I only buy them when they have a sale that I can't resist though. Usually WD Black, 7200rpm with 64mb cache for better transfer rate.
    Last edited by DarrellS; 12th Mar 2013 at 14:47.
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  3. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    they don't tell you anymore but i believe the green drives are 5400rpm units, they call "intellipower" or some such nonsense. i use them in nas boxes and have had good luck.
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    I use a couple of 5400 RPM green drives for storage. They work fine for recording from my dual digital tuner TV card and they should be fine capture, as long as there is enough compression applied.
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  5. What are you capturing? Standard definition with lossless compression? No problem. Uncompressed 1920x108030i? You need RAID.
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  6. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Thanks for the heads up guys.

    5400 rpm seems to me to be a step back. I think one of my storage drives is that speed but it is storage and playback only and not capture.
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  7. Terrible choice for capture IMO. You have to make sure they are "warmed up", or you will drop a few frames at the beginning if they are in head "park" mode.
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  8. Member DB83's Avatar
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    @ jagabo et al

    My capture requirements are:

    1. DV thorugh an ADVC 300
    2. Mpeg2 transcoding also through this device
    3. Web Streaming flv(AVC)
    4. Ocassional lossless

    No uncompressed
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  9. A WD Green drive won't a problem for any of that.
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  10. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    A WD Green drive won't a problem for any of that.
    And no dropped frames as poisondeathray suggests ?
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  11. I/O is fine for your requirements. Once they are "on" they are like any other 5400rpm drive.

    If you make sure it's out of "head park" mode, you will be fine. (All you have to do is open a folder or access some file on the drive, wait a few seconds.) . The problem is if you forget.

    They ship with stock firmware that turns them "off" after 7-9 seconds or so of idle activity. Thats way to short IMO. There are other firmware patches you can flash that adjust that interval longer
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  12. Member DB83's Avatar
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    'Forgetting' could be an issue. Take this scenario. I do one capture and, in the time before the next one, the drive parks. Since many of these captures are from live broadcasts it could be a real PITA
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  13. ^ yes the live "instant" recording scenario is bad. It takes a good 4-5 seconds to "warm up", that's the time where you will have dropped /duplicate or garbage frames .

    I bought a bunch before the HDD prices went up before the Thailand floods a while back. I hate them. I've relegated them to low end duty, just storage of odds and ends of things I don't care about

    I haven't had any failures with them personally, but I've heard because of the constant drive head park/unpark, the wear and tear is many times more than a "regular" drive, and they fail a lot faster
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  14. I have a green caviar 500Gb that works fine for Sd lossless(huff or else) never tried hd lossless though it has a big 32Mb cache. Plus i use it in Ide mode not ahci or raid but if you use either that'll be even better imo.
    Perfect for storing data: little heat- noise work reliably...so far

    the model i have: WDC WD5000AADS-00S9B0
    about ~2 years old
    Last edited by themaster1; 12th Mar 2013 at 16:08.
    *** DIGITIZING VHS / ANALOG VIDEOS SINCE 2001**** GEAR: JVC HR-S7700MS, TOSHIBA V733EF AND MORE
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  15. Originally Posted by poisondeathray View Post
    They ship with stock firmware that turns them "off" after 7-9 seconds or so of idle activity.
    ??? I have a 3TB green drive and it never shuts off if Windows is set not to power down drives. If Windows is set to power down the drives it shuts off after the time Windows is set to. Actually, I should say "used to". It's now in my NAS and it powers down after the NAS's power down time, 30 minutes.
    Last edited by jagabo; 12th Mar 2013 at 16:24.
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  16. themaster1 - does yours make this "clunk" noise when going in/out of park mode? I have the 2TB model, but that "clunk" noise is friggen annoying. It sounded like a drive failure the 1st time I heard it. Others have said it's "normal", and all my WD "Green" drives from that batch do the same thing
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  17. Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    Originally Posted by poisondeathray View Post
    They ship with stock firmware that turns them "off" after 7-9 seconds or so of idle activity.
    ??? I have a 3TB green drive and it never shuts off if Windows is set not to power down drives. If Windows is set to power down the drives it shuts off after the time Windows is set to.

    Maybe you have a newer one with different firmware ? Windows power management modes do not affect my older 2TB models

    If that's true, then the newer 3TB models might be ok for him
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  18. Originally Posted by poisondeathray View Post
    Maybe you have a newer one with different firmware ?
    Must be. I think it's a little over a year old (bought a little after the Thailand floods). I also have a 3TB Red drive (a few months old) that behaves the same as the 3 TB Green drive.
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  19. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    i've got all my wd green 1.5TBs and 2TBs in nas boxes. they take about 7 seconds to "wake" up when first browsing for files on them. the nas boxes are located in a detached garage room so i don't have to listen to them power up/down.
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  20. Originally Posted by aedipuss View Post
    i've got all my wd green 1.5TBs and 2TBs in nas boxes. they take about 7 seconds to "wake" up when first browsing for files on them.
    I have many portable apps (like VirtualDub, Image Burn, etc.) on my NAS, accessible by all computers in the house. Seven seconds to spin up is about what I see too (haven't actually timed it). But that's pretty typical for any drive. And it's only when the drive has gone to sleep (after 30 minutes of not being accessed).
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  21. Originally Posted by DB83 View Post
    Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    A WD Green drive won't a problem for any of that.
    And no dropped frames as poisondeathray suggests ?
    Not if the drive is awake. Or if you're capturing lossless HD. Drive speed has been immaterial for SD capture with lossless compression for many years.

    Doesn't WD also provide a tool that lets you optimize the seek speed for quite/low-power vs noisy/fast operation?
    Last edited by jagabo; 12th Mar 2013 at 16:49.
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  22. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    Originally Posted by aedipuss View Post
    i've got all my wd green 1.5TBs and 2TBs in nas boxes. they take about 7 seconds to "wake" up when first browsing for files on them.
    I have many portable apps (like VirtualDub, Image Burn, etc.) on my NAS, accessible by all computers in the house. Seven seconds to spin up is about what I see too (haven't actually timed it). But that's pretty typical for any drive. And it's only when the drive has gone to sleep (after 30 minutes of not being accessed).

    maybe for wd greens. the samsung 5400rpm 2TBs in the plextor nas boxes have zero lag time accessing them.
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  23. Originally Posted by aedipuss View Post
    the samsung 5400rpm 2TBs in the plextor nas boxes have zero lag time accessing them.
    Not if they've spun down. It takes a few seconds for any drive to spin up. I have some Samsung Spinpoint drives and they take a few seconds to spin up too. If your NAS is set not to power down the drives then you won't have that issue.
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  24. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    the difference is the wd greens turn themselves off and the samsungs don't. i don't have any of the boxes set to power off the drives.
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  25. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Nice 'discussion' guys.

    Muchas gracias as they say in France
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  26. Originally Posted by aedipuss View Post
    the difference is the wd greens turn themselves off and the samsungs don't. i don't have any of the boxes set to power off the drives.
    As previously noted, my WD Greens don't turn themselves off (maybe they would with a motherboard or OS that doesn't have such power options). The OS may or may not shut off any drive depending on the setup. Including Samsung drives.
    Last edited by jagabo; 12th Mar 2013 at 17:46.
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  27. Member DB83's Avatar
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    So you are actually saying that the drives do NOT turn themselves off. It is the OS that controls that. I am quite aware that XP has had that feature which I have never considered using. Yet I genuinely thought that the WD drives did something that was beyond the influence of the OS.

    Which leads me to the next question. If it is the OS then surely if that feature was turned on then it would affect 'black' drives as well.
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  28. aedipuss said he has 1.5 and 2TB drives - his description suggests they behave the same as mine. They will turn off regardless of your windows settings - the only thing that prevents that is activity

    If all new ones behave like jagabo's you might be ok
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  29. Member DB83's Avatar
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    It's a mighty big 'If'
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  30. Well, he can return it if it go to sleep after only "7 to 9 seconds". That's obviously ridiculous. With behavior like that you guys should be looking for firmware updates.

    Maybe this?: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1367904

    Head parking shouldn't cause a long delay on the next access. But maybe it's related.
    Last edited by jagabo; 12th Mar 2013 at 18:53.
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