Re: [gentoo-user] Are those "green" drives any good?

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On Wed, 09 May 2012 03:47:09 -0500
Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> As some know, I'm planning to buy me a LARGE hard drive to put all my
> videos on, eventually.  The prices are coming down now.  I keep seeing
> these "green" drives that are made by just about every company
> nowadays. When comparing them to a non "green" drive, do they hold up
> as good? Are they as dependable as a plain drive?  I guess they are
> more efficient and I get that but do they break quicker, more often
> or no difference?
> 
> I have noticed that they tend to spin slower and are cheaper.  That
> much I have figured out.  Other than that, I can't see any other
> difference. Data speeds seem to be about the same.
> 
> Please, no brand wars.  I may get a WD, Maxtor, Samsung or some other
> brand.  I haven't picked that part yet.  So far, I have had good luck
> with drives.  I think I have one doorstop so far.  I have at least one
> of each of the brands above too.  Don't jinx me.  I'm sure someone
> has a horror story about some brand.


Green drives are basically just low power drives. It's a branding
gimmick. Like you noticed already, they tend to spin slower (uses less
power).

I stuck 4 of them in my media server for 12TB of cheap storage. And
they are silent. I can barely hear them running even when I'm sitting
next to the server and the kids are running the telly full tilt :-)

I haven't heard any mention from anyone at all that they are less
reliable in any way. I'd expect them to be more reliable than
super-fast drives because they are lower power, but drive models have
so many things affecting reliability it's hard to tell.

One thing we have noticed is that Samsung's recent model are not very
"green", they spin up slowly, use lots of power and make a racket when
spinning. But they do work.



-- 
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com