WD Blue vs WD Purple in terms of reading speed

Mr. Alex · 01-02-2015, 04:14 AM

Hi LQ.org! I want to buy WD Purple drive for data storage. They say it's designed for writing data in the first place. How is it compared to "Blue" in terms of reading speed? Which one reads faster?

P. S. Please don't suggest other colors, I just would like to read an answer on the question above.

Teufel · 01-02-2015, 06:05 AM

WD Purple designed to be used in surveillance systems, so it is a compromise between speed vs efficiency/durability.
As for read speed it is about 110 Mb/s (for 1Tb) according to manufacturer. For 3Tb drives it may achive a 140Mb/s.
For WD Blue drives it is about 150 Mb/s. Mine WD Blue (750Gb) reads at range 163 Mb/s.

Mr. Alex · 01-02-2015, 07:23 AM

Thanks. And how is it compared to "Blue" in terms of MTBF?

Teufel · 01-02-2015, 07:39 AM

No one can predict real life cycle, it may vary even for the same type of drives, but manufacturer's warranty is 2 years for Blue and 3 years for Purple.
I suppose that the life cycle for Purple is more long

replica9000 · 01-02-2015, 11:31 PM

I don't think WD even makes the Blue drives anymore. Blue drives stopped at a capacity of 1TB, while all of their other series/colors have reached 4TB and beyond. Blue was that gap between their Black and Green series. The Purple and Red series are similar to the Green drives, but the firmware is different, as it's optimized for specific purposes.