Western Digital converts Green hard drives to Blue in branding makeover

[Scorpus]

Western Digital has given their hard drive line-up a makeover, with the company rebranding all Green drives to Blue drives in an effort to make it "easier for customers to choose the right drive for their PC."

Under the new branding scheme, Western Digital goes from having four main consumer hard drive lines to just three: Blue, for entry-level drives; Red, for NAS systems and long-term reliability; and Black, for ultimate performance from a spinning disk drive.

However, by merging the Green and Blue lines, Western Digital has made their line-up more confusing for people wanting an entry-level drive. Previously, all Green hard drives featured 5,400 RPM-class performance, while Blue drives featured 7,200 RPM-class platters, making it easy to choose between energy efficiency (Green) or performance on a budget (Blue).

With the new line-up, you'll have to look closer at model numbers to determine whether you're getting a 5,400 or 7,200 RPM hard drive. Western Digital suggests that the best way to do so is look at the last letter in the model number: if it's "X", you're getting a 7,200 RPM drive; but if it's "Z", it's going to be 5,400 RPM.

The branding changes have already come in to effect at most retailers around the globe, so make sure you look at the model number when purchasing a Blue drive to ensure you're getting the performance you're after.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/62598-western-digital-converts-green-hard-drives-blue-branding.html

 

[Nima304]

This is a stupid change. WD Greens were cheap, reliable storage; something you used when you didn't need any real performance in a drive. Now I have to look through WD Blues to find a Green drive.

 

[Randomthom]

In what way is this simpler? Obvious colour vs single letter designation...

 

[Neojt]

Well for the color blind customers green was most likely an issue, a lette is much more simple [/end sarcasm]

 

[oldikes]

Yea this just complicates it more...

 

[Adhmuz]

Step in the wrong direction, now you'll have to locate the greens among the blues because western doesn't want to use green ink anymore... Was the series suffering due to an "eco" vibe? 75% of my drives are WD Greens and only recently have a couple failed on me, Raw Read Error rates, so no data loss occurred fortunately. But hey, they still have 10 different levels of RE drives and Purple drives...

 

[yRaz]

So let's break this down. So someone first thought that this was a good idea and submitted it to their higher up, who also thought it was a good idea. It then went on to marketing where enough people thought it was also a good idea to pass it on to the board of directors. The board then thought it was a good enough idea to bring this idea to market.


What an incompetent group of people. Green was suppose to be their low power eco drive. Please, someone, tell me how this new naming scheme helps anyone

 

[crocography]

What an *****ically confusing thing to do... how is looking for an X or Z at the end of the model number easier? Their previous 4 categories was so smart and simple.

 

[Eric L]

Its easy, search for WD blue 2 TB drive on a web site, you probably going to end up with 2 prices, the cheaper is mostly the green

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

I don't see what all the fuss is about. How can you not know the difference between X & Z unless you're dyslexic and the spindle speed is bound to feature somewhere where it's obvious.

 

[Primey]

That's a terrible change.

 

[VitalyT]

They must have hired a new designer who is hard at trying to prove his usefulness.

 

[hood6558]

I noticed on NewEgg the new Blue drives with the new label, listed on one page with tabs for the different capacities. When clicking on the various sizes, only the 1TB and smaller sizes are 7200 rpm, all the larger sizes (2TB - 6TB) are 5400 rpm with the "Z" model number. So if you want a performance drive in those capacities, apparently you now must spring for the Black series drives (which seem to be dropping in price at least). So anyone wanting the cheaper 5400 rpm drives can now just buy Blues in those capacities. This is definitely a marketing ploy, as many people will assume the Blues are all still 7200 rpm drives...

 

[dcole001]

Sure hope those drives still don't have the Green Function. With NAS Devices those drives go to sleep and can't wake up in a NAS Device...

 

[Revolution 11]

Silly antics by Western Digital. The execs should get their heads out of the sand before cheaper SSDs devastate their margins.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Why would cheaper SSDs be relevant to the topic of color coding HDDs?

 

[GirlDownunder]

"Green" denoted "energy-saver" which was noted by the leaf icon- made perfect sense. Black being fastest sort of reminded me of "black diamond" ski trails- for the fastest skiers, so kind of made sense. Blue? Whatever- but left in place, it was fine.

I think what WD is doing is what M$ does- change something when you can't innovate. More marketing B.S...sort of like when WD sold their green drives as NAS-- then decided they'd alter them somewhat so that they could then bring out the "Reds" & charge more for them. Just a bunch of shifty-grifters, if you ask me.

 

[hood6558]

"Green" denoted "energy-saver" which was noted by the leaf icon- made perfect sense. Black being fastest sort of reminded me of "black diamond" ski trails- for the fastest skiers, so kind of made sense. Blue? Whatever- but left in place, it was fine.

I think what WD is doing is what M$ does- change something when you can't innovate. More marketing B.S...sort of like when WD sold their green drives as NAS-- then decided they'd alter them somewhat so that they could then bring out the "Reds" & charge more for them. Just a bunch of shifty-grifters, if you ask me.

Yeah, imagine the nerve of those guys, trying to make more money! They should stop that!

 

[psycros]

"Green" denoted "energy-saver" which was noted by the leaf icon- made perfect sense. Black being fastest sort of reminded me of "black diamond" ski trails- for the fastest skiers, so kind of made sense. Blue? Whatever- but left in place, it was fine.

I think what WD is doing is what M$ does- change something when you can't innovate. More marketing B.S...sort of like when WD sold their green drives as NAS-- then decided they'd alter them somewhat so that they could then bring out the "Reds" & charge more for them. Just a bunch of shifty-grifters, if you ask me.

Yeah, imagine the nerve of those guys, trying to make more money! They should stop that!

Yeah, how dare anyone question a blatant attempt to cheat consumers!

 

[captaincranky]

So let's break this down. Someone first thought that this was a good idea and submitted it to their higher up, who also thought it was a good idea, but only by virtue of not having anything remotely resembling an original idea of his or her own. So then, the board voted on it on Friday afternoon, as they felt obligated to do so, since they wasted the rest of the week doing nothing, or surfing the web for porn on their cell phones.

Did I mention that only the members of the board dumb enough to even show up in work on a Friday afternoon, were the only people to vote on it? The more intelligent and urbane, but most importantly, senior members, never returned from "brunch", and were well into the back nine by then....

@yRaz I touched that up a bit for ya! Hope you don't mind...

 

[Camikazi]

Well for the color blind customers green was most likely an issue, a lette is much more simple [/end sarcasm]

The drives say green and blue on them, color blind does not mean they can't read the word green or blue.

 

[GirlDownunder]

Yeah, imagine the nerve of those guys, trying to make more money! They should stop that!

You make more money by innovating or by finding a way to make your product cheaper or you streamline the process-- that's innovating & the reward is profit. But to re-work a product to cobble it, in order to simply release it again as a different color at an increased price is shifty-grifter-time.

 

[Digiguy]

This sounds more like a takeover than a makeover.
If the object was to make things easier why not change the Red ones to Purple or change them all to BLACK for that matter since Black ink must be cheaper.
Having both GREEN and BLUE ones I can testify to the substantial performance difference which varies from 3 to 5 times the reading speed and 2 to 3 times the writing speed.
Whomever thought power issues were of any consequence in regards to data use should be exterminated.
By in effect removing the only brand of performing affordable HDDs from the market and replacing them with what now appears equally expensive crappy ones the consumer gets screwed again.
Why am I not hearing screams throughout my street?.
Here is my suggestion, Buy as much BLUE ones as you can, don't bother checking for X, Z or Y for that matter, and send them back when they turn out to be rebranded GREEN ones. Sooner or later their vendors will make it clear to Western Digital that consumors will not stand for this kind of organized crime practices.