# Western Digital 4TB Blue Drives WD40EZRZ-00GXCB0



## TheCryptkeeper (Dec 31, 2009)

It seems Western Digital has started putting Blue drives in their 4TB Easystore external drives. They had put Reds in them previously, but not anymore. Has anyone had experience with the WD Blue drives? Are they adequate to use with a TiVo, specifically a Roamio, or would it be better to return them and use Red drives?


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## TheCryptkeeper (Dec 31, 2009)

Since it appears few, if any, have used these drives judging from the response to this question, I'll give one a try myself in my Roamio and will see how it does. I'm using MFSTools 3.2 to combine my 3TB internal and 1TB external drive into one 4TB drive. If anyone has any questions, let me know.


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## TheCryptkeeper (Dec 31, 2009)

Update: It's been over one week, the drive is 65% full, and so far working flawlessly.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

TheCryptkeeper said:


> Update: It's been over one week, the drive is 65% full, and so far working flawlessly.


How is the heat levels?


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## TheCryptkeeper (Dec 31, 2009)

MBT is 43. What's normal for a Roamio Basic?


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

TheCryptkeeper said:


> MBT is 43. What's normal for a Roamio Basic?


For Roamio OTA (which is very close to Basic) with 22C ambient, my MBT is 37C (not recording anything)

This is with 6TB WD Red.

I've seen it up to 43C before, but I think that depends a lot on ambient temperature and also somewhat on what the unit is doing at the time. I haven't had this unit during summer yet, so it can probably be higher than 43C if it gets hot out.


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## TheCryptkeeper (Dec 31, 2009)

sfhub said:


> For Roamio OTA (which is very close to Basic) with 22C ambient, my MBT is 37C (not recording anything)
> 
> This is with 6TB WD Red.
> 
> I've seen it up to 43C before, but I think that depends a lot on ambient temperature and also somewhat on what the unit is doing at the time. I haven't had this unit during summer yet, so it can probably be higher than 43C if it gets hot out.


It's MBT is 42C now while recording something and it has been recording for several hours. I keep my house thermostat at 25C. It seems like heat also emanates from the cable card and the tuner. I wish TiVo would publish acceptable ranges so we wouldn't have to guess.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

To answer your original question, the Blue drives perform well, but are not meant to be running 24x7 with the constant reading and writing they must perform in a DVR. Long term durability of a Blue in this circumstance is unknown, but almost certainly less than that of a Red or Purple drive.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

With the merging of the AV Greens (EURS/EURX) into the Blue line, who knows what WD's up to these days. I always trusted the Blue line in the past and the WD30NPRZ seems to be TiVo's choice for 3TB Bolts, but I'll stick to my trusty 3.5" Reds for now.


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## ClearToLand (Jul 10, 2001)

TheCryptkeeper said:


> *It seems Western Digital has started putting Blue drives in their 4TB Easystore external drives. They had put Reds in them previously, but not anymore*. Has anyone had experience with the WD Blue drives? Are they adequate to use with a TiVo, specifically a Roamio, or would it be better to return them and use Red drives?






TheCryptkeeper said:


> *Since it appears few, if any, have used these drives judging from the response to this question, I'll give one a try myself in my Roamio* and will see how it does. I'm using MFSTools 3.2 to combine my 3TB internal and 1TB external drive into one 4TB drive. If anyone has any questions, let me know.






TheCryptkeeper said:


> Update: *It's been over one week, the drive is 65% full, and so far working flawlessly*.






Diana Collins said:


> To answer your original question, *the Blue drives perform well, but are not meant to be running 24x7 with the constant reading and writing they must perform in a DVR. Long term durability of a Blue in this circumstance is unknown, but almost certainly less than that of a Red or Purple drive*.






ggieseke said:


> *With the merging of the AV Greens (EURS/EURX) into the Blue line, who knows what WD's up to these days*. I always trusted the Blue line in the past and the WD30NPRZ seems to be TiVo's choice for 3TB Bolts, but I'll stick to my trusty 3.5" Reds for now.



@TheCryptkeeper ,

Understandably, as you hadn't seen my posts on this subject (dated later), and, since I don't monitor many forums, I didn't 'discover' your's here until tonight...

First I'll reply to the Red QUOTEs above and then I'll add / edit LINKs to my earlier posts on the subject (WD Blue vs Red): 

Although you never used the term 'SHUCKING', I've been following threads on this topic over on SD and I truly wish the worst on these folks attempting to SCREW both the system / vendor and other consumers.

*BOTTOM LINE:* '_Someone _' discovered that WD 'was' using WD Red HDDs in some of their external HDDs. So, instead of purchasing WD Red HDDs *DIRECTLY*, these folks would purchase WD External HDDS and 'SHUCK' the Red (like shucking a clam) from the inside. But *IF* a program like CrystalDiskInfo indicated that there WASN'T a RED inside the enclosure, these UNSCRUPULOUS folks would DEMAND that the vendor accept a RETURN of this OPENED item for a FULL REFUND!?!  '_Someone _' would have to absorb the cost of this - who do you think it would be? 
.
Sad to discover if YOU are a 'SHUCKER'...  [My apologies if your aren't]
.
Hey, even a Volkswagen Bug will (probably be able to) pull a HUGE trailer for 'a bit' at least...
.
@Diana Collins said what I said in my other threads:
*Post #21*
*Post #32*
If you don't mind the possibility of LOSING ALL YOUR DATA within a couple of years, by all means, try using the WD Blue.

For me personally, I'm willing to pay the (down to the) "*Best Deal Ever*" price for my WD?0EFRX HDDs (i.e. *$74.99* for the 3TB and *$94.99* for the 4TB) *AND* get the WD 3 Year Warranty (there's only a 1 Year Warranty on the External HDDs, IIRC and *NONE* if they detect that you 'SHUCKED' the HDD).
.
Is it the EURS/EURX Greens, or the 'newer' Greens (that folks attempted to use in RAID configurations and FAILED), that they merged into the Blue line?


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

ClearToLand said:


> Is it the EURS/EURX Greens, or the 'newer' Greens (that folks attempted to use in RAID configurations and FAILED), that they merged into the Blue line?


The AV Greens (EURS/EURX).


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## TheCryptkeeper (Dec 31, 2009)

ClearToLand said:


> @TheCryptkeeper ,
> 
> Understandably, as you hadn't seen my posts on this subject (dated later), and, since I don't monitor many forums, I didn't 'discover' your's here until tonight...
> 
> ...


No apology necessary. I confess, I'm a shucker and I'm not ashamed of it. I have multiple uses for hard drives besides in my TiVo, and I've never returned an external drive because of what's inside it. So rest assured, your increased costs are not due to me.

Someone has to be the guinea pig, so it might as well be me. The Blue drive is already in my Roamio. Fortunately, I have multiple TiVos with backups of most stuff. I'll keep you posted on the Blue drive's longevity, but I have one question: what is the anticipated lifespan of an OEM TiVo hard drive?


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## TheCryptkeeper (Dec 31, 2009)

It has been six months, the WD Blue drive in my Roamio Basic is 97% full, and still working flawlessly. I've added an 8TB WD Red external drive for more space.


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## TheCryptkeeper (Dec 31, 2009)

Don't mean to bump this thread, the blue drive is still working without any hitches.


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## tkrotchko (Jun 7, 2007)

TheCryptkeeper said:


> Don't mean to bump this thread, the blue drive is still working without any hitches.


Like anything else, you pay your money and take your chances. I used to keep my PC on 24x7 and really never had a disk failure as such; I generally needed more space before that happened.

I think that any disk is waiting to crash and I've just begun upgrading the HD in 2 of my 4 Tivo's to the purple surveillance drive, primarily because I'm keeping the "old" drive (not the original) in a safe space to use as a backup in case something happens. Plus, I'm doubling the disk space. I chose the WD Purple line because the entire WD line is roughly the same price for a given capacity.

My only observation during the MFSCOPY process is that after 6-12 hours the purple drives were significantly cooler than the green line that were installed previously (back in 2012 roughly) and in theory they're designed for video recorders.

On the other hand, perhaps they're all the same drive with different color labels on them.


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## tommage1 (Nov 6, 2008)

Hmm, when I was shopping for 4Tb drives last year I found the current at the time WD blues were most likely SMR. Though there are different model numbers of blues. Sometimes can tell by number of platters but many specs don't even show that anymore. Over the years I have used many different drives to upgrade my Tivos, as long as they were/are PMR not SMR drives all have worked well, at least for me. Including standard desktop drives. MUST be PMR though, and not easy to find which ones are nowadays, unless you go with specific NAS or surveillance or enterprise drives. I have used 7200 RPM drives occasionally in a Tivo but it is better to use the 5400 IMO because of heat. If you do your research can get good 3.5 PMR drives 3,4TB or more for decent prices ($40-50 for 3TB, $60-80 4TB, even retail drives, not pulls). I have no problem with shucking, I do it myself, hey if you buy a drive you can do whatever you want with it. I've shucked 8TB Easystores I bought for $125-150 and a 10TB I got for $180). It is true some people do return them if not a "red" for WD, even worse some people actually pull the drive, put in some old non functional drive (have seen it 3 times, 80GB broken drives in an 8TB easystore enclosure) and return them. Which is not nice but the way of the world sometimes.....................


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## tommage1 (Nov 6, 2008)

tkrotchko said:


> On the other hand, perhaps they're all the same drive with different color labels on them.


Haha, well I think at least the firmware is different on some. One person who uses NAS recommended never use a NAS specific drive in a single drive system. As the firmware assumes there are backup drives so will "give up" earlier on a tough read or write. To really be safe you probably picked the best drive, the surveillance model.


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