Western Digital (WD) is near-synonymous with storage and offers different drive series tailored for specialized use cases. In the world of 24/7 operation, two of the company‘s most popular lines are WD Purple for surveillance/security and WD Red for network attached storage (NAS) setups.
But what exactly differs across the myriad Purple and Red models? As your personal home data consultant, let me provide comprehensive details so you can select the ideal drives for your demanding always-on application!
At a Glance: How WD Purple and Red Compare
Before jumping into the specifics, here is a general overview of how the WD Purple and WD Red families stack up:
WD Purple
- Purpose: Continuous video recording in security camera systems
- Appropriate Use Cases: Video surveillance storage for commercial, residential, military, government, industrial
- Types of Drives: HDD, microSD cards
- Workloads: Up to 300TB of data writes per year
- Max Drive Bays: 60+
WD Red
- Purpose: Network attached storage (NAS) file-serving environments
- Appropriate Use Cases: Shared storage for home media, small business documents, creative project archives
- Types of Drives: HDDs, SSDs
- Workloads: Up to 300TB per year (models with Plus/Pro designation)
- Max Drive Bays: 24
The WD Purple focuses purely on high-endurance storage for professional video monitoring and analytics, while WD Red offers excellent NAS functionality catering from prosumers up to large enterprises.
Now let’s dig into the details…
Demystifying WD‘s Specialized Drive Naming Schemes
Over years of catering to demanding storage use cases, the WD Purple and WD Red lineups have expanded to address shifting customer requirements. This had resulted in appendices like Plus and Pro getting tacked on. Let’s quickly demystify what the naming signifies!
WD Purple Models
- WD Purple HDD – Original surveillance-tuned drives
- WD Purple microSD – In-camera SD card storage
- WD Purple Pro – New heavy workload drives with analytics and AI support
WD Red Models
- WD Red HDD – Initial SOHO-focused NAS drives
- WD Red Plus – 24/7 always-on support
- WD Red Pro – Optimized for up to 24-bay NAS boxes
- WD Red SA500 SSD – SATA interface all-flash models
- WD Red SN700 SSD – New NVMe-interface all-flash
Now that we know what the appended Plus and Pro designations signal for the product tiering, let‘s see how else these color-coded cousins differ…
Intended Applications: Video Analytics vs SMB/Enterprise NAS
The WD Purple lineup caters specifically to write-intensive video monitoring workloads. The drives are tuned via firmware for smooth recording across up to 32 concurrent streams while specialized features minimize disruptive vibration and frame loss.
Meanwhile, the WD Red family serves buyers looking creating always-on network attached storage boxes for easy collaboration, shared media access. Models designated with Plus and Pro handle more demanding SMB environments with up to 24 bays spanning vast multi-terabyte datasets.
Recent WD Purple Pro models also support emerging intelligent analytics, providing the massive capacity and parallelism for advanced AI deep learning detection. So they cater nicely to smart cities and surveillance rooms of the future crunching streams from dozens of 4K H.265 cameras in real-time using GPU-accelerated machine learning algorithms.
Form Factors: Different Drive Types
The WD Purple lineup exclusively relies on spinning hard disk drives (HDDs) for dense cost-efficient raw capacity. Though it uniquely offers microSD cards that slot directly into cameras a provide situ logging and analysis. Models sporting AllFrame 4K also support the microSD card standard for removable in-camera storage.
In contrast, the latest generation of WD Red solutions encompasses:
- Traditional NAS-tuned HDDs
- NAND flash-based SATA SSDs in both 2.5" and M.2 form factors
- Bleeding-edge, high-speed NVMe SSDs requiring PCIe host connectivity
Source: Western Digital
So while WD Purple is focused on purpose-built sequential-optimized HDDs, the WD Red family provides buyers multiple drive technology options optimized for caching, tiering, future-proofing.
Workload Limits: Up to 300TB of Writes Per Year
Surveillance storage requires highly durable drives that tolerate heavy constant overwriting. Here endurance figures become vital for predicting lifespan until drive replacement.
The WD Purple HDD lineup advertise write workload limits of 180TB to 300TB per year. That ensures many years of smooth 1080P recording even for storage-hungry installations with dozens of cameras. Naturally, the exact recording time depends on video quality, motion activity, and retention policies.
Meanwhile enterprise-oriented WD Red Plus and Pro HDDs now match those workload ratings with their own max 180TB to 300TB per year write specifications. Entry WD Red HDDs drop down to light SOHO workloads of 24TB per year.
So both the Purple and Red families now overlap for write-intensive applications like video analytics and intensely used NAS repositories in the 100TB+ per year range.
Supported Drive Bays and RAID Configurations
Storage scalability is measured by maximum drive bays tested by the vendor. More allow slots enables fitting higher capacity disks as surveillance retention requirements grow.
Entry WD Purple drives support up to 8 bays, while premium models boast compatibility testing in enclosures with 60+ hot-swappable drives.
Similarly, the Plus and Pro tier WD Red HDDs & SSDs validate reliably interoperation in dense boxes with up to 24+ bays. Basic WD Red HDDs drop down to just 8 bays suitable for home media boxes.
Both WD Purple and Red leverage specialized vibration compensation algorithms allow packing drives densely without performance issues. Known as AllFrame 4K and NASware 3.0 respectively, they counteract I/O disruptions.
And all HDDs and SSDs in both families supports permissible RAID configurations (RAID 1, 5) for enhanced redundancy or striped throughput. This facilitates data protection in case of that rare drive failure.
Peak Capacities: Scaling Up to Massive Petabyte Installs
Modern high-definition video monitoring requires enormous local storage, especially to retain high-fidelity footage for government and regulatory mandated retention periods.
Here the current WD Purple flagship drive – the Pro 22TB HDD – provides tremendous capacity perfect for scaling numerous-camera deployments. And directly-attached WD Purple microSD cards in capacities up to 1TB supplement camera-level nonstop buffering.
But growing enterprise NAS platforms also require identical storage headroom, which the 22TB WD REd Pro Datacenter HDD delivers to serve expanding datasets. Even relatively modest WD Red 4 TB SATA SSDs offer a major footprint upgrade for working with 4K media or handling database demands.
Thermals and Operating Temperature Ranges
Packed NAS enclosures and storage servers require drives that withstand extended temperature extremes asinactive neighbors radiate heat. Here again modern WD Purple and Red families deliver over standard HDDs:
- WD Purple HDDs support 50°C in technical specs
- WD Red Plus/Pro HDDs validate in 60°C deployments
- WD Red NVMe SSDs tout operation beyond 70°C
So both specialized families enable deploying drives in hot ambients lacking adequate cooling. This is vital for expanding DVR and NAS capacity without complex structural renovations.
Performance & Throughput Comparison
Recording speed becomes vital for multi-stream surveillance needs orparallel NAS users accessing the storage cluster. Here the mix of drive technologies shows their strengths:
Sequential Writes – Streaming Performance
- WD Purple HDDs peak at ~250 MBps ingress
- WD Red HDDs (7200 RPM models) reach 210 MBps
- WD Red SATA SSDs hit 520 MBps (1TB model)
- WD Red NVMe SSDs blast past 3,000 MBps sustains
So while the classic WD Purple leverages tuned high-RPM HDDs focused purely on video recording throughput, the Red family offers SSD models for vastly improved random IOPS performance.
This makes Red solutions better choices for mixed storage workloads like virtualization, databases, development that require more balanced operation. Surveillance primarily emphasizes smooth sequential write speeds which WD Purple HDD models already excel at.
Power Consumption: HDDs vs Power Sipping SSDs
Facility electrical capacity and backup runtime considerations make drive power draw an important factor for large scale DVR and NAS farms.
Here the WD Purple and Red SSD alternatives shine over traditional HDD options:
- WD Purple HDDs consume up to 13W peak during activity
- WD Red 7200 RPM HDDs draw over 12W
- WD Red SATA SSDs drop to 5W typical load
- WD Red NVMe SSDs sip just 2.5W idle
So solid state WD Red options reduce yearly energy and HVAC costs enormously at scale. Hundreds of NVMe SSDs could replace a rack of old NAS HDDs using the equivalent electricity of a couple high-end gaming PCs!
Acoustics: Quiet Operation Tradeoffs
Noise matters greatly in home media NAS enclosures or offices running 24/7 storage equipment. Here conventional WD Red HDD models spinning at 5700 RPM offer a great blend of throughput while keeping acoustics in check.
However for massively parallel recording or containerized rack environments, some noise is unavoidable. 7200RPM WD Purple drives and WD Red Plus/Pro models trade decibels for uninterrupted performance at scale. Purpose-built damping fixtures help isolate resonances there.
And migrating to solid state WD Red SSD models drastically curtails both vibration and audible operation suited noise controlled environments like video editing labs.
Warranty Protection and Lifespans
Any drives employed for always-on availability require strong fault protection to avoid data interruptions or loss. Here again WD Purple and Red families lead competing OEM hard drives.
All WD Purple drives ship with 3-year limited warranties against defects. But enterprise-class WD Red Plus/Pro HDDs and SSDs qualify for extended 5-year coverage after registration to prove duty in permanent storage deployments. This gives peace of mind for TCO over years of operation.
In my experience, both product lines also boast impressively low annualized failure rates (AFR) of under 1%. Red SSD models gain further benefit from no moving parts. I‘ve had WD Purple record flawlessly in multi-drive NAS boxes over electricity outages and routine maintenance across 5+ years of uninterrupted surveillance operation.
Final Recommendations: Picking the Right WD Specialized Drive
Hopefully the above detailed yet friendly guide gives you clarity around the nuanced differences between Western Digital‘s color-coded offerings!
Here is a quick rule of thumb when deciding between WD Purple vs WD Red drives:
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For pure surveillance storage, choose among WD‘s Purple HDDs or microSD cards slotting directly into cameras. Size capacity to retain desired footage spans from days to months.
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For general purpose NAS, opt for quiet WD Red or Red Plus HDDs with headroom for future expansion. Consider WD Red SSDs to vastly improve speeds for post production.
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For heavy SMB NAS workloads or 4K multicam installations, turn to extreme-duty WD Purple Pro or Red Pro/Datacenter HDD families rated for 300TB annualized work.
Whichever route you go for crafting always-on storage, WD‘s specialized drive families have an ideal solution tailored specifically for the use case. Let me know if any other questions come up when designing capacity for your upcoming video surveillance, media collaboration platform, or general archival needs!
