WD purple drives, I seen them a while ago but havent thought of them untill a recent episode that...

[G+_Jason Perry]

WD purple drives, I seen them a while ago but havent thought of them untill a recent episode that talked about an issue with SD movies streamed from a freeNAS box.

 

What makes them different from a red drive?

[G+_Travis Hershberger]

They're firmware is optimized for streaming reads and writes that you have in the audio/video field.  So they are great for reading and writing data contiguous blocks, and quite poor at random access or small block transfers like you'd have in a NAS.

 

I haven't actually used a Purple yet myself, so I'm kinda curious how well the firmware customization works.  Mechanically I think they're exactly the same as the Green and Red lines.

[G+_Jason Perry]

So would they be better for my media collection?

[G+_Travis Hershberger]

Jason Perry Assuming you have ONLY audio/video on them then yes.  Really, truthfully, they're most useful in DVRs and security camera systems.  They're not recommended at all for normal usage scenarios.  IE If you don't know 100% that you NEED a Purple, you really, really don't want one.

[G+_Jason Perry]

Thanks Travis Hershberger