WD Purple 2TB Surveillance Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD20PURX [Old Version]

Pros: Performance. This is the best-performing mechanical drive I have ever tested. I have four other mechanical HDDs dating back to 2005, including three other Western Digital drives, and this is the best performer across the board. It even beats my old SSD in terms of sequential writes and random writes (likely due to the on-demand nature of TRIM in the SSD):Western Digital WD1003FZEX: 1000 GB, 7200 RPM, this review187.01 MB/s sequential read184.54 MB/s sequential write60.89 MB/s random read109.23 MB/s random writeSeagate ST3000DM001: 3000 GB, 7200 RPM, purchased 2012181.42 MB/s sequential read178.97 MB/s sequential write50.22 MB/s random read90.35 MB/s random writeWestern Digital WD20EARS: 2000 GB, 5400 RPM, purchased 2011112.32 MB/s sequential read107.88 MB/s sequential write31.34 MB/s random read56.34 MB/s random writeWestern Digital WD3200AAKS: 320 GB, 7200 RPM, purchased 200776.86 MB/s sequential read75.57 MB/s sequential write33.68 MB/s random read43.90 MB/s random writeWestern Digital WD2500KS: 250 GB, 7200 RPM, purchased 200563.55 MB/s sequential read62.52 MB/s sequential write31.32 MB/s random read38.16 MB/s random writeIntel SSDSA2M080G2GC: 80 GB, purchased 2009253.07 MB/s sequential read81.98 MB/s sequential write196.70 MB/s random read39.61 MB/s random writeNoise. This drive is very quiet. I don’t have any empirical data for noise, but the hard drive activity never became audible above the hum of the CPU fan in my desktop.Heat. This drive is very cool for such a high-performing 7200 RPM drive. Even after a 100 GB transfer that took around 20 minutes, reported temperatures never exceeded 30°C (86°F).Weight. Not that it matters much with internal drives, but this is a very light drive compared to my other 3.5 inch HDDs. The area below the platters on the bottom of the drive is recessed about 3/16 of an inch further than other drives, I assume because it uses one fewer platter. As a result, it feels much lighter.Cons: Price. A 5400 RPM Western Digital Green drive with twice the capacity is available for about the same amount of money. However, using the less-expensive green drives would incur a notable performance decrease. In my testing above, this drive had 66% better transfer rates than a 2-year-old 2TB WD Green for sequential reads and writes and 93% better transfer rates for random reads and writes. So for enterprise tasks, one could argue that the performance of this drive merits the increased cost.For most consumer uses, the 5400 RPM Western Digital Green drives are a better value because they offer at least double the capacity for the same price. The performance loss is not significant considering that they outperform 7200 RPM drives from just a few years earlier. However, for technical or enterprise purposes, the additional throughput can be a real benefit. As someone with I/O-intensive workloads (geographic information systems), this drive offers adequate capacity with exceptional performance.All performance tests were conducted using CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 x64 with each drive loaded into the same SATA hot swap bay. Testing was conducted in Windows 7 Ultimate x64 with a socket LGA1156 Intel Lynnfield 860 CPU at 2.8 GHz, 8 GB of RAM, and the Intel P55 3 GB/s SATA controller on the Gigabyte GA-P55-UD4P motherboard.

This drive has been in service for over a year and a half with 3 cameras feeding to it 24/7. One 1080p, one 960p and one 480p camera all 25-30fps. The drive has performed beautifully and is very steady in write performance and temperature (used in a Mac Pro). Loading video, specially while recordings are going, may take a little longer depending on drive activity and file size. For a 5GB 1 hour clip I'm waiting maybe 5 seconds for the file to open and another 5 for playback to be smooth. Slower than you'd see on a traditional drive, keeping in mind this is a 5400rpm drive, but still well worth it. With my configuration it holds a little over two weeks of recordings for all cameras.The drive currently has 15,375 hours on it and the S.M.A.R.T. status and overall drive health is 100%. Not a single bad sector or any signs of wear. I'll replace this down the road only because I'll need a bigger one and even then this will sit in a RAID until it fails.===================Update, April 2023.The drive just started failing after 8 years of pretty much 24/7 use (69K+ hours on it), supporting 6 HD cameras for the last 5 years. For $70 this was the best money I have ever spent on a hard drive. Ordering a 4TB newer model now, I hope it serves me equally well. These 2TB (WD20PURX), while now an older model, I highly recommend.

So far this has been a great hard drive. I purchased to use in my security camera NVR. Arrived packaged sufficiently. Like others I was comparing this relatively new model to the tried and true WD Red. I almost went with the red simply because it had better specs for amount of data being read and written to the drive annually, is that meaningful or not, I don't think so. Honestly though, I really think the two drives are nearly, if not, identical. Sure WD markets this as a surveillance drive (with AllFrame) but I see this as nothing more than marketing fluff and a way for WD to market to another group of users and get more shelf space for their drives. Data is data and nothing more than 0's and 1's, the hard drive couldn't care less if it's video or docs as long as it can handle enough throughput for your application. Besides that rant, I'm very happy with this drive and have almost always had great experiences with WD drives, I can't say the same for Seagate. BTW, I am running this in an Hikvision OEM's NVR and currently it's only supporting 3 - 2 Megapixel cams (approximately 1080p). The drive is recording nearly 24x7 and I have no problems with simulataneous read/writes. This drive's a winner.

As a drive for a simple analog DVR, the 2TB model might have been a little mismatched. With 4 cameras, @ 1000TVL, it uses maybe half of that at most, on a month with lots of motion detection. The surveillance aspect of it helps those events run smoother too (compared to a regular desktop HDD).We plan to load a NAS with these next, to mirror the footage remotely. Right now, this device is in that analog DVR system, and it watches our company doors 24/7. Have not had a problem with it yet. Very nice drive - and the recording seemed to improve along with playback after installing this version.This is probably due to the spin up time, and that these drives are made to keep spinning at a low rate so that the device does not need to stop, the start up, then stop, and repeat over and over with recording. They are not optimized for PC, and I would not suggest one FOR a PC unless its a REALLY amazing price, and you are limited on options. Their benefits show during CCTV usage - like it says.... surveillance drives.