People seem to be hung up on the idea that the Purple is intended for 'some streaming video storage' and think the Purple will be beneficial in their HTPC because their HTPC records video. The HDD is one piece in a larger system puzzle, and putting a Purple in an HTPC seems like using a piece from the wrong puzzle. The Purple will be 'good enough' in the sense that any modern HDD is 'good enough' but the Purple won't provide the benefits that people imagine. People will be paying a $10 premium for a Purple rated for 300,000 load/unload cycles vs Red's 600,000. The Purple is designed for constant use scenarios such as security and the specs seem to reflect that.
Consider this marketing blurb:
"AllFrame reduces video interruptions that commonly occur when desktop hard drives are
incorrectly used as storage in
security systems." The takeaway point here is that security systems have different requirements and different hardware/software/firmware and thus a different HDD can be beneficial in security systems.
A HTPC is not a
security system and it doesn't have the needs of a security system; nor does it have the hardware and software that can take advantage of a security system HDD. From what I can tell, using a Purple in a HTPC (unless the HTPC is specifically built to take advantage of it) is just another example of a HDD being incorrectly used for the application. Again, the Purple will be 'good enough' but if someone is researching the best performing HDD or the most cost effective HDD they should not pick the Purple based on features that their system can't use.
Jimmersd wrote:mike_ekim wrote:Allframe is just the name of the firmware. See here:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/surveillance/
My interpretation of the marketing blurb: if you don't have a host controller with Allframe support, then a WD Purple HDD will not give you Allframe benefits.
Agreed. But that feature shouldn't decrease the usefulness of the Purple drive when used as an AV recording drive. You're just not able to access this feature.
I have asked WD support if the Purple reverts to SilkStream when not on an AllFrame adapter. I'm curious to know this.
What features do you get without Allframe? Based on WDs information I can't see how a purple can be better than either a Red (for NAS) or Green (low power).
