Regarding desktop computer use:

I recently contacted WD to inquire about an upgrade I am undertaking: more specifically replacing my Green (and Blue) drive(s) in the main workstation with a single Red one. I specified the chipset and CPU, and made clear that this was going into a desktop computer that also served files for two other workstations besides itself (acting like a NAS). The WD support reply was (with apology for delay removed):

I'm good with it if WD are. Looking forward to making the upgrade, as my 6400AAKS has a Power-On Hour count of 24,706. That's some 1,029 days altogether, which comes in at just under three years of constant running. Never had single a problem with it, but I feel it's time to retire the ol' warhorse.

(the 2 TB makes the most sense right now, I don't even have enough spare capacity to back up 3 TB of data)

HI lads and gals.

Did anyone succesfully patched their wdred 2tb drive to have TLER disabled with the wdtler tool?
Just wondering bc WD is scaring people saying it could render the disk's firmware useless on "newer" drives. But whats new?
(source wikipedia).

Mine's from september 28 2012

I bought the 1 TB model as it is slightly quieter. I am glad I did -- even the 1 TB model is now the loudest component in my system. I am going to have to look into getting an enclosure to help contain the noise.

I have only allocated about 250 GB of the drive, as my storage needs are small. I therefore expect better average performance due to short stroking.

Maybe you can run some tests to see if you can confirm the dramatic difference in benchmarks compared to the 2TB and above. Very few people seem to have the 1TB, so I rarely if ever see anything about it. Something has to explain the difference.

Reporting in with my 3 TB drive. I can confirm it to be very, very quiet as far as HDDs go.

Compared to my old AAKS Blue, the head sounds are extremely muted - for a moment I thought they were completely absent! I can't yet confirm how the Red sounds solo, as it might be the Green's heads I'm hearing.

I copied two dozen large and even huge video files, then a CAD library with dozens of small files, and finally my picture bank with hundreds if not thousands of small and large files. All transfers were from Green to Red and sounded smooth and were quite fast with speeds frequently reaching >40 MBps / >320 Mbps.

The heavy discs' spinning is certainly audible to a silence freak, but they introduced absolutely no audible or tactile vibration to my setup. Once I oust the Blue and maybe the Green, I expect to not notice my HDD.

Verdict: best HDD yet, but naturally not absolutely silent as-is.

PS1: the heads are definitely silent. I've been defragmenting the drive (thanks, FBackup, for 68% fragmentation on a fresh drive) for a couple hours now and it hasn't let out a peep. The case is on a desk next to me.