The reference spreadsheet for SSDs maintained by the subreddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales refers to WD Green as "garbage":
docs.google.com
(see cell N381).
If that seems harsh, look at WD's own datasheet for the SN350 Green NVME drive:
TBW for a 2TB drive? 100TBW. I.e. rewrite the average byte 50 times and you're gone. That's appalling.
Samsung's QVO has a 720TBW for a 2TB SSD. So, while that's lower than a reasonable TLC drive, it's not the steaming pile of crap that is the Green drive. You get to rewrite the average byte 360 times.
WD Green is seriously problematic, to say the least. For some reason, it is popular down in OZ - I've seen a couple of Australian youtubers use them in a build, and winced every time.
Incidentally, that address
https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales was not useful for me. It showed lists of computer parts for sale.
But to answer your astonishment, the reason why Australians might be buying Green SSDs was probably because they're cheap here, available, and have a decent warranty. they are faster than hard drives, use less energy and run much cooler. Mine was for a SATA connection too.
I have had a WD "green" hard disk for several years and its been reliable. At that time, the WD Blue hard drives were listed by WD as not being Mac OS X compatible. The "Black" WD drives also were listed as Mac OS X compatible, but they were double the price (and I already was using 4 TB WD black SATA hard drive).
I bought the green 1 TB SSD because I needed an extra drive to install Mojave. I bought it because it is was cheap, and it did that install the OS task very well. The price difference between 500 GB and 1 TB SATA was $US30, so I bought the 1 TB. The blue SATA SSD was not much more though - but I had not investigated whether it was compatible with OS X. I was in a rush too. I was cautious about the blue ones due to the hard disks not having been OS X suitable, although that was a couple of years ago. Certainly compared to my old Intel 250GB SSD drive, which has an alloy case, as well as an extra alloy attachment surround as well, which provided side attachment screw holes and top attachment screw holes as well, the Green WD SSD drive has just some side attachment screw holes, no alloy case surround, and the case on the Green does feel like or perhaps it really is, made from cardboard? OK its not Rolls Royce. Did the job though. I was ready to chuck my 5,1 in the bin at the time, just before Christmas.
Also, its often a bottleneck situation. I think the bus in the DVD is half the speed/capacity of the SATA bus intended for the 5,1's four hard drive bays. So will a slower SSD make a big difference if used in the DVD's bus (Mac Pro 5,1)? In the hard disk bus, where there are 4 bays, some sellers like OWC have twin SSD bracket mounts - where one can attach two SSDs, and use the single drive bay ... the two SSDs using the single hard drive SATA bus ... and I think the idea is to RAID the two SSD drives ... but I wonder, what is the point of doing so, if the bus itself is the bottleneck?
As for NVME M.2 etc., I appreciate
tsialex listing some el cheapo versions of base cards. I'll check those out. I have checked several times before, the AquaComputer kryoM.2, and for me, they cost only $Au56. But they are never available to me on Amazon, and if I buy direct, Aqua has a shipping cost of $Au100. So all up they cost $Au156. I've a cousin in Germany but I wouldn't want to bother him getting it and then forwarding it to me. DHL would charge $Au45 normally to Australia, but the Aqua company doesn't allow DHL shipments from them to Australia. It's been like that for a long time. B&H don't sell them either, and they ship affordably to Australia and B&H are very efficient.
And I've looked at several Mac compatible cheap PCI solutions on Amazon. And I've read the user comments too. Some beautiful looking pictures of heat sinks, lots of gold, and Mac compatible. But the users say the cards catch fire, and melt, even if they are still working ... it all seems a gamble to me. And here, there are over 100 pages of posts. There is no summary of the many cheap cards out there IMO - there are only a few cards mentioned, and even some of those have had changes in their compatibility which have made a very short choice even shorter, despite the time span since this thread started that has seen lots of cards come onto the market. But the reports of their performance must be buried in the over 2,800 posts in this thread. That is too much for any of us to read IMO.
There are cheap Startech cards available here, from normal PC part vendor shops. Those shops have tight margins. But the cheap Startech cards - such as a $Au69 (that is about $US50) lack any heat sink and also I am unsure about CMP 5.1 OS X usage. So if I add say $Au31 for some third party heat sink solution - my cost is $Au100 for a single slot, 4 times solution.
My RX580 GPU takes up two PCI slots when its in the 2nd slot. I don't even have USB-C. I am unsure if WiFi will work later on, and how (I use ethernet though). Do I want to fill my only PCIx4 slot with a drive card? For $Au100? Or have two of them for $Au200? And Put my GPU into the #1 slot? And keep the x16 #2 slot for a good x16 drive solution? Which may take up two slots itself?
I have always regarded the Highpoints as proven, and I've got in my shopping basket at Amazon a HighPoint SSD7101A-1 - which IMO is good value, in $US its $290. It's four times the cost of a Startech card including putting on my own heat sink solution.
An issue though is will such a card run in the new prospective M processor bottom version Mac Pro? The machine we are all guessing about? I think it will not somehow ... I suspect Apple will not provide PCI slotted M processor low cost Mac Pro machines. So should I minimise my spending? Probably!! But the idea of a cheap x4 card seems a potential waste of money to me, sitting in a x16 slot, and stopping further expansion, plus no hardware RAID processor.
Now talking about the chewing gum stick sized cards, the newer ones are hotter than the older ones. I guess the faster the hotter? Because of these faster and hotter cards, the SSD7101A-1 is now cheaper than it was? Certainly Highpoint's SSSD7104F card is 50% more expensive - for me at least. But in Europe, it is the same price as the HighPoint SSD7101A-1. At the moment. Perhaps the SSSD7104F would be easier to sell if I buy a Mac Pro M late next year? And meanwhile, in the PC world, such chewing gum disk cards seem very cheap, although perhaps they do not have RAID controllers on them. Of course they likely wouldn't work in a 5,1.
But if I had a 7,1 Mac Pro (and I doubt I'll buy one because they are not cheap and used it seems people are not selling them) - the SSSD7104F would be the better choice (if they are compatible etc). But then - perhaps the newer, faster cards cost more?
I am ignorant about these compact digital drives - which is why I am here. For cost though, I always come back to the major issue with the 5,1 - its main bottleneck is having only two x16 PCI slots. And one has a GPU in it. Hence, the best solution seems to be a 16x PCI solution, and one that can fit lots of cards in it. Two isn't enough, because of the x16 bottleneck. Once I buy a single or a duel card for the PCI slot, I've lost that slot and done my money if I realise I need more cards.
I presume buying slower and cooler cards and raiding them, is better value for someone like me ... but I'll also check cheaper options before buying, as very high performance is not required by me ... I just want to get the work done.
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