WD Black 1TB SSHD Out of Box experience blows! Rant inside

[Kenmitch]

Decided to purchase a laptop to replace my desktop while waiting for the 14nm dGPU's.

DIY desktop user so wanted something somewhat powerful but economical at the same time. Bang for buck with performance in the laptop arena is somewhat hard to find. Pretty much got to go with the lesser of all evils I guess.

Wound up picking up the following at BestBuy on clearance. Got the manager to whack the price down to $749.99 which seems reasonable for the hardware....To me at least. CPU is a little dated but in the price range it's usually 2c/4t.

Lenovo Y50 Touch 15.6"
1080P IPS
i7-4720HQ 4c/8t
8GB Memory
1TB WD Black SSHD
NVidia GTX 960m 2GB

Hardware wise it sounded like it would be a decent laptop to try out. Reviews were mixed when I googled the model. A lot of them were from the previous version with a TN panel and 860m.

Rant starts:

When I 1st booted it up I was pretty much disappointed from the get go with the performance. Just didn't feel like it sounded like it should if that makes any sense.

WD Black 1TB SSHD pretty much killed my 1st impression of the laptop. Being a SSHD I thought that it would have somewhat decent performance and would be acceptable. Boy was I wrong!

Why do OEM's even bother castrating rigs with platter drives these days. SSD's are cheap! USB portable HDD are cheap if a person needs more storage.

Rant ends:

Being the DIY desktop builder and a SSD junky I guess didn't help at all.

Luckily for me I had every intention of dropping in my spare Crucial MX200 500GB SSD. Just wanted to try out the SSHD to see if they were decent.

Wound up just using the Acronis True Image that came with the Crucial SSD to clone the SSHD to the SSD.

Night and day difference even with the Lenovo bloat!

Now just gotta get used to the keyboard and dang trackpad again, Haven't used a laptop for around 5-6yrs I think it is.

 

[Coup27]

No offense, but I think your expectations were off.

The 1TB Blue SSHD has only 8GB of NAND onboard used as a cache. From the WD site:

Utilizing an advanced set of algorithms, WD Blue SSHDs track SSHD data usage, prioritizing frequently used data for fast access in the solid state portion of the device, adapting, learning and optimizing as new applications and command requests change over time. These advanced algorithms reside in the SSHD firmware, enabling it to make intelligent determinations of which data to store in NAND flash memory, without any influence from the host or related storage device drivers.

Meaning out the box boot up would not be faster than a normal HDD because the SSHD hasn't learned anything yet. Only over time will it cache files into NAND and serve them up to you.

But with only 8GB of NAND onboard, I really can't see it doing much at all.

 

[Erithan13]

SSHDs need some time and a couple of reboots before they learn what to put in the cache to speed up performance. They'll be just as painfully slow as a normal spinner on the very first boot. Even then, although they're advertised as being 'the speed of an SSD with the capacity of a HDD', you shouldn't be expecting SSD like performance from them in all situations. What they should do is prove moderately better than a normal HDD in general use. I've never used one as a primary drive so from looking at reviews it seems people do find them considerably better than a HDD but definitely not approaching the snappiness of a SSD under heavier workloads.

TBH, if you're used to a SSD boot drive, I think you're expecting too much from a SSHD to replicate that. The cache can keep some of the small frequently accessed files ready for quick reading to speed up the OS but as was said 8GB can only do so much.

 

[Kenmitch]

No offense, but I think your expectations were off.

The 1TB Blue SSHD has only 8GB of NAND onboard used as a cache. From the WD site:



Meaning out the box boot up would not be faster than a normal HDD because the SSHD hasn't learned anything yet. Only over time will it cache files into NAND and serve them up to you.

But with only 8GB of NAND onboard, I really can't see it doing much at all.

Probably....Didn't really think about it that way. Not sure if I could hang with a SSHD long enough for it too learn. Once you go SSD it's painful to go back.

Out of box experience on the 1TB WD Black SSHD isn't bearable to a SSD user is probably a more fair statement.

 

[Coup27]

Plus as you said, it was full of Lenovo bloatware which isn't going to help the situation.

 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

Hey there Kenmitch,

I'm sorry to hear about the bad impression that you got from the WD Black SSHD. This drive was designed and produced specifically for these lines of laptops and should give a somewhat good experience, but no HDD or SSHD can match the performance gain of a SSD. I'm glad you got it upgraded and that it works well now.

No offense, but I think your expectations were off.

The 1TB Blue SSHD has only 8GB of NAND onboard used as a cache. From the WD site:

Quote:
Utilizing an advanced set of algorithms, WD Blue SSHDs track SSHD data usage, prioritizing frequently used data for fast access in the solid state portion of the device, adapting, learning and optimizing as new applications and command requests change over time. These advanced algorithms reside in the SSHD firmware, enabling it to make intelligent determinations of which data to store in NAND flash memory, without any influence from the host or related storage device drivers.
Meaning out the box boot up would not be faster than a normal HDD because the SSHD hasn't learned anything yet. Only over time will it cache files into NAND and serve them up to you.

But with only 8GB of NAND onboard, I really can't see it doing much at all.

Coup27 what OP has is a specific WD Black SSHD that is no longer in production. It is a bit different compared to the new and improved WD Blue SSHD drives that we currently have on the website. What you pointed out is true for all SSHDs due to the nature of how they work.

If you guys have any questions that I might be able to help with - feel free to ask!

Captain_WD.

 

[greenhawk]

WD only makes one SSHD and that is the blue range.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=1580

even the Lenovo specs say 5400rpm with 8GB SSD
http://www3.lenovo.com/au/en/laptop...es/Lenovo-Y50-70/p/88LG80Y0378#tab-tech_specs

The black drive range is 7200RPM, and none of the Lenovo drives specs for the Y50 mention a 7200 rpm drive.


The only black with SSD IIRC is the black2 dual drive, which was basically a swing and a miss as a marketable item. And that I think was normal desktop size that required special software and a suitable controller (as the drives where connected by a sata port multiplier).

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2070...ve-review-not-the-killer-storage-upgrade.html

If you got that drive in the laptop, then you picked up a non-standard unit so might have issues down the road if things go wrong.

 

[midwestfisherman]

Make sure you uninstall all of the Lenovo spyware!

 

[Elixer]

Hybrid drives have always been only useful for repeated reads, and not much else.
Once the limited amount of NAND gets full with new data, the performance drops back to what a HD normally would be, except, it is slightly longer, since the drive is trying to stuff the new data into the cache.

Now, if they had a 2TB HD with 256GB of NAND, that would be a very interesting option, but I never did like all-in-one type solutions, I rather have separate devices.
Laptops are now moving to HD + M.2, so that is the future for now, and it wouldn't make sense to make that kind of a hybrid now.

 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

Hey greenhawk,

The WD Black SSHD that OP is referring to was produced solely for this specific model laptops. CNET did a review back then. Here are more details: http://www.cnet.com/products/wd-black-sshd-1tb/

WD Black2 is a 2.5' Dual-Drive that combines a 120GB SSD with a 1TB 5,400 rpm HDD and can be used on pretty much any SATA port both in desktops and in laptops. It does not require any specific controllers or whatsoever. The drive comes with a locked HDD portion which you need to unlock once you install the drive and get it up and running. The software for that comes with the drive or it can be downloaded from our page. This drive is also no longer in production, but I am quite happy from using it in my laptop.

Ask away if you have any specific questions!

Captain_WD.

 

[Kenmitch]

The WD Black SSHD that was in my laptop is WD10S21X-24R1BTO

No mention of speed but states 8GB NAND

Google search shows it's not the best performer. WD just makes what the OEM wants to buy. Guessing Lenovo was just looking for a bullet point and not better performance.

MX200 500GB makes the laptop ultra responsive. Cold boots in 10 seconds with instant responsiveness.

 

[JimmiG]

No offense, but I think your expectations were off.

The 1TB Blue SSHD has only 8GB of NAND onboard used as a cache. From the WD site:



Meaning out the box boot up would not be faster than a normal HDD because the SSHD hasn't learned anything yet. Only over time will it cache files into NAND and serve them up to you.

But with only 8GB of NAND onboard, I really can't see it doing much at all.

That's the nature of SSD cache. It needs some time to "learn" the access patterns before it becomes useful.
But yeah, 8GB isn't a lot. If they sold them with 32 or 64GB it would be more useful. I used to run a 64GB OCZ SSD Cache (50% over-provisioning so really 32GB) and it was great. It made my 640GB HDD "feel" like an SSD except when copying a large number of files or just after having installed a large game or program.

 

[biostud]

My parents use the 60gb corsair ssd accelerator with a 1tb hdd, and that works really well. But the keypoint is 60gb vs 8. And of course the speed of the ssd.

 

[nanaki333]

WD only makes one SSHD and that is the blue range.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=1580

even the Lenovo specs say 5400rpm with 8GB SSD
http://www3.lenovo.com/au/en/laptop...es/Lenovo-Y50-70/p/88LG80Y0378#tab-tech_specs

The black drive range is 7200RPM, and none of the Lenovo drives specs for the Y50 mention a 7200 rpm drive.


The only black with SSD IIRC is the black2 dual drive, which was basically a swing and a miss as a marketable item. And that I think was normal desktop size that required special software and a suitable controller (as the drives where connected by a sata port multiplier).

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2070...ve-review-not-the-killer-storage-upgrade.html

If you got that drive in the laptop, then you picked up a non-standard unit so might have issues down the road if things go wrong.

WD also makes a drive with 16GB NAND actually. it does, however, require software in Windows to function properly. it is not completely firmware dependent like others so it won't work in video game consoles, but really not bad for Windows.

http://www.amazon.com/WD10S12X-Soli...p/B00RJWEG2K/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6AH2RD3566

OP: does the drive you have require any special software from WD to make it function properly like the one i linked? people gave it bad reviews because it was doodoo in their consoles vs the Seagate or Toshiba SSHDs with firmware caching 8GB.

i know this is not relevant because it is a laptop, but when i do desktops with some room inside, i always prefer to put a small 32GB or 64GB SSD in there with an HDD and install PrimoCache. it will act just like the Intel Caching and it has no limit to how large you want to make the caching (Level2 caching remembers everything on shutdown now). it's also useful for boot SSDs to limit the random writes.

 

[Kenmitch]

OP: does the drive you have require any special software from WD to make it function properly like the one i linked? people gave it bad reviews because it was doodoo in their consoles vs the Seagate or Toshiba SSHDs with firmware caching 8GB.

Not sure if it did require any. The performance was unbearable for me so I swapped in a MX200 500GB drive as soon as I had the chance. I don't remember seeing any WD software on the laptop. Did a clean install of Win 10 on the SSD.

 

[therealnickdanger]

Not sure if it did require any. The performance was unbearable for me so I swapped in a MX200 500GB drive as soon as I had the chance. I don't remember seeing any WD software on the laptop. Did a clean install of Win 10 on the SSD.

</thread>

 

[nanaki333]

Not sure if it did require any. The performance was unbearable for me so I swapped in a MX200 500GB drive as soon as I had the chance. I don't remember seeing any WD software on the laptop. Did a clean install of Win 10 on the SSD.

can't ever go wrong with pure SSD lovin! i remember when 500GB drives cost ~$350, now they're low 100s.

 

[guskline]

Kenmitch from the model number you list, I think that is the WD Black 2 Hybrid SSD/HDD.
The ssd component is 120 gigs and the hdd component is @ 1tb of 5400rpm laptop hdd, although now they may have upped the speed.

Speed wise, a pure ssd is faster.

 

[Kenmitch]

Kenmitch from the model number you list, I think that is the WD Black 2 Hybrid SSD/HDD.
The ssd component is 120 gigs and the hdd component is @ 1tb of 5400rpm laptop hdd, although now they may have upped the speed.

Speed wise, a pure ssd is faster.

8GB of nand.

This is what I found as far as benchmark for the drive.

http://hdd.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest/12991/WDC-WD10S21X-24R1BT0-SSHD-8GB

 

[shabby]

Being a SSHD I thought that it would have somewhat decent performance and would be acceptable. Boy was I wrong!

I also thought someone whose been on a hardware forum for the last 16 years would also know better, boy was i wrong also!

Sorry op but hang your head in shame.

 

[Burpo]

Nah, Ken knew what he was doing. It was getting his SSD as soon as he got it home!

 

[Kenmitch]

I also thought someone whose been on a hardware forum for the last 16 years would also know better, boy was i wrong also!

Sorry op but hang your head in shame.

Too funny

 

[guskline]

Kenmitch different from the one I'm familiar with.

 

[Beer4Me]

Thats NOT a SSHD. Thats a 120 GB SSD slapped on to a 1 TB 7200 mechanical HDD. They are treated as two separate LUNs by the OS and BIOS. Therefore NOT a SSHD. It's basically a drive that tries to be an all in one solution in a single 2.5" format for laptops with limited expand-ability.

 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

As I said in comment #10 the WD drive made for the Lenovo Y50 is a specific WD Black Hybrid drive which is different than the dual drive WD Black2. The Dual drive that you are talking about has a 5,400 rpm spinning HDD and has the model number WD1001X06X while the WD Black SSHD that the OP is referring to has the model number WD10S21X.

Feel free to ask if you happen to have questions!

Captain_WD.