Western Digital SATA drives

[SanDiegoPC]

I'm building a new rig to replace the one in my sig. I've purchsed an i7 920 processor, and will probably use an Asus P6T motherboard. This rig is currently using a pair of WD 500MB caviar Blue drives. They are 16mb cache, 7200RPM drives.

Everything in the Caviar Black documentation reads the same as the Blue ones. Except for 32MB cache which is obviously twice as much. I'm thinking of using Win7 64-bit for an OS and have emails in to my various softwares to see if they support that OS.

So is the Black version of the WD caviar drives worth the difference? I already own a terabyte of drive space in the Caviar Blue series drives.

Suggestions appreciated

Paul in San Diego

 

[a123456]

Black, if you get the 640GB version, would definitely be faster than your 500GB Blue since it also has higher platter density (320GB vs. 250GB), but I don't know if it would be fast enough to notice a significant difference. For sequential reads, 500GB Blue is ~75MB/s versus the Black's ~95MB/s.

It might be better just to save up and once day purchase an SSD instead of the incremental Black upgrade unless you think your Blue drives might fail soon.

 

[SanDiegoPC]

Originally posted by: a123456


It might be better just to save up and once day purchase an SSD instead of the incremental Black upgrade unless you think your Blue drives might fail soon.

Thanks - that's exactly why I'm questioning buying new drives on this next build. Both of the 500GB Blue's that are in this computer right now are healthy. They are two years old so if they were going to give me trouble I'd know by now.

How does the higher platter density make 'em faster? I don't recall seeing reference to that, but I guess when I look at it logically it ~sorta~ makes sense.

Thanks again
Paul in San Diego

 

[NXIL]

Hey Paul,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_storage_density

Remember, the data is being physically accessed in a way--the head flying over the hard drive surface has to read the data. The higher the density (or, the faster the hard drive and the actuated head can move--think Raptor at 10,000 RPM or even faster drives at 15K RPM) the faster the data can be read.

This is why some high density drives can approach Raptor speeds in certain benchmarks.

HTH

NX in san diego.....

PS: those things in the sky today: I think they call them clouds? They look cool.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: SanDiegoPC
Everything in the Caviar Black documentation reads the same as the Blue ones. Except for 32MB cache which is obviously twice as much.

Specs don't tell the whole story.
The Blacks not only have 32MB of cache, but also have two processors like the VelociRaptors.

TechReport...
"<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/15363">Speaking of the VelociRaptor, the Caviar Black inherits one new trick from Western Digital's 10K-RPM mini-monster.
The Black features not one, but two processors, effectively doubling the horsepower it has available to calculate how to move, collect, and cache data on the drive.</a>"

 

[SanDiegoPC]

Originally posted by: Blain

Originally posted by: SanDiegoPC
Everything in the Caviar Black documentation reads the same as the Blue ones. Except for 32MB cache which is obviously twice as much.

Specs don't tell the whole story.
The Blacks not only have 32MB of cache, but also have two processors like the VelociRaptors.

TechReport...
"<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/15363">Speaking of the VelociRaptor, the Caviar Black inherits one new trick from Western Digital's 10K-RPM mini-monster.
The Black features not one, but two processors, effectively doubling the horsepower it has available to calculate how to move, collect, and cache data on the drive.</a>"

Sold me on 'em Blaine!! Thanks

 

[imported_harlanpepper]

I just bought a WD Black 1TB recently. Nice drive, and it's joining two 640GB blues that have worked well for me for almost a year and a half. But I probably would have picked up a Samsung Spinpoint F3 if I knew about it - it's a 2x500GB platter design and apparently out-performs the WD Black, according to a recent review on bit-tech. You may want to consider that option.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: harlanpepper
I just bought a WD Black 1TB recently. Nice drive, and it's joining two 640GB blues that have worked well for me for almost a year and a half. But I probably would have picked up a Samsung Spinpoint F3 if I knew about it - it's a 2x500GB platter design and apparently out-performs the WD Black, according to a recent review on bit-tech. You may want to consider that option.

I just read the review at Bit-tech and the 1TB F3 kicks ass (for a spindle drive). Not a bad price ($79.99) at Newegg either! (OOS currently).

 

[SanDiegoPC]

Is it actually a SATA 3.0 drive? I need to do some reading! Win7 is coupla days away so I have plenty of time to do this build.

 

[NXIL]

Is it actually a SATA 3.0 drive?

Yes.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822152185

3 year warranty.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: SanDiegoPC
Is it actually a SATA 3.0 drive? I need to do some reading! Win7 is coupla days away so I have plenty of time to do this build.

The Samsung is SATA 3.0GB, not SATA III (which is 6.0GB/sec).

 

[NXIL]

The Samsung is SATA 3.0GB, not SATA III (which is 6.0GB/sec).

Correct--thanks Engineer, I see that you answered the real question....(27,000 posts....guess you gotten pretty good at reading them!)

His P6T motherboard only has SATA II / 3.0 GBS connectors.

One user noted:

On the newer SSDs, where raw data transfer rates are getting high enough to saturate SATA 3Gb/s, it makes sense to move to 6GB/s, but not for 7200 RPM spinning media. Even 15,000 RPM spinning drives can't even get close to 3 Gb/s. (And barely exceed 1.5Gb/s.)

http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=645