WD10EZEX Review (WD Blue 1TB single-platter drive.) - Page 3

I'm waiting for the 1TB platter Blacks to come out. It looks like it'll be happening soon. I also see there's 1TB platter Toshiba drives out now (Toshiba DT01ACA100), manufactured by Hitachi (WD). I'm not sure if they're using the same technology as Hitachi (7K1000.D) or if they are using WD tech.

I think now is probably a good time to sit back and wait a few weeks. I'm sure more drives will be coming out soon.
Yeah, I'm holding out for that too.
Well, it can't be too long now. Over the past 1.5 months they've rolled out about 6 models with 1TB platters? I'm betting within 1-1.5 months there'll be a bunch of 1TB-platter Blacks on the market?

It should be superior to the WD10EALX in almost every way. Access times suffer a bit, but it should have noise levels on its side, which you seem to be interested in. The higher sequential speeds and smarter firmware mean it'll probably still be a net gain in all performance (sequential/random) over your EALX.
It's not the quantity of platters - it's the density. This drive has a single platter, and it's 1TB in size, so it does end up being faster than your WD10EALX with two - but if there were a WD20EZEX drive (2TB with 2x1TB platters), it should have the same performance characteristics of the WD10EZEX despite having two. The density is the big thing, and also how aggressive the drive is programmed to be when seeking, and how smart. (NCQ, etc.)

Outer areas of the platter are faster. The whole platter spins at a fixed RPM, but the edge travels more distance, so the drive's heads can read more information.
It's a better candidate than your current drive. But this is Overclock.net... most of us want the best, which would be an SSD for our OS. Small but fast.
Those access times are actually quite nice. It's a tough call, but I think if you aren't going to fill the drive up all the way, the WD10EZEX will still have an edge. The access times only become a major weakness if you're using a large percentage of the drive. Within the first 100-150GB it seeks just as fast as the WD10EALX, which means thanks to the higher sequential performance you are guaranteed better overall performance. You could install your OS/Apps/Programs/etc. on a smaller partition on the edge of the drive to take full advantage of that. You only have to worry about the access times if you use a single large partition and fill the drive up and then install new programs - they'll be located way out towards the end (inside) of the platter. (slower, longer seeks and lower sequential speeds)

What are the other specs in your system? Motherboard/chipset?

Sequential speeds are capped in that screenshot. Seems to me you're either running in SATA1 mode, or some other setting isn't set right. (AHCI, etc.)

You should also run the benchmark once in safemode just to be sure it isn't software interfering.