I might buy one but HDD prices are still high here and the drive isn't widely available in store ATM...

Thanks for the link.

 

i'm not sure what all this jargon means but if you had to choose for a non-raid setup and just a SSD and HHD for storage, which of these drives would be better for that purpose of being a storage drive.

WD10EZEX
or
WD1003FBYX
or
WD10EFRX

I have all three on their way but I will keep one and send the other 2 back

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by sussah

WD10EZEX
or
WD1003FBYX
or
WD10EFRX

Personally I would go for the EZEX... althrough I haven't heard much about the new Red drive. Isn't the Blue cheaper anyway ?

 

The Red and RE4 drives are intended for RAID. The Red is 5400RPM with a 3yr warranty, while the RE4 is 7200RPM with a 5yr warranty.

The Blue is highly optimized for desktop use, is 7200RPM, and is using 1TB platters. It only has a 2yr warranty, but it is quiet, so the pros outweigh the cons. I too would opt for the WD10EZEX.

 

I was always under the impression that the RE4 drives were Western Digitals best drives for any performance related purpose? I have been saving money to buy one and use my 320GB drive for misc stuff, but should I be looking for a different drive? I do intend to RAID0 after a bit...

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by nleksan

I was always under the impression that the RE4 drives were Western Digitals best drives for any performance related purpose?

Someone's gotta ask their marketing team why they did this but the new Blue is the way to go.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by nleksan

I was always under the impression that the RE4 drives were Western Digitals best drives for any performance related purpose? I have been saving money to buy one and use my 320GB drive for misc stuff, but should I be looking for a different drive? I do intend to RAID0 after a bit...

They have very reliable access times, which is important in RAID environments and for servers.

It's less important for desktop use, but for desktop RAID they're still great drives to get.

Or you can try out the new blues - but I'd wait until LSI finishes his RAID testing before hopping on two of them. The new blues also have reliable max access times, so it's likely they'll perform fine. Just keep in mind you drop from a 5 year warranty to 2 years.
Quote:

Originally Posted by adridu59

Quote:

Originally Posted by nleksan

I was always under the impression that the RE4 drives were Western Digitals best drives for any performance related purpose?

Someone's gotta ask their marketing team why they did this but the new Blue is the way to go.

RE4 drives and Black drives have not yet been updated to 1TB platters. It's either harder to seek accurately at those densities, or they're waiting until all kinks are resolved to avoid any tarnish on the Black name. Regardless, I think they have a winner on their hards - aside from the flubbed Green launch (lots of early deaths), WD hasn't had any major issues with their recent drive launches. Firmware is fine, and reliability is fine. Performance is really really fine.

 

WD started making 1TB per platter drives? I can't believe I didn't hear about this.

Edit: So this is essentially Western Digital's Fine-Tune Hitachi Desktar 7K1000.D drive with the same capacities available and double the cache...I wonder how the Seagate 1TB per platter drives compete.

I don't see WD marketing 1TB/platter anywhere on the product page so I assumed that they never decided to upgrade to 1TB platters yet.

 

I just got my WD10EZEX today. I'm going to use it to replace my aging 2x250GB RAID 0 as my main OS drive. It's crazy to think that what would've taken eight platters back when I bought these drives now comes on just one platter.

I noticed Kramy stated it's not the best candidate for an OS drive, but hopefully it's good enough for me. The only thing I'm worried about is the slower average access times compared to my current setup. Maybe I'll break down and buy an SSD for my OS drive one of these days.

HD Tune is reporting UDMA Mode 6, which I think is due to me having SATA set to RAID in my BIOS, so I'll have to change that.

EDIT: Just finished doing an extended scan of the drive with WD's utility. It took almost exactly two hours. No problems or reallocated sectors :

. There was 6 power cycles on the drive when I first started it up, and around 20-30 minutes of use.

Reading the reviews on NewEgg for all HDDs; I saw a lot of people with DOA drives, or drives that failed after a few months. But I have to say, the packing was excellent, and I'm not at all worried about this drive failing any time soon. *Knock on wood*

My HD Tune results are pretty similar to Kramy's, but I figure I'll post them anyway:

 

Impressive speeds but yea those access times are pretty bad. Still a good drive but youd be much better off w/ a ssd for your OS and this for w/e else.

Would be curious how much you could cut down the access times w 2x of these shortstroked tho.

Sent from Stugots Mobile

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by HybridCore

Edit: So this is essentially Western Digital's Fine-Tune Hitachi Desktar 7K1000.D drive with the same capacities available and double the cache...I wonder how the Seagate 1TB per platter drives compete.

It's going to be their mainstream part, I suspect. They are taking advantage of dense platters to reduce parts costs, increase reliability, and increase profit margins. They'll probably start pushing this model hard - mass producing them will again raise margins, so that they can reduce the MSRP. We may finally see drive prices dropping close to what they used to be.

Cache doesn't do much for a drive - although an advertised stat, pretty much every drive has 'enough' for the platter count/density and ECC type. Doubling it won't automatically provide a huge speed boost. It's all the unadvertised stuff that does. (Platter Density, Firmware, Seeking Style (Quiet/Aggressive), etc.)
Quote:

Originally Posted by HybridCore

I don't see WD marketing 1TB/platter anywhere on the product page so I assumed that they never decided to upgrade to 1TB platters yet.

They have never advertised platter densities. I couldn't say why - it seems like a good advertising point?
Quote:

Originally Posted by duffman55

I noticed Kramy stated it's not the best candidate for an OS drive, but hopefully it's good enough for me. The only thing I'm worried about is the slower average access times compared to my current setup. Maybe I'll break down and buy an SSD for my OS drive one of these days.

It's not the best choice because of how performance degrades when full. If your drive is mostly empty, don't worry about it. If you get an SSD one day, you have even less to worry about. The high sequential speeds mean it should perform very well for a lot of tasks.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kramy

Quote:

Originally Posted by HybridCore

Edit: So this is essentially Western Digital's Fine-Tune Hitachi Desktar 7K1000.D drive with the same capacities available and double the cache...I wonder how the Seagate 1TB per platter drives compete.

It's going to be their mainstream part, I suspect. They are taking advantage of dense platters to reduce parts costs, increase reliability, and increase profit margins. They'll probably start pushing this model hard - mass producing them will again raise margins, so that they can reduce the MSRP. We may finally see drive prices dropping close to what they used to be.

Cache doesn't do much for a drive - although an advertised stat, pretty much every drive has 'enough' for the platter count/density and ECC type. Doubling it won't automatically provide a huge speed boost. It's all the unadvertised stuff that does. (Platter Density, Firmware, Seeking Style (Quiet/Aggressive), etc.)
Quote:

Originally Posted by HybridCore

I don't see WD marketing 1TB/platter anywhere on the product page so I assumed that they never decided to upgrade to 1TB platters yet.

They have never advertised platter densities. I couldn't say why - it seems like a good advertising point?

It's rather impressive for a mainstream part. Can't wait to see what a 1TB per platter Caviar Black is going to be like. I'd be happy to consider WD again now that the prices are going to be near or of the same as Seagate's and Hitachi's 1TB per platter drives.

It's only a few MB compared to how much we're going to have in our hard drive. I doubt it would do anything.

It does seem like something they should advertise. It would also make it a lot easier to tell if they are using 1TB platters in their drives.

 

Why is there such a big deal on only 1 platter drive?

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kitarist

Why is there such a big deal on only 1 platter drive?

Lower chance of failure?

Oh, and being single platter implies the platter is at least 1TB in size (currently the densest available) - that means very high sequential performance.

 

Update: I think WD is starting to possibly introduce 1TB-platter Caviar Black drives. I don't know if it is but it might be.

http://wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=760

Look at the WD5003AZEX. It's a possibility because it has similar weight to the other 1TB-platter drives. Short stroked drive?

I don't really know where to look to see if it is or not. I just checked drive size and weight (lower weight = less platters if they use the same weight platters. Component weight will probably vary slightly).

 

I always consult this guy's site when looking for platter densities: http://rml527.blogspot.com/2010/10/hdd-platter-database-western-digital-35_3899.html
He list the WD5003AZEX as being 1TB / platter with one read/write head.

I probably should have waited for the 1TB single-platter Black drive. Sometimes this WD10EZEX feels seriously quick, like how it gets to the Windows log in screen in 15 seconds from POST and creating thumbnails quickly for videos in a folder I haven't been to in a while. Other times it takes 10-20 seconds just to open a video. I think it might have to do with it doing other things in the background. Is it possible NCQ is causing this? Or maybe this drive just can't do more than one thing at a time.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by HybridCore

Update: I think WD is starting to possibly introduce 1TB-platter Caviar Black drives. I don't know if it is but it might be.

http://wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=760

Look at the WD5003AZEX. It's a possibility because it has similar weight to the other 1TB-platter drives. Short stroked drive?

Interesting.

It's doubtful it's short-stroked, but it may be a single-platter single-side drive, which in theory should have exceptional reliability. People deploying builds for businesses might be interested in them, as reliability is often a bigger concern than space.

I have not been able to locate any HDTune benchmarks for them yet, but the product spec sheets indicate sequential speeds that could only be from 1TB platters.

If the access times are good, it might be a winner of a drive. 500GB drives are dropping back into the $50 range. If the WD5003AZEX reaches that price point, it'd be reasonably good value.
Quote:

Originally Posted by duffman55

I probably should have waited for the 1TB single-platter Black drive. Sometimes this WD10EZEX feels seriously quick, like how it gets to the Windows log in screen in 15 seconds from POST and creating thumbnails quickly for videos in a folder I haven't been to in a while. Other times it takes 10-20 seconds just to open a video. I think it might have to do with it doing other things in the background. Is it possible NCQ is causing this? Or maybe this drive just can't do more than one thing at a time.

It could be your media player. Some take forever to open (Windows Media Player being one of them) while others open really quick. (VLC comes to mind) I'd look into that before blaming the drive. I've seen WMP open fast the first time it launched, then open super slow the second time - it's against all logic at times. Right now I'm using Media Player Classic HC, but I have it (and codecs) installed to SSD. Videos on my WD Green open quite quickly.

 

@ Kramy

Hi, I have a question:

Now, I use WD Caviar Black 640GB SATA2 aka WD6401AALS. I have 35GB partition for Win7 x64, and rest of the disk for software (programs and games), so no data.
I saw Your test with WD10EZEX and like it, so my question is: Which 1TB singleplatter SATA3 drive to buy to replace Blacky 640GB for same use (win7 + software - and no data):

WD10EZEX
Hitachi 7K1000.D
Seagate (that new 1TB model)

...or should I wait WD Blacky 1TB Singleplatter

?

I have SATA3 support on my Asus P8Z77-V board.

In Croatia, prices are more or less the same, few Euro is difference.

SSD is out of the question.

 

I have been looking for a hard drive for general use, and while I intend to set up a RAID array using RE4 1TB drives in the future, I am finally seeing a drive that stands out, the WD Caviar Black 1TB with 1TB platter, as soon as it's released.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by nleksan

I have been looking for a hard drive for general use, and while I intend to set up a RAID array using RE4 1TB drives in the future, I am finally seeing a drive that stands out, the WD Caviar Black 1TB with 1TB platter, as soon as it's released.

When they release it, I bet it will be a great drive. 1TB platter and 5 years warranty.

 

When is it coming out?

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brko

WD10EZEX
Hitachi 7K1000.D
Seagate (that new 1TB model)

...or should I wait WD Blacky 1TB Singleplatter

?

I have SATA3 support on my Asus P8Z77-V board.

In Croatia, prices are more or less the same, few Euro is difference.

SSD is out of the question.

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheLombax

When they release it, I bet it will be a great drive. 1TB platter and 5 years warranty.

Yeah, I'm holding out for that too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kitarist

When is it coming out?

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?

 

These Blues look pretty good - for my next build I might pull in four of these and put them in RAID 10 on my PERC 6/i...even with a 2 year warranty, if they're cheap enough I won't care.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kramy

Perks:
-Tuned for low noise levels. May be quieter than Greens.
-High sequential speeds matching the new Seagates.
-No idle noise or chirping; no other 'Seagate strangeness'.

-Better firmware and NCQ algorithms.
Cons:
-With higher full-drive access times, performance will degrade more if you fill the drive to the brim.
-Not the best candidate for a lone OS-drive.

I currently have a previous model of the Western Digital Blue (WD10EALX), as far as I know this one has two platters.
This new model WD10EZEX looks interesting to me to expand my internal storage.
I would like to use one drive as my primary drive (OS, programs, and some larger storage data) and use my current as WD10EALX only for large storage data.
Since the WD10EZEX seems to be more silent and has faster transfer rate it would be interesting to use it as a primary drive.
Mainly usage is for video editing, so adding a second HDD was already my plan.

As you explain, a single platter is faster then a multiple platter drive. But when you use the more outer areas of the platters, the data is accessed slower.
On a single platter drive the amount of slower accessed data will be larger compared to a multiple platter drive, which should make it not the best candidate for a lone OS-drive?

If I compare my results with the WD10EALX to WD10EZEX: EALX has a slower transfer rate (max 138.3MB/s min 56.9MB/s), but a lower acces time (12.9ms), a little higher burst rate (257.2 MB/s) in my test with HD Tune.

I would like to choose between the WD10EALX or the WD10EZEX.

Anyway, thank you for your review of this hard drive!

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by CorossiNL

I currently have a previous model of the Western Digital Blue (WD10EALX), as far as I know this one has two platters.
This new model WD10EZEX looks interesting to me to expand my internal storage.
I would like to use one drive as my primary drive (OS, programs, and some larger storage data) and use my current as WD10EALX only for large storage data.
Since the WD10EZEX seems to be more silent and has faster transfer rate it would be interesting to use it as a primary drive.

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.
Quote:

Originally Posted by CorossiNL

Mainly usage is for video editing, so adding a second HDD was already my plan.

As you explain, a single platter is faster then a multiple platter drive. But when you use the more outer areas of the platters, the data is accessed slower.

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.
Quote:

Originally Posted by CorossiNL

On a single platter drive the amount of slower accessed data will be larger compared to a multiple platter drive, which should make it not the best candidate for a lone OS-drive?

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.
Quote:

Originally Posted by CorossiNL

If I compare my results with the WD10EALX to WD10EZEX: EALX has a slower transfer rate (max 138.3MB/s min 56.9MB/s), but a lower acces time (12.9ms), a little higher burst rate (257.2 MB/s) in my test with HD Tune.

I would like to choose between the WD10EALX or the WD10EZEX.

Anyway, thank you for your review of this hard drive!

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)