Best hdd with at least 500 GB

SSLazio · Post by **SSLazio** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 11:07 am

What's the best hdd with at least 500 GB capacity ? regarding noise, performance, and cost ?

Post by **CA_Steve** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 1:38 pm

check here

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 1:40 pm

If you need a balance of all three (noise/performance/cost), then WD Blue 640Gb is the way to go, as CA_Steve implied.

Post by **CA_Steve** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 4:00 pm

Hey! What are you implying!

Ch0z3n · Post by **Ch0z3n** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 5:16 pm

There's no 500gb platter drives that are worth their salt yet?

Post by **CA_Steve** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 6:08 pm

Seems like WD, etc are focused on applying the new 500GB/platter tech to 1TB+ drives at the moment....so, if you don't need that kind of capacity or don't want to pay the price, the 2x 320GB platters are the current sweet spot. I'm sure this opinion has a half-life of maybe a month or three.

ekerazha · Post by **ekerazha** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 1:39 am

Caviar Black 640 GB

Ch0z3n · Post by **Ch0z3n** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 1:59 am

Why on earth would he want a black? It loses to blue in 2 of the 3 categories, cost and quiet.

Yeah, they need to hurry up and come out with a 500gb platter Blue, 1 or 2 platters. That would be awesome.

ekerazha · Post by **ekerazha** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 7:49 am

Ch0z3n wrote:Why on earth would he want a black? It loses to blue in 2 of the 3 categories, cost and quiet.

Because the price difference is negligible and so is the noise difference (on the WD site they have the same acoustics specs). Black edition is newer, a bit faster and it is guaranteed for 5 years.

For a comparison between 640GB Black and 640GB Blue take a look at the last messages here: viewtopic.php?t=51343

Ch0z3n · Post by **Ch0z3n** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 7:54 am

lol, never trust manufacturer acoustics... scythe says the 800rpm s-flex is like 8db.

ekerazha · Post by **ekerazha** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 8:00 am

Ch0z3n wrote:lol, never trust manufacturer acoustics... scythe says the 800rpm s-flex is like 8db.

Maybe you should if you compare products from the same manufacturer... not in an absolute way but in a relative way.

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 9:14 am

ekerazha wrote:
Ch0z3n wrote:lol, never trust manufacturer acoustics... scythe says the 800rpm s-flex is like 8db.
Maybe you should if you compare products from the same manufacturer... not in an absolute way but in a relative way.

No, that's still stupid.

Intel's Core 2 Duo TDP's are all 65W, for example... Yet if you compare the E6600 to the E8400, you'll see that neither of them use up to 65W, and that one is more efficient than the other. Intel COULD have put E8400's TDP as 35W if they wanted.

And another thing - you think that WD would want to criticize their own more expensive version of an HDD? Hmm... Find a legitimate review that compares the two products before making assumptions like this.

Post by **CA_Steve** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 11:50 am

spcr article on the 1TB Black

frEEk · Post by **frEEk** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 12:41 pm

The Samsung HD502HI is a fairly new single platter 5400RPM unit that may be a contender. SPCR has one now, so you ought to see a review likely within a couple weeks. Some discussion of the drive at /forums/viewtopic.php?t=51496

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 1:27 pm

frEEk wrote:The Samsung HD502HI is a fairly new single platter 5400RPM unit that may be a contender. SPCR has one now, so you ought to see a review likely within a couple weeks. Some discussion of the drive at /forums/viewtopic.php?t=51496

There's no way that a 5400RPM Samsung would outperform the WD Blue, though. That said, it's cheap enough and probably quiet.

ekerazha · Post by **ekerazha** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 1:51 pm

shleepy wrote:
ekerazha wrote:
Ch0z3n wrote:lol, never trust manufacturer acoustics... scythe says the 800rpm s-flex is like 8db.
Maybe you should if you compare products from the same manufacturer... not in an absolute way but in a relative way.
No, that's still stupid.

Intel's Core 2 Duo TDP's are all 65W, for example... Yet if you compare the E6600 to the E8400, you'll see that neither of them use up to 65W, and that one is more efficient than the other. Intel COULD have put E8400's TDP as 35W if they wanted.

Your example is just plain wrong:

1) TDP does not indicate how many Watts a CPU use.

2) Moreover, TDPs are specified for families of CPUs, so you can find that a Core i7 2.66 Ghz has the same TDP specs of a Core i7 3.2 Ghz, but this has nothing to do with HDDs acoustics.

And another thing - you think that WD would want to criticize their own more expensive version of an HDD? Hmm... Find a legitimate review that compares the two products before making assumptions like this.

VelociRaptors are more expensive and still noisier by specs, so your remarks are plaing wrong, again.

ekerazha · Post by **ekerazha** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 1:53 pm

CA_Steve wrote:spcr article on the 1TB Black

1 TB version acoustic is not comparable to the 640 GB version acoustic because it does have one more platter and of course it is noisier

frEEk · Post by **frEEk** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 1:55 pm

Oh absolutely. The 500G platter gives it a boost but it will clearly fall well short of a 7200rpm 500G single platter drive. But if you are more interested in noise than performance, then it may be a good option. The real question really is how well they will compare to a 500G single platter WD GP (which AFAIK isn't available yet).

frEEk · Post by **frEEk** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 2:02 pm

ekerazha wrote:1 TB version acoustic is not comparable to the 640 GB version acoustic because it does have one more platter and of course it is noisier

Any acoustic is comparable to any other acoustic. Moreover "of course it is noisier" is completely false. There are plenty of cases where a drive with more platters is quieter. Depends on the design and construction (I'm assuming same spindle speed of course).

Ch0z3n · Post by **Ch0z3n** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 2:06 pm

Seriously people, stop attacking each other and calling each other names.

The VelociRaptor is also not in direct competition with the Blue or Black. But seriously, "Buy the new WD Black, it has a marginal performance boost over the Blue with only an increase in heat and noise!" is not a very easy sales pitch.

It would be valid to compare noise figures between a company's different drives if there was some way to verify that the posted noise numbers were tested the same way and that the numbers were legitimate. But, as it is, there is no way to verify that, so they don't mean a lot, at least to me.

ekerazha · Post by **ekerazha** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 2:19 pm

frEEk wrote:
ekerazha wrote:1 TB version acoustic is not comparable to the 640 GB version acoustic because it does have one more platter and of course it is noisier
Any acoustic is comparable to any other acoustic. Moreover "of course it is noisier" is completely false. There are plenty of cases where a drive with more platters is quieter. Depends on the design and construction (I'm assuming same spindle speed of course).

Yeah it is but you are not comparing apples-to-apples.

Moreover, there are no cases where a 3-platter version of a disk is quieter than a 2-platter version of the same disk series.

Of course a 2-platter Maxtor could be noisier than a 3-platter Western Digital, but this is not what we are talking about.

ekerazha · Post by **ekerazha** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 2:25 pm

Ch0z3n wrote: The VelociRaptor is also not in direct competition with the Blue or Black. But seriously, "Buy the new WD Black, it has a marginal performance boost over the Blue with only an increase in heat and noise!" is not a very easy sales pitch.

Following your reasoning, WD should retire Caviar Blue from the market and should sell only Caviar Black with an higher price.

However...

dhanson865 wrote:
ekerazha wrote:
dhanson865 wrote:Head to head comparisons of the WD6401AALS versus the WD6400AAKS at http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?p=5888537
but what about noise?
I had a WD6401AALS sitting on my desk powered up and formatting, testing for bad sectors last week. If I put my ear near the drive I could barely hear the drive going from sector to sector rapidly but there was no noise I'd consider undesirable.

I was pleased that the drive stayed cool at idle with no airflow nearby hard mounted in a drive cage that was removed from the server the drives were going in (It got nice and toasty if left without airflow during long periods of disk activity). I put a fan (a big box fan unrelated to computer use) pointed at it after I was done listening for noise. I turned it off for a few seconds during the later testing to listen to active noise.

After that I put the drives in a server that is by no means quiet and I haven't bought one for home use yet but I have bought several for work and I see no reason why anyone should avoid the Black edition for noise concerns.

If you are that sensitive about drive noise that it is more important than performance you want the Green edition. If you aren't bothered by the noise of the Blue edition the Black sounds just as nice.

Again the caveat is that I'm only speaking of the 2 platter 640GB models. If you get a 3 platter monster you are on your own.

Source: viewtopic.php?t=51343

Of course this could be subjective... do you have any objective test about 640 GB Black VS 640 GB Blue?

frEEk · Post by **frEEk** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 2:46 pm

ekerazha wrote:Yeah it is but you are not comparing apples-to-apples.

Moreover, there are no cases where a 3-platter version of a disk is quieter than a 2-platter version of the same disk series.

Of course a 2-platter Maxtor could be noisier than a 3-platter Western Digital, but this is not what we are talking about.

Well this is clearly your typical semantics debate. If you set ALL variables the same, then yes the 3 platter version should theoretically be noisier. However as drive design and construction tends to vary alot over time, that is a dangerous statement. For example, there's the case of one particular model of drive (can't remember which one, sorry) where an earlier batch and a later batch had different ribbing in the case, and the result was one was significantly quieter than the other. Since this was within the same series/model number, clearly a simple comparison between capacities of a particular model line is like comparing Granny Smith apples to Macintosh apples. Mostly the same, but by no means guaranteed accurate.

And yes, I realize I'm being picky here, but it strikes me as important. Plus inaccuracy is a personal pet peeve.

ekerazha · Post by **ekerazha** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 3:01 pm

frEEk wrote:
ekerazha wrote:Yeah it is but you are not comparing apples-to-apples.

Moreover, there are no cases where a 3-platter version of a disk is quieter than a 2-platter version of the same disk series.

Of course a 2-platter Maxtor could be noisier than a 3-platter Western Digital, but this is not what we are talking about.
Well this is clearly your typical semantics debate. If you set ALL variables the same, then yes the 3 platter version should theoretically be noisier. However as drive design and construction tends to vary alot over time, that is a dangerous statement. For example, there's the case of one particular model of drive (can't remember which one, sorry) where an earlier batch and a later batch had different ribbing in the case, and the result was one was significantly quieter than the other. Since this was within the same series/model number, clearly a simple comparison between capacities of a particular model line is like comparing Granny Smith apples to Macintosh apples. Mostly the same, but by no means guaranteed accurate.

And yes, I realize I'm being picky here, but it strikes me as important. Plus inaccuracy is a personal pet peeve.

If you really want to be picky, you can also have different behaviours from disks in the same batch: this is called "sample variance". We don't live in an ideal world. But this isn't the point.

frEEk · Post by **frEEk** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 3:06 pm

Absolutely true on the batch variance (same like any manufactured good really).

And by now I understand your point to be a simple case of "as a general rule, more platters will be noisier", which is of course undeniably correct y within a particular series.

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:02 pm

ekerazha wrote: VelociRaptors are more expensive and still noisier by specs, so your remarks are plaing wrong, again.

Well, obviously. They're completely different kinds of HDD's. And they are unquestionably faster; the Velociraptor was originally marketed at performance enthusiasts, not money-conscious SPCR members.

But the whole point of my two examples (including the TDP one) is that hardware manufacturers are not entirely accurate. As you pointed out, the TDP is for the series of CPU's rather than individual processors, and it's not supposed to be an accurate representation of power usage or cooling requirements. But why? What use is that vague, inaccurate info? There's no logical reason that I can think of, other than for convenience. That's the point of including that analogy, even though I know it's not a great one. With WD, it'd be more of a case of "Can we get away with posting the same acoustic rating? Sure, they're close enough."

By the way, the first link you posted in the thread had a few posts that mentioned that Blue is quieter. I find it hard to imagine that an average Blue will be exactly as quiet as an average Black yet perform better, when the drives are so similar. When we're not talking about drives that are extremely outdated vs. a new generation, you are bound to make some sacrifices.

I think your best point so far is that there's an additional 2 years on the warranty for the Black series. For other things - (1) don't get so offended at other people's posts and (2) don't side with the manufacturer; assume the worst, unless there's a general consensus about something not being so bad.

So far, I see some conflicting posts about the drives being either noticeably louder or at least marginally louder.

ekerazha · Post by **ekerazha** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 11:01 pm

shleepy wrote:
ekerazha wrote: VelociRaptors are more expensive and still noisier by specs, so your remarks are plaing wrong, again.
Well, obviously. They're completely different kinds of HDD's. And they are unquestionably faster; the Velociraptor was originally marketed at performance enthusiasts, not money-conscious SPCR members.

Not really, VelociRaptors was originally marketed at Enterprise field, but they are also used by "performance enthusiasts" users.

Black series is oriented to "performance enthusiasts", while Green for "cool and quiet enthusiasts" etc. so there are not many reasons why WD should lie on acoustic specs for Black series, also for the reasons I've already said in other messages.

But the whole point of my two examples (including the TDP one) is that hardware manufacturers are not entirely accurate. As you pointed out, the TDP is for the series of CPU's rather than individual processors, and it's not supposed to be an accurate representation of power usage or cooling requirements. But why? What use is that vague, inaccurate info? There's no logical reason that I can think of, other than for convenience. That's the point of including that analogy, even though I know it's not a great one.

Yeah that's not a great analogy... Caviar Black 1 TB and Caviar Black 640 GB are in the same "series" (Black series) and they have different acoustic specs, so this isn't the case.

With WD, it'd be more of a case of "Can we get away with posting the same acoustic rating? Sure, they're close enough."

You can't say this until you prove it. Until you prove it, WD specs are the only apples-to-apples data we have

Atm you have to live with this. Me too.

By the way, the first link you posted in the thread had a few posts that mentioned that Blue is quieter. I find it hard to imagine that an average Blue will be exactly as quiet as an average Black yet perform better, when the drives are so similar. When we're not talking about drives that are extremely outdated vs. a new generation, you are bound to make some sacrifices.

I think your best point so far is that there's an additional 2 years on the warranty for the Black series. For other things - (1) don't get so offended at other people's posts and (2) don't side with the manufacturer; assume the worst, unless there's a general consensus about something not being so bad. So far, I see some conflicting posts about the drives being either noticeably louder or at least marginally louder.

Yeah there are a few posts that mentioned that Blue is a little bit quieter but other posts that mentioned they are substantially the same.

So we have:
*) Blue series maybe is a little bit quieter (and they are equal by WD specs and for some users)
*) Black series is a little bit faster (and cache size is doubled)
*) Black series is newer, with newer technology (dual processor etc.) and it is guaranteed 5 years vs 3 years of the Blue series.

Assuming these points, I'd choose the 640 GB Black Edition everyday. I do know many of you own a 640 GB Blue Edition and want to defend what they bought, but we should be as objective as possible.

However... in a long discussion you can easily overcome my points with some rhetoric, as English is not my native language... it took about 35 minutes for me to write this post