Hello!

Has anyone here compared WD20EARS and EARX to each other? From spec sheet ([url]http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-701229.pdf[/url]) it looks to me that both share mechanical structure and the only difference is in SATA speed supported (3Gbit/s and 6Gbit/s).

Is that correct?

Hi zds, yes I think it's just the interface speed. Probably some other minor details in the control chips, circuit board etc have changed too but I think they are fundamentally very similar.
I have a 2TB EARX, it's in a Scythe Quiet Drive, sitting on foam outside my case, like the Samsung F3 1TB I had before it.


I used to be aware of the noise of the F3 certainly seeks and occationally the idle noise. I'm not aware of the WD making any noise at all! However my PC isn't as quiet as it was and the WD is storage drive with SSD as system drive where the F3 was the system and only drive.
I've got the WD hooked up to the secondary SATA 3 controller in my system, Marvel one, and I'm quite happy with it. Performance seems fine, think over 100MB/sec potential and no noise I've noticed.

Regards, Seb

Thank you! I have one WD20EARS now and I've been very pleased with it, too. In quiet home environment you need to be quite close and concentrate to hear it at all, even without enclosure. "Quite close" means "tens of centimeters if not meter", not "centimeters" here. Ie. few feet, not inches.

One of the disks on our home server shows signs of looming failure, so I'm surfing what disk to replace it with, and WD20EARX indeed looks the best option right now.. SMART does not report anything odd on any of the drives, and MD RAID sets check OK, but some of the drives has started to make unusual noises in past few days, something I have not heard before, so better be prepared..