WD5000aacs vs WD6400aaks for single-drive system

darkbulb · Post by **darkbulb** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 4:12 am

Hi everyone

I really need to change my HDD, and apparently these two are the best choices in my price&storage space range. One other candidate seems to be Samsung's F1 640GB, but that's nowhere in sight out here (Romania).

While I haven't seen any actual figures for the 500GB GP, i think it's safe to assume it's slower than wd6400aaks. But what about noise? If I take the 640G and enable AAM, won't I end up with something slower than the GreenPower?
Currently I have a WD2500JS (some sort of 2500KS with half the cache, if I remember correctly), and I find it unbearable without AAM (I don't suspend it, just the rubber grommets of Antec 3000B). How would these new beasts compare to it?
Well, there's also the issue of price, as the 6400 is about 30% more expensive here, and much harder to find. Would it be worth that kind of difference? I understand that in the States the difference is much smaller...

Please share your thoughts

mertsag · Post by **mertsag** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 10:12 am

Go for WD5000AACS.
There's only little difference in performance with AAKS. Only little difference in noise too. With AAC, differences are even smaller. So go for the most silent. Or the cheapest. Or the most available. In all cases, it's seems to be AACS here...

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:22 am

mertsag wrote:Go for WD5000AACS.
There's only little difference in performance with AAKS. Only little difference in noise too.

WD6400AAKS is much faster than a WD5000AACS. Likely the fastest drive for the price out there right now.

If you want something cheaper than the former but faster than the latter get a 500GB P7K500 (same price as WD5000AACS, but 7200rpm, not 5400rpm).

darkbulb · Post by **darkbulb** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 12:43 pm

Actually I'm starting to have doubts myself about the GP. I only fond these perf. numbers:
http://www.hardware.info/productdb/bGNk ... _GB_SATA2/

If the numbers are correct, it seems almost as slow as my current drive (I get about 50MB/s average read, and if I recall correctly the access time was a bit better, ~13ms vs 14.6 for the GreenPower, I can't test right now without AAM)

How's that P7K500 sound-wise? I have no prior experience with Hitachi, I've used mostly Seagate and WD...

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 1:00 pm

darkbulb wrote:How's that P7K500 sound-wise? I have no prior experience with Hitachi, I've used mostly Seagate and WD...

Very, very quiet. Hard mounted it is quieter than my WD3200AAKS mounted on foam. I might just have gotten an especially quiet one, though.

darkbulb · Post by **darkbulb** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 1:24 pm

Never mind, apparently the P7K500 is in the same situation as the 6400AAKS. I can only find it at a couple of retailers, and the price is actually bigger than the GP (it's right in between the GP and the 6400AAKS).

Back to the drawing board... So far, it seems I'll just wait 1-2 weeks to see if the prices settle and then go for the 6400KS. It sucks not to have a choice.

Does anyone recommend any Seagate model these days?

FartingBob · Post by **FartingBob** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 2:51 pm

Seagate are very middle of the road these days. Not the fastest or slowest. Not the loudest or quietest. I expect them to release a new model soon though, its been a while and with samsung and WD having new high density models out, its only a matter of time.

kaledi · Post by **kaledi** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 5:34 pm

I've just replaced my WD5000AAKS for a WD5000AACS on my main PC and have to say that the GP drive is slower. However the difference isn't as much as I thought it would be. It is also considerably quiter. The AAKS was quiet in seeks, but the intrinsic spin sound was louder.
The AACS is actually a stop gap until I get a WD6400AAKS, when they eventually come to the UK. The 640GB drive will become my OS drive and the AACS will be one of my data drives, which will make a very silent system

darkbulb · Post by **darkbulb** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 1:42 am

kaledi wrote:I've just replaced my WD5000AAKS for a WD5000AACS on my main PC and have to say that the GP drive is slower. However the difference isn't as much as I thought it would be. It is also considerably quiter. The AAKS was quiet in seeks, but the intrinsic spin sound was louder.
The AACS is actually a stop gap until I get a WD6400AAKS, when they eventually come to the UK. The 640GB drive will become my OS drive and the AACS will be one of my data drives, which will make a very silent system

Kaledi, were you using AAM on any of them?
As I said above, the GP should be a bit faster than my current drive, especially if I can get by without AAM enabled. But the 6400AAKS seems quite a bit faster than that, the sound and the price/avaliability being my main concerns now.
If you do get it, please post your subjective comparison. Apparently I will have to wait a bit longer anyway, as the 6400AAKS is not even in stock.

kaledi · Post by **kaledi** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 5:52 am

no AAM set on any of the drives.
The WD5000AACS does make seek noises consistent with any other WD drive I have used. I should say though that the drive is an ICYdock Backplane, which doesn't offer a great deal of sound insulation or isolation from the case.
The biggest difference in sound of this drive compared to the WD5000AAKS (and other 3 or 4 platter 7200rpm WD drives) is the idle sound and vibration. The idle sound is very quiet indeed and there is virtually no vibration

Luminair · Post by **Luminair** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 8:57 am

> If I take the 640G and enable AAM, won't I end up with something slower than the GreenPower?

WHAT, no

darkbulb · Post by **darkbulb** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 11:54 pm

kaledi wrote:The WD5000AACS does make seek noises consistent with any other WD drive I have used.

Thanks for clearing that up. I guess I'll take the extra speed of the 6400AAKS.

kaledi wrote:The biggest difference in sound of this drive compared to the WD5000AAKS (and other 3 or 4 platter 7200rpm WD drives) is the idle sound and vibration. The idle sound is very quiet indeed and there is virtually no vibration

So you think that shouldn't be a problem with 6400AAKS because it has 2 platters? I can't seem to find any info right now, but I think my 2500JS has 2 platters@7200RPM and it kind of vibrates...

darkbulb · Post by **darkbulb** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 12:06 am

Luminair wrote:> If I take the 640G and enable AAM, won't I end up with something slower than the GreenPower?

WHAT, no

Thanks for clearing that up, and with good arguments

Has anyone found any benchmarks on this. I mean real-life, not HDtune, which only shows that, quite surprisingly

, the access time drops.

kaledi · Post by **kaledi** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 2:44 pm

So I picked up a Wd6400AAKS today from Overclockers in the UK
Great price too at Â£70 - WD really do appear to be aggressively using this drive as a better value drive than 500GB
Anyhow, transferred my OS from the WD5000AACS I have and doing some other big data transfers at the moment, so these are only my initial impressions
Sound - consistent with the GP drives, seeks are as quiet; vibration is very low - probably as low as the GP and definitely lower than the WD5000AAKS it is replacing.
Speed - I got a peak of over 110mb/s in HD tune and Windows loading (from the point of logging in) is def quicker than the GP drive
Temps - low approx 30 deg C idle and up to 34 deg C under big file transfers. This compares to about 28 deg C idle on the AACS and about 30 deg C under load.
At the price and performance, I'm almost regretting getting the 500 GB GP drive

All in all, very pleased with my purchase - the single annoying thing is that Vista asks for re-activation (again) because I've transferred the OS to another HDD

darkbulb · Post by **darkbulb** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:25 am

To go off my own topic, I finally decided to go for the Samsung hd250hj. (Basically, I'm a scrooge and didn't want to pay for the larger drives

)
So far I'm pleased with it, more details in the dedicated thread after I finish the installation.

Thanks everyone for your opinions. For the record, between the two I definitely would have picked the 6400.
Kaledi, congratulations for your purchase.

DragonOptical · Post by **DragonOptical** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 6:47 am

@kaledi: thx for your post!

I was hesitating between getting two WD6400AAKS or one WD6400AAKS for my OS and a WD7500AACS (GP) as a storage drive, but in the end I am going to buy two WD6400AAKS's as this drive is getting praises from everyone (2 bad SPCR didn't reviewed it yet).