WD WD10EADS-00P8B0 1TB 2-platters?

SleepyBum · Post by **SleepyBum** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 1:21 pm

Fry's is having a sale on WD10EADS drives this week for $60. So I went down today to pick one up.

As usual with WD products, there's are a lot of different sub-models on available. From the deal forums, people have been getting WD10EADS-00L5B1 (3-platter), WD10EADS-00M2B0 (2-platter), and WD10EADS-00P8B0.

At the Fry's I went to, the model I got was WD10EADS-00P8B0 Made in Malaysia Aug 22 2009.

There isn't much information on this model, so I took some pics and did some HD Tune benchmarks. It looks like it's a 2x 500GB platter drive as it can hit 108 MB/s at the outer tracks. Seems to be about the same transfer rate as the WD10EADS-00M2B0, but that one has a much smoother curve from the screenshots I've seen.

In comparison the WD10EADS-00L5B1 (3-platter) I bought back in April can only hit 91 MB/s.

The only thing is the transfer curve on this the new 2-platter drive is very spikey, not smooth. Also, the burst rate seems to be off... Might be the system I was testing on, it's different than the 3-platter drive system.

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 5:34 pm

Just ordered one from Newegg for my WHS system. Hopefully I get a gooderer one.

Sounds like the M2B0 is the one to get?

edit: saw you over at the chubbypurse thread for it too

just tried ordering from Fry's online, it says it's available but the order isn't going through, oh well. Or all the tries will show up shortly. I hope not.

Grossmeister · Post by **Grossmeister** » Sun Nov 15, 2009 4:01 pm

Seems like this (WD10EADS-00P8B0) is 5000rpm (not 5400rpm) model. Is there any improvement about noise level?

Also does it make load/unload all the time?

SleepyBum · Post by **SleepyBum** » Wed Dec 02, 2009 8:45 pm

Grossmeister wrote:Seems like this (WD10EADS-00P8B0) is 5000rpm (not 5400rpm) model. Is there any improvement about noise level? :) Also does it make load/unload all the time?

I've been testing this HD externally. Some of quirks which freaks me out a bit. At startup, it makes that click-of-death sound two times. That seek/scratch-click/beep sound. Very unnerving to hear that sound coming from a HD. But I've tested it with the WD Utility and it says it's OK.

The other issue is when I unplug the data cable, but leave it powered on. I'm using it externally with a USB-SATA cable. When there's power, but no data, it does this wild trashing/seeking. When it does this, it's audible. I think this is the first HD to do this. I dunno if it's some level wearing thing. But after 2 minutes it was still doing it, so I unplugged it from power.

During normal operations, the noise level on it is very quiet. Might be even quieter than the Samsung F2 Ecogreen 1TB HD103SI I have. Very mild, mellow sounding at speed. Can hardly hear the seeks. From 2ft away, I'd say it's silent.

I did not hear the head offload on this drive. Maybe because it's not doing it because it's external. But the head offload might be getting better. My old, old 1TB WD10EACS (4-platter 16MB cache) and 500GB WD5000AACS have very noticeable head offload sound. But I don't notice it that much in the WD10EADS-00L5B1. Maybe they're improving on it.

Looking at the graphs, this might be a bit faster than the 00M2B0. But has a more spikey curve.

The little quirks are scaring me a bit and since this is a new model, reliability is unknown on it, so I'm just testing it for now. Hope some others who have this model report in their findings.

aztec · Post by **aztec** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 2:52 am

Are the ones from Newegg all WD10EADS-00M2B0 now?

after reading this post, I'd rather not take the chance on getting a 500RPM version.

Thanks!

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 8:30 pm

Looks like the way to get the most modern 1TB greenpower is to look for the 64MB cache that the WD10EARS has.

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/S ... 701229.pdf doesn't make any claim that the new ones are quieter. But it looks like they fixed the head parking issue by just not letting the drive ever go idle.

aztec · Post by **aztec** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 3:35 am

The EARS are in stock in some retailers already, though holding shipment for offical realease.

Hovering from $90-100.

Good stuff!

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 3:02 pm

aztec wrote:The EARS are in stock in some retailers already

Where?

aztec · Post by **aztec** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 1:34 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:
aztec wrote:The EARS are in stock in some retailers already
Where?

http://www.excaliberpc.com/594705/weste ... 0ears.html

1400+ in stock.

scratch that. the drive is widely available now.

aztec · Post by **aztec** » Wed Dec 16, 2009 5:19 pm

Ralf,

let us know if you get the EARS drive and what your impressions are.

Thanks!

Alexandrus · Post by **Alexandrus** » Sat Dec 19, 2009 6:08 pm

The EARS is not so widely available because it's the new Advanced Format drive with 4kb sectors and will create a few problems with some OSes.
Here : http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3691

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sun Dec 20, 2009 7:30 am

aztec wrote:Ralf,

let us know if you get the EARS drive and what your impressions are.

Thanks!

After reading that Anandtech article, I won't be getting any EARS drives. All my OS'es are Win XP and I'm not going to kludge around with the file systems on every one of my HDDs just so that they work correctly with the 4kb sectors on the new WD drives.

Alexandrus · Post by **Alexandrus** » Sun Dec 20, 2009 9:06 am

It's as simple as a jumper setting before installing the drive or a command line after creating and formating the partition.