WD Blue SSHD 4TB & 1TB Hybrid Drives

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Lawrence Lee
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WD Blue SSHD 4TB & 1TB Hybrid Drives

Post by Lawrence Lee » Mon Nov 09, 2015 1:16 pm


quest_for_silence
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Re: WD Blue SSHD 4TB & 1TB Hybrid Drives

Post by quest_for_silence » Tue Nov 10, 2015 3:40 am

Thanks for keeping up your good work, Lawrence.

With reference to your conclusion, you wrote that: "The 1TB model in particular should be avoided as it is plagued by unusual seek activity. After some of our tests, it would seek for an inordinate amount of time and when it finally stopped, it would continue to seek less frequently in short sporadic busts, delaying headparking and motor spin-down."

I recently purchased 1TB WD10EZRX and 2TB WD20EZRX (Green, will become Blue, 3.5"): particularly about the 1TB model (but the 2TB also to some degree) I disappointly registered the same, identical defect of that 1TB 2.5 SSHD, which make those drives actually insuitable for SPCR-like rigs.

Has anyone else found that indesiderable behaviour on smallest capacity recent 3.5" WDC drives (either Green, Blue, Red)?
In case, did you disabled the auto-parking "features" using the known utility wdidle3?

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Re: WD Blue SSHD 4TB & 1TB Hybrid Drives

Post by HammerSandwich » Tue Nov 10, 2015 12:12 pm

HD Tune graphs at top of page 3 are labeled backwards.

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Re: WD Blue SSHD 4TB & 1TB Hybrid Drives

Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Sun Dec 13, 2015 6:45 pm

would it make less sense getting this as a secondary drive and buying a 512 gb SSD as primary?

Is this meant for main drive and as a secondary data/music/movie/some excess games be not a great idea?

I wonder if i should just get a 2-4TB storage drive that isnt hybrid. I liked the idea of hybrid loading speeds. most of the things I do are loads. I copy stuff very rarely, move things never. I just download once and park things. Home videos, photos, steam games that arent competitive or fancy, and a 700 Gbyte audio section.

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Re: WD Blue SSHD 4TB & 1TB Hybrid Drives

Post by CA_Steve » Sun Dec 13, 2015 9:34 pm

It's hard for me to see a benefit for the 3.5" drive. Just go with an SSD and a big slow data storage drive. On the other hand, if you need a bunch of space, your laptop can only handle one drive, and you want to save some bucks, then these hybrids may fill a niche.

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Re: WD Blue SSHD 4TB & 1TB Hybrid Drives

Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Sun Dec 13, 2015 9:51 pm

big slow data drive hm. I see HGST has great longevity in servers, the 2-3 tb ones. I was thinking one of them. That would be enough, a 512gb samsung or intel and 2-3 tb drive. More than i would need in my tower.

Any recommendations for 5400-5700 rpm drive HGST?

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Re: WD Blue SSHD 4TB & 1TB Hybrid Drives

Post by SebRad » Mon Dec 14, 2015 6:05 am

Hi, as to would it make sense to use a hybrid drive as a secondary drive is going to depend on what you are doing.
I think they typically have ~8GB of NAND on board, think about the use you'd give the drive and whether the data you'd pull off it regularly would fit in the 8GB and is the data you wand fast access to. These drives try to work out which data you use most often and cache that, presumably it can change, e.g. the game you're constantly playing changes, so the new one gets cached.

It will also depend on the pricing, I would suggest 480-512GB SSD + 5400rpm storage drive will be better than 240-256GB SSD + Hybrid drive (if that's the sort of price trade off you might make) as you will be able to get so much more stuff on the 'pure' SSD, and you will know best what you want on SSD and not.
Also I wouldn't recommend buying an SSD less than 240GB anymore.

Regards, Seb

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Re: WD Blue SSHD 4TB & 1TB Hybrid Drives

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:15 am

One caveat to my earlier advice..I had all my music on a WD Red and got tired of the constant idling/spinup for (I think) nearly every song in my iTunes playlist. A combination of long songs and low idle time set in power options...I ended up throwing my mere 100GB library onto another SSD and setting the HDD idle to 2 minutes. So now, it boots at startup/return from sleep, idles 2 min later and then I never hear from it again unless I'm doing a backup.

So, if your secondary drive is your primary space for music, HDD or hybrid, be aware.

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Re: WD Blue SSHD 4TB & 1TB Hybrid Drives

Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Mon Dec 14, 2015 10:11 am

the pauses would kill me. I dont use Itunes for songs. But, I do que up lots of songs and some are albums. That pause would make me want to stab people. Anyway of keeping the drive going nonstop?

Making me think that I should get 1TB 850 EVO and a 256 EVO. That would probably have enough space for a while for me. I am at 740 out of 1 TB usage now.

I hear Intel's are good drives but i do not see them reviewed much. I am only concerned about longevity. Speed will be there if i buy a high density new hd like 3-4 TB or any SSD of quality. However, pausing is absolutely a no go. If i needed to put a game on it, that would be terrible.

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Re: WD Blue SSHD 4TB & 1TB Hybrid Drives

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Dec 14, 2015 1:35 pm

It's not that there was a pause (there's some level of caching/lookahead going on), it's that my aggressive idle setting caused spin up and spin down noises that were irritating. You can always go into windows power options and set it so Windows doesn't idle the drive.

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