Fastest consumer 2TB HDD?

[riahc3]

What is the fastest consumer 2TB HDD?

I added the word consumer because even though it falls in the category, WD VelociRaptor line at 1TB for $500 is way too much for a regular consumer.

Just want your standard 7200rpm, 64mb cache but fastest at a decent price

Right now Im looking at the WD2003FZEX at $140 A bit steep IMO...

 

[Compman55]

The WD black seems to be the fastest when I read up about them a while ago. Check out the storagereview website.

 

[Blue_Max]

Drives like the Raptor and WD Black are fast across the entire drive, loading all games, copying data, etc.

OTOH, I've had good experiences with drive caching. I like the Seagate hybrid SSHD drives with 8GB of built-in caching for making your most common apps spring up quick, and Intel's SRT technology of adding a 64GB SSD as pure cache to a big hard drive.

The Seagate SSHD is a nice balance since it's only $10-20 more than a regular drive and cheaper than a Black.

 

[riahc3]

Drives like the Raptor and WD Black are fast across the entire drive, loading all games, copying data, etc.

OTOH, I've had good experiences with drive caching. I like the Seagate hybrid SSHD drives with 8GB of built-in caching for making your most common apps spring up quick, and Intel's SRT technology of adding a 64GB SSD as pure cache to a big hard drive.

The Seagate SSHD is a nice balance since it's only $10-20 more than a regular drive and cheaper than a Black.

Actually its surprising:

ST2000DX001 at 94,99€
WD2003FZEX at 123,00€

Unless I see something about the SSHD that someone has to say here, Ill go with that Seagate. Does WD have SSHD? How are they?

 

[Blue_Max]

It won't load a BIG file or game faster, but the common little stuff like startup, office, and browser windows are unquestionably fast. It's a balance I'm happy with.

 

[smitbret]

Did WD finally put 1TB platters in their Blacks? If not, the $80 Seagate Barracudas scream. I have 3 in my server and they burst over 200MB/s, sustained transfer rate is 148-160MB/s depending on which of the 3 I am testing.

 

[greenhawk]

Unless I see something about the SSHD that someone has to say here, Ill go with that Seagate. Does WD have SSHD? How are they?

I find the SSHD from seagate not worth having if you have space for a actual drive or drive/ssd combo. But that is partly to do with the seagate SSHD's generally having a 5400rpm drive in them (laptop version).

But then I also find the cost increase for having the ssd feature is a bit high for only a 8GB ssd component that has to learn how you use your computer.

edit: WD did/are trying a hdd/sdd drive, but it is more of a hdd with a in built ssd as you can address both devices separately, but need a suitable controller IIRC.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=1190

 

[greenhawk]

Did WD finally put 1TB platters in their Blacks?

I have 3 in my server and they burst over 200MB/s, sustained transfer rate is 148-160MB/s depending on which of the 3 I am testing.

http://www.storagereview.com/wd_black_4tb_desktop_hard_drive_review_wd4003fzex

Current black with 1TB platter is the 1Tb drive, the rest of the range is 800GB platters.

Regarding bust speed - generally a poor indicator of a drive as it is a measure of speed from the cache to the host, not something that lasts very long given the 32-64MB of ram in the cache.

Sustained speed is good, but for a OS drive, it is seek times and 4K access numbers which give a better indication of a fast/responsive drive or system.

 

[riahc3]

I find the SSHD from seagate not worth having if you have space for a actual drive or drive/ssd combo. But that is partly to do with the seagate SSHD's generally having a 5400rpm drive in them (laptop version).

But then I also find the cost increase for having the ssd feature is a bit high for only a 8GB ssd component that has to learn how you use your computer.

edit: WD did/are trying a hdd/sdd drive, but it is more of a hdd with a in built ssd as you can address both devices separately, but need a suitable controller IIRC.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=1190

http://www.seagate.com/www-content/product-content/sshd-fam/desktop-sshd/en-us/docs/100726566c.pdf

As you can see from that spec sheet, it does run at 7200rpm...

 

[Soulkeeper]

The seagate DM drives with 1TB/platter beat the 667-800GB/platter WD blacks in most benchmarks i've seen. Some of the earlier 2TB DM drives had 3 platters instead of 2 and performed slightly slower. I'm not sure if those are still floating around.
The new red "pro" drives are the only 7200rpm 1TB/platter WD drives larger than 1TB which are out right now that I know of.

This is a good source of information on platter density and model numbers:
http://rml527.blogspot.com/

 

[jumpncrash]

Did WD finally put 1TB platters in their Blacks? If not, the $80 Seagate Barracudas scream. I have 3 in my server and they burst over 200MB/s, sustained transfer rate is 148-160MB/s depending on which of the 3 I am testing.

they also die rather quickly, we have a few thousand seagates at work and are phasing them all out. And by a few thousand I mean around 10k

 

[Soulkeeper]

they also die rather quickly, we have a few thousand seagates at work and are phasing them all out. And by a few thousand I mean around 10k

Interesting, could you give us a little more info on what you're seeing ?
~10K consumer seagate drives ? what are your failure rates ?
Are these the new 1TB/platter drives or a collection of various generations/models ?

 

[smitbret]

they also die rather quickly, we have a few thousand seagates at work and are phasing them all out. And by a few thousand I mean around 10k

I wouldn't expect the Seagates to survive in that environment and they are certainly not as well built as the Blacks.

I chose FlexRAID rather than hardware RAID or ZFS which means that not all drives are spinning at the same time and hopefully saving wear and tear as well as less heat and vibration. Had I chosen something else besides FlexRAID I would have gone with something slower but more durable like the WD Reds.

 

[Soulkeeper]

It seems I made a mistake above.
According to the anandtech review and the HD database website, the red pro drives aren't 1TB/platter. I thought I read it was somewhere else. http://www.anandtech.com/show/8265/wd-red-pro-review-4-tb-drives-for-nas-systems-benchmarked/2