WD 1.5 TB 64MB cache Drive question

[choliscott]

Hello Everyone, I picked up a 1.5 WD Model #WD15EARS on a whim.

I've been reading mixed reviews & still deciding if I want to keep it or return it. However I had a couple questions..

1) Has anybody used this model drive & what did you think.

2) Does anybody know what the RPM for the drive is since I can't find anything that says this?

3) Since the drive has 64 megs of cache, what would be a couple things that I would see the difference?

Thanks!!

 

[notposting]

It's a 5400 rpm drive. Great for storage and media streaming, not too good for a system drive, though the platter density offsets the low rotational speed a bit.

Will find out how they perform pretty soon, have to go finish putting my server back together. Formatted and partitioned them in Windows 7 so I think they should be good to go in the WHS.

 

[choliscott]

Thank you for the response. Not sure if I'll like it being a 5400 rpm drive (since I did in the past notice a difference when 5400 was the norm, going to a 7200 rpm drive, but it might be a different notice now).

I did read that Frys is supposed to have the 2 TB on sale this week, so I might check on that.

It's a 5400 rpm drive. Great for storage and media streaming, not too good for a system drive, though the platter density offsets the low rotational speed a bit.

Will find out how they perform pretty soon, have to go finish putting my server back together. Formatted and partitioned them in Windows 7 so I think they should be good to go in the WHS.

 

[KeithP]

I did read that Frys is supposed to have the 2 TB on sale this week, so I might check on that.

I don't have the ad in front of me but I believe it was WD 2TB Green HD for $129.

-KeithP

 

[jdjbuffalo]

All the WD "Green" drives are 5400 RPM. This is the case for all the "cheap" 1TB-2TB hard drives from every manufacturer. Most do have 7200 RPM versions but they are significantly more expensive (usually 40 - 75% more).

If you are using it for media storage and playback then the 5400 RPM drives will be plenty fine. If you are using it for your OS / Apps drive then it will be noticeably slower. I recommend a small 100GB - 500GB OS / Apps drive with a 7200 RPM drive and everything else on the 5400 RPM drives. If you can afford it then I'd go with an SSD for your OS / Apps but I realize this isn't in everyone's budget.

 

[RebateMonger]

Hitachi has a 2 TB 7200 rpm disk that has been offered in the current "bargain" range of $120 to $140 by Frys and others.

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I recently purchased a 2TB Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EADS 5400 rpm, 32MB Cache.

Here's the HD Tune 2.55 disk benchmark results of that disk attached to a ThermalTake eSATA dock attached to a PCI-E Silicon Image 3132 SATA controller with an eSATA cable:

Minimum Transfer Rate: 52.1 MB/sec
Maximum Transfer Rate: 100.3 MB/sec
Average Transfer Rate: 85.6 MB/sec

Access time: 14.6 ms
Burst Rate: 90.2 MB/sec (strange...that should be higher than the Maximum Transfer Rate)
CPU Usage: 1.9%

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And here's HDTune 2.55 results for a fairly recent version of a Hitachi 1 TB disk (7200 rpm, 3-platter), running in IDE compatibility mode on an Intel ICH7 controller:

Minimum Transfer Rate: 52.0 MB/sec
Maximum Transfer Rate: 114.9 MB/sec
Average Transfer Rate: 89.9 MB/sec

Access time: 13.7 ms
Burst Rate: 155.5 MB/sec
CPU Usage: 4.4%

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Both of the above tests were on the same Dell SC440 server running Windows Server 2008.