WD Black caviar 1TB versus Blue caviar

[think2]

Hi

Somewhere on the Western digital website it says the black caviar drive is for specialised applications - I can't remember the list, and the blue caviar is for every day computing. I recently bought the 1002FAEX drive hoping for both better speed and better quality. The drive is extremely noisy but I knew that was a possibility before I bought it.

What I'm wondering is whether the extra speed / performance is likely to make a noticeable difference for "every day" activities such as surfing the internet, launching applications, building software, searching for files, searching within files etc.

The WD site lists 126 MB/sec transfer rate, 64MB cache and 4.2 ms latency for the 1002FAEX and the same transfer rate for the blue WD5000AAKX, 16 MB cache and no latency specified for the blue drive.

TIA

 

[Blain]

* Are benchmark results the primary consideration of your purchasing decision?
* Does "reliability" carry any weight in your decision making process?
* You're not likely to "notice" any performance differences in equal capacity Blue & Black drives.

 

[think2]

* Are benchmark results the primary consideration of your purchasing decision?
* Does "reliability" carry any weight in your decision making process?

Sure, that's why I said... "hoping for both better speed and better quality"

What are benchmark results?

 

[think2]

Well the drive seems to have quietened down somehow or else facing the PC away from me is helping, either way, the noise isn't a problem any more and I'm real glad I got the black version.

 

[Emulex]

black = better
blue = oem

ssd= quiet (WERD)

 

[Elixer]

black = better
blue = oem

ssd= quiet (WERD)

Blue & black use mostly the same parts, at least that is what a local tech that does HD repairs said.
(Platters, R/W heads, motor, and stuff like that...)

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Blue & black use mostly the same parts, at least that is what a local tech that does HD repairs said.
(Platters, R/W heads, motor, and stuff like that...)

Just speculating . . . but I'd bet on its validity . .

In "Computer Architecture" texts, students are presented with a pyramidal hierarchy of storage capacity and speed. The fastest storage (among "registers," "cache," "RAM" . . . electro-mechanical devices . . ) -- always costs the most and has the smaller capacity. IF you look at the Intel product line for any particular generation of CPU's, the smaller the L2 (and L3 if the chip has any) cache, the cheaper the processor.

The same principle applies to HD cache -- I would think. You pay more for a drive with a 64MB cache than one with a 16MB cache, and you reap a marginal reward in the extra speed for the larger size.

So for the other mechanical parts, Elixir's quote of his local-tech's observation would further clarify and make sense of this.

I was shopping for drives during the last month. I'd previously been enthusiastic about the last-gen SATAII Caviar Blacks, and I bought four of them over two years' time. Never had any regrets. But this time around, the Caviar Blue equivalent was only $40 as an SATAIII compared to a $55 tag on the Black equivalent size for a Memorial Day sale, and I just had to get one.

Just one note on noise. I've got two of the Blacks in RAID0 on one system, and two for a WHS server. I don't much notice any noise, but how you mount any hard drive will have an effect on what you hear. Anything that eliminates metal-to-metal contact with the computer case -- rubber grommets, alternate mounting techniques with "rubber bands," use of foam cut-outs, your $25 Lian-Li drive-cage with the rubber grommets, etc. -- will make things much more quiet. . . .

 

[Emulex]

RE4 -> BLACK -> BLUE

just binned differently. obviously black and blue are useless in enterprise due to lack of TLER.

Odd thing is the savvio's move from 16MB to 64MB for free. no charge. maybe its SP versus DP. odd.

blue is always found in oem boxes - they probably sacrifice some storage for extra re-alloc for going the distance. RE4 is the creme of the bin for obvious reasons.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I built a server (haven't installed the OS yet) in a Chieftec Dragon full-tower ATX case, and the 6 internal HD bays all have 2TB Hitachi 7K3000 HDs in them, and I can't even hear the HDs. The steel frame of the case is so solid that they don't vibrate, when bolted down. That's the way I like it. I don't even hear the fans much.

 

[Emulex]

yeah you want a strong structure to avoid standing waves or other vibrations they will kill your drives