Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 SATA HD

[OnePingOnly]

Hmmm... from the size, I would say it is a 1 TB drive with a bad platter, so they downsized and sold it anyway rather than throw away.

Please do more research before you post something like that.

 

[sjwaste]

This deal's still good, so bump! How much faster are the two platter drives vs a 750 GB drive (is that also 2 platters or just one?)

 

[bradley]

Originally posted by: sjwaste
This deal's still good, so bump! How much faster are the two platter drives vs a 750 GB drive (is that also 2 platters or just one?)

The 750GB drive has three platters. The 640GB drive will run cooler and quieter with slightly greater longevity. On paper the 640GB would be around 28 percent faster. Based on actual benchmarks you should expect 16-20 percent in the real-world.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: OneStepsAhead
Hmmm... from the size, I would say it is a 1 TB drive with a bad platter, so they downsized and sold it anyway rather than throw away.

I dont' know what that says about the long-term reliability, but I am not impressed.

platters aren't defective really. this isnt processors.


platters generally get manufactured by other companies like komag or something. western digital makes write heads and spindles basically.


western digital did BUY komag, but you can buy platters from outside companies and presumeably these companies would make the platters and make sure they work. they are just aluminum disks with magnetic material on them anyway.

 

[sjwaste]

Originally posted by: bradley

Originally posted by: sjwaste
This deal's still good, so bump! How much faster are the two platter drives vs a 750 GB drive (is that also 2 platters or just one?)

The 750GB drive has three platters. The 640GB drive will run cooler and quieter with slightly greater longevity. On paper the 640GB would be around 28 percent faster. Based on actual benchmarks you should expect 16-20 percent in the real-world.

Oh, so these are 320GB platters. I thought that 320 gig drives were single platter all along, am I wrong there and they're 2x160? I know a bump in platter density means a lot for performance, so I might have to get one of these.

 

[2112Rush]

I just got one of these and when I went to put Vista on it the capacity was only 576Gb. What gives? I just built my first rig and don't know much about all this. There were no partitions showing so I don't think anything was on there. Could it be bad? Could I send it back or would I need a reason for them to take it back?

 

[fleshconsumed]

Originally posted by: 2112Rush
I just got one of these and when I went to put Vista on it the capacity was only 576Gb. What gives? I just built my first rig and don't know much about all this. There were no partitions showing so I don't think anything was on there. Could it be bad? Could I send it back or would I need a reason for them to take it back?

Well, the capacity showing in your explorer will be less than what's written on a box. That's because when manufacturer writes 640GB on the box they assume that 1KB contains 1000 bytes, when in reality as far as computer is concerned 1KB contains 1024 bytes.

The only problem I see is that I believe for a 640GB drive size OS should be showing around 596GB, not 576. So unless I'm wrong you're missing 20GB. I don't know why that is.

 

[2112Rush]

Actually someone else here told me that is showed 596Gb. I'd still like to know where the other 20gb went.

 

[BladeVenom]

Originally posted by: 2112Rush
Actually someone else here told me that is showed 596Gb. I'd still like to know where the other 20gb went.

Hard drive manufacturers use the metric system where giga is 1,000,000,000. The rest of the computer industry uses a bastardized system where giga is 1,073,741,824. That's 2^30 if your wondering.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom

Originally posted by: 2112Rush
Actually someone else here told me that is showed 596Gb. I'd still like to know where the other 20gb went.

Hard drive manufacturers use the metric system where giga is 1,000,000,000. The rest of the computer industry uses a bastardized system where giga is 1,073,741,824. That's 2^30 if your wondering.

And if you divide 640,000,000,000 by 2^30 you will get 596, whereas he is getting 576 for some reason.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: sjwaste

Originally posted by: bradley

Originally posted by: sjwaste
This deal's still good, so bump! How much faster are the two platter drives vs a 750 GB drive (is that also 2 platters or just one?)

The 750GB drive has three platters. The 640GB drive will run cooler and quieter with slightly greater longevity. On paper the 640GB would be around 28 percent faster. Based on actual benchmarks you should expect 16-20 percent in the real-world.

Oh, so these are 320GB platters. I thought that 320 gig drives were single platter all along, am I wrong there and they're 2x160? I know a bump in platter density means a lot for performance, so I might have to get one of these.

the current 320s are 2 x 160. some were even 3 x103 for older ones. western digital doesnt update the model number when they change the platters.

eventually there will be 1 x 320 drives i'd assume.

 

[bigsnyder]

The single platter 320s are already in the market, but like you said WD didn't change the model number. The only way you can tell is in the stepping number assuming a vendor provides it. B3 is the differentiator.

Source

 

[Lurker1]

Originally posted by: 2112Rush
Actually someone else here told me that is showed 596Gb. I'd still like to know where the other 20gb went.

MS OSes frequently don't use the entire available space. With older drives in the 120-160GB range (last systems with MS OSes on them) I noted that partitioning the drive space with NTFS resulted in about a 6-8% waste. I'm sure this has to do with cluster sizes and even multiples due to the band aided approach MS applied to address larger HD sizes. I haven't investigated this any further to ascertain whether my assumptions are correct.

 

[2112Rush]

I guess that's the way it is then. It still sucks. I lost 43GB right off the bat. Plus the other 20GB that it doesn't see. Plus the 40GB for Vista. If I had known I wouldn't have gotten the 640. I could have went with a 60GB just for Vista.

 

[2112Rush]

Well, I deleted the partition with Vista and the drive showed 596. I don't know how I got the 20GB back though. I also didn't need to make a partition for Vista this time. I just installed.

 

[onelove]

Originally posted by: 2112Rush
I guess that's the way it is then. It still sucks. I lost 43GB right off the bat. Plus the other 20GB that it doesn't see. Plus the 40GB for Vista. If I had known I wouldn't have gotten the 640. I could have went with a 60GB just for Vista.

(OT) you might want to look into linux - there are some great distros out there now & you'll learn a lot just by tinkering.

this drive looks great - WD: GIVE ME A 5 YEAR WARRANTY & I'LL BUY THIS TOMORROW.

 

[2112Rush]

I've read a little about Linux. But I don't know enough to make try it. I don't know much at all about computer stuff. I just built my first one. And of course am having all kinds of problems. I wish I had more time for tinkering.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Purchased a drive, installed it. Love it. I ran HDTACH on it.

32MB (Long Test) Benchmark Results

Not a bad performer...

 

[onelove]

94.3 avg read? nice. thanks for posting, angel

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: onelove
94.3 avg read? nice. thanks for posting, angel

No problem. And for a point of reference, my 74GB Raptor scored a 65.1 average read speed with an access time of 8.9 seconds.

 

[najames]

These drives suck, NOT. I had ONE of them in my test LAN "server" Asus A8N-E Nforce4 3800x2 running Ubuntu 8.04 with an Intel Pro1000 NIC, see results below. These drives will definately perk up your server throughput. For $129, well worth it. You want to make them faster look for EvilBellyLint posts in slickdeals.net.

ftp> put mint.iso
local: mint.iso remote: mint.iso
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
150 Ok to send data.
226 File receive OK.
722104320 bytes sent in 6.41 secs (109965.8 kB/s)
ftp> quit

 

[houe]

Chiefvalue now has these for $124 shipped. Please note the coupon code also on that link for $6 off.

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ok for some reason the forums is altering my link. Just search for wd6400aaks

 

[rizorith]

Originally posted by: houe
Chiefvalue now has these for $124 shipped. Please note the coupon code also on that link for $6 off.

Text

ok for some reason the forums is altering my link. Just search for wd6400aaks

I don't see any western digital 640 gig HDs on chiefvalue.

 

[shlemielo]

Newegg shows this as deactivated. It's nowhere to be found on Chiefvalue. Anyonw know what's going on?

 

[bigsnyder]

Probably out of stock with no estimate on the next shipment. I have seen this happen for a few other items. It will probably "reactivate" within a few days.
If not, then that would just totally suck.