Question about WD Caviar Black and Blue

JRAtk94

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May 26, 2013
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So we all know that the Caviar Black is meant to be faster than the Caviar Blue.

However, I was looking on the WD website, and it claims that Caviar Blue has a transfer rate of 150mb/s (sustained) whilst the Caviar Black has a transfer rate of 126mb/s (max).

If the Caviar Black is meant to be faster, why is it's transfer rate lower?

Really not understanding this.

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

EDIT: Also, an equivalent Seagate Barracuda claims to have a transfer rate of 210mb/s (sustained), which is miles faster than the Caviar Black.

How on earth has the Caviar Black received it's reputation as the fastest when a Barracuda annihilates it? So confused :??:
 
Solution
HD speed is more of a dynamic thing. You have random seek times, platter speed (7200rpm) # of read/write heads, # of platters, amount of cache. To do a direct comparison is difficult so you have to invent testing scenarios to put them side by side.

Often they will rate drives in sequential read times, meaning that a section of contiguous data is read off of the drive (and they usually put this in the most easily accessible section towards the center of the disc). You also need to compare two drives from the same rough time frame. A Blue drive made today might be faster then a Black drive from a few years ago.

Here's a place to start, but you have to pick a benchmark you are more interested in...
HD speed is more of a dynamic thing. You have random seek times, platter speed (7200rpm) # of read/write heads, # of platters, amount of cache. To do a direct comparison is difficult so you have to invent testing scenarios to put them side by side.

Often they will rate drives in sequential read times, meaning that a section of contiguous data is read off of the drive (and they usually put this in the most easily accessible section towards the center of the disc). You also need to compare two drives from the same rough time frame. A Blue drive made today might be faster then a Black drive from a few years ago.

Here's a place to start, but you have to pick a benchmark you are more interested in:
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2012/benchmarks,134.html
 
Solution


Cheers for the info - I'll check out those benchmarks now :)