Review WD Gold 22TB HDD Review: The Gold Standard?

[Admin]

WD’s highest-end hard drive doesn’t come cheap, but it wraps 22TB of space in a performance package. An enterprise warranty and the unique ArmorCache feature help it stand out, even if it is otherwise underwhelming.

WD Gold 22TB HDD Review: The Gold Standard? : Read more

 

[Co BIY]

What are the Seagate drives doing differently that allow them better performance in some tests?

 

[AtrociKitty]

This is a surprisingly late review. WD221KRYZ drives aren't new; I've been running them in production for a year now.

I also disagree with "high pricing" being a con when this is an enterprise product. If you only need the capacity, there are plenty of cheaper drives out there with equivalent or better performance (and they'll run quieter too). These are priced similarly to other models with comparable MTBF and workload ratings.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

This is a surprisingly late review. WD221KRYZ drives aren't new; I've been running them in production for a year now.

I also disagree with "high pricing" being a con when this is an enterprise product. If you only need the capacity, there are plenty of cheaper drives out there with equivalent or better performance (and they'll run quieter too). These are priced similarly to other models with comparable MTBF and workload ratings.

I don't think Shane ever says the product is new. It's "new" for our testing in the storage labs (i.e. me running benchmarks), but it launched over a year ago, yes. I suspect our recent addition of some HDD testing has caught the interest of some companies and now they are sending additional drives for us to test. I just got several Toshiba models as well, for example — some might be new-ish, others not so much, but we'll look at those in the coming days.

 

[passivecool]

you keep ringing the ArmorCache bell but never bother to explain what it is or why anyone should pay the premium for it. Reads like an advertorial.

 

[Order 66]

you keep ringing the ArmorCache bell but never bother to explain what it is or why anyone should pay the premium for it. Reads like an advertorial.

what even is ArmorChache?

 

[atomicWAR]

what even is ArmorChache?

From my understanding under power loss situations it allows them to use disk rotational energy to create electricity allowing the disk to flush volatile memory cache and prevent data loss by using said electricity to allow for a 'proper' shutdown. Roughly speaking. Here is a WD link 'explaining' the tech. Its informative though it leaves much to be desired.

https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/collateral/tech-brief/tech-brief-write-cache-data-safety.pdf,

 

[Neilbob]

I'm not too sure why the performance had to be mentioned as a con, or at all for that matter. Surely no-one actually buys a product such as this for how fast it goes?

 

[Order 66]

I'm not too sure why the performance had to be mentioned as a con, or at all for that matter. Surely no-one actually buys a product such as this for how fast it goes?

exactly, it's a hard drive meant for capacity, not speed. SSD's are meant for speed.

 

[USAFRet]

I'm not too sure why the performance had to be mentioned as a con, or at all for that matter. Surely no-one actually buys a product such as this for how fast it goes?

well, if there were 2x drives of equal size, one would probably go for the "faster".

 

[TxGamer]

FWIW I've had a good experience using a couple of WD Gold HDDs in a RAID1 configuration at home in my Synology NAS, and with some patience this past summer I found the 16TBs versions on sale for ~$300 ea. They come with something called helioseal (evidently the platters are sealed in a helium-filled chamber), TSA (triple stage actuators), and have 512MB cache, just like the larger capacity WD Gold drives.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

exactly, it's a hard drive meant for capacity, not speed. SSD's are meant for speed.

But even the price for the capacity is a potential problem, and the competing Seagate drives at present seem to perform a bit better in many cases. So the WD Gold 22TB is mostly about getting the enterprise grade ArmorCache feature, at a higher cost per GB.

 

[kb7rky]

What are the Seagate drives doing differently that allow them better performance in some tests?

Operating normally.

Remember when WD was better than Seagate? Not anymore. WD Drives are garbage now. I had a 6TB Red that failed within 60 days of purchase. I can't even recover any data from the drive.

They can throw out all the buzzwords they want...it doesn't mitigate the fact that WD doesn't give a rat's @$$ about performance, or operation. They've given in to quantity over quality, and would rather shove crap out the door, than actual product that will still be working, whether it's 2 months, or 2 years from now.