Western Digital Updates "Black" Line of HDDs

[exfileme]

The updated WD Black drives have increased performance over the previous models.

Western Digital Updates "Black" Line of HDDs : Read more

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Assuming prices don't jump crazily that is a nice little performance boost.

 

[patrick47018]

500MB? What is this 1990?

 

[drtweak]

I was just about to say the same thing Patrick...I was like...ummm 500MB...What are these? Pin size flash drive? lol

 

[ko888]

The source article, at X-bit labs, says 500GB.

 

[DarkSable]

I personally like this one:

The updated HDDs promise higher performance of up to 48 percent, better accuracy, stronger reliability and a greater efficiency.

"Higher performance of up to 48 percent," 48 percent... greater blackness?

Your commas missed. 😛

 

[ietrinidad]

It appears that no one reviews the article prior to posting it.

Thanks DaUnreal, I think we're all pretty aware that it was a typo.

 

[DaUnreal]

its a typo.. its meant to say 500GB

 

[blader15sk8]

I could see once.. but four times? 500 MB?

 

[bochica]

Cost Central is selling the 2 TB for around $160, up about $30 from the previous version. They are based out of PA, but I don't know if they are really selling this model yet.

http://www.costcentral.com/proddetail/Western_Digital_2TB_WD_BLACK_WD2003FZEX_SATA_7200_RPM_64MB_35IN_6GB_S/WD2003FZEX/12021459/

 

[bochica]

Another thing to note, I wonder if they will sneak in updates for the Velociraptor. I was planning to get one of those soon, but the Black updates put it pretty close now in the sequential reads.

 

[yannigr]

1TB platters?

 

[patrick47018]

@yannigr 500MB platters.

huehuehue

 

[acyuta]

Sorry but no WD Caviar Blacks for me after using Intel SSDs. I last bought a Black (2TB) in early 2011. With a SSD as a system drive, I can easily use Seagate 3TB/4TB as storage drives. As I see it, Seagate 4TB is $165-170 compared with $260-270 for WD 4 TB Black. Even the slower WD Red 4TB is for $200. Ok, so WD has a 5 year warranty for blacks but they have started sending out refurbished drives now as replacement. That USP also goes. Till 2011, they used to send new ones for Black RMA.

 

[dragonsqrrl]

I'd really like to see a review of these updated drives.

 

[dragonsqrrl]

1TB platters?

From what I've read elsewhere these still use the same 800GB platters. The biggest difference is that the drive capacities below 3TB appear to have been updated with the 800GB platters, where as before they were still using prior gen 500GB platters. Also, it looks like the new 3TB drive may have been reduced to 4 platters, where as the older drive was physically identical to the 4TB version and used 5 platters.

 

[x2ruff4u]

Believe it or not, but recently I used CrystalDisck to check my hard drives health. I have a Samsung HD501LJ that has 34,874 hours on it which is 1,453 days that's 4 years!! I think that's incredible for RPM hard drive made back in 2006.

 

[x2ruff4u]

Not to confuse anyone, but that's is the total power on hours. Just like a car has miles on it.

 

[rokit]

They silently upgraded the series and didn't call for more money?! WD changed alot.

 

[mapesdhs]

x2ruff4u, I have SCSI disks that are still running after more than 20 years. 😀

Ian.

 

[TeraMedia]

Can anyone please explain this:

... increasing the accuracy of the data written...

This isn't the age of analog dubbing and mix tapes. Either the data was written with 100% accuracy... or it wasn't. And I thought the bit-error rate on these things was supposed to be something on the order of 1 : 10^14 (plus or minus a couple of exponent points). So did they bump up that exponent, or what am I missing?

 

[Ken Havens]

Mechanical Drives are really just long term storage devices now imo. The bulk of research should go into improving the cost/gigabyte, speed and reliability of SSD drives.

 

[CaedenV]

Sorry but no WD Caviar Blacks for me after using Intel SSDs. I last bought a Black (2TB) in early 2011. With a SSD as a system drive, I can easily use Seagate 3TB/4TB as storage drives. As I see it, Seagate 4TB is $165-170 compared with $260-270 for WD 4 TB Black. Even the slower WD Red 4TB is for $200. Ok, so WD has a 5 year warranty for blacks but they have started sending out refurbished drives now as replacement. That USP also goes. Till 2011, they used to send new ones for Black RMA.

I kind of agree. Not so much that SSDs are going to be replacing 2TB+ HDDs any time soon (give it a few more years), but that Seagate has much better offerings at much lower prices.

The real issue with WD today is that you have their Blue series which is reliable but expensive, and cannot be used in a RAID. Then you have the Black series which is crazy expensive for what it is, but they are reliable, performant, and RAID-able. And then you have a slew of drives in the Green, Red, AV-GP, and 'mainstream' series which are all glorified trash, and even though they are more affordable, they still manage to be $10-20 more expensive than others.

Now I am not saying that Seagate is perfect either. They too have issues with their low-tier drives. The difference is that you can get a mid to high level Seagate drive without issues and still save some $30-100 per drive compared to a similarly performing WD Blue or Black. You typically don't get as long of a warranty with them (3-5 years vs 5-7 years), but it is often an issue of a longer warranty you need vs a shorter warranty that you are much likely to need. Personally I would rather the latter rather than the former.

 

[danwat1234]

Does it have the piezeoelectric wrist like the 2TB last generation Caviar Black?

Average acces times of 11.8ms like the older Caviar black? How is the real world performance improved over the last generation besides high sustained transfer rates? It does mention better performance/reliability in vibration environments, a dual core processor was in the previous Caviar Black as well.

So higher STR, does that mean 1TB platter now instead of 800GB?

 

[dragonsqrrl]

Does it have the piezeoelectric wrist like the 2TB last generation Caviar Black?

Average acces times of 11.8ms like the older Caviar black? How is the real world performance improved over the last generation besides high sustained transfer rates? It does mention better performance/reliability in vibration environments, a dual core processor was in the previous Caviar Black as well.

So higher STR, does that mean 1TB platter now instead of 800GB?

No, they still use 800GB platters. The higher sequential transfer rates on the new 4 and 3TB drives stems primarily from "improved algorithms and an updated controller with 'double the bits' of its predecessor. According to WD, the 'high resolution controller' improves tracking precision, which in turn accelerates overall performance".

In addition to these controller improvements, the 2 and 1TB drives likely got a platter density update. The FAEX version of these drives were still based on 500GB platters. I'm assuming this update brings them up to 800GB platters like the higher capacity drives in the lineup.