what's so great about the wd se16 640gb?

[Beast53]

this one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218

i noticed it only has 16mb cache, but i don't really know what that means

is there any reason to choose that over this one?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152100

[Shiggity]

The main differences are price and the WD drive uses 2 platters vs 3 on the samsung. Less platters = better and the extra 25$ for the samsung isn't worth it for another 110GB imo.

All in all they are both good drives.

[Beast53]

is there really a difference betweek 16mb and 32mb cache?

thanks

[Shiggity]

Nope, you'll see pretty much no difference.

[Rich'[ard]]

just for interest as well, which company would make the more stable/longer lasting drive?
i've debated over WD 640Gb and Samsung 750GB myself as well.

[EmAn]

The WD would live longer most of the time YMMV as there are only two platters which means less rotational mass.

[BigBadBaz]

Just my 2 cents, I got the WD6400AAKS about a month ago. It is by far the fastest HDD I've ever used. It took me less than 2 minutes to transfer around 50GB of movies, and I think the biggest bottleneck was me. ;) It was like moving the data from one part of my HDD to another.

[tuskenraider]

;5760817"]just for interest as well, which company would make the more stable/longer lasting drive?
i've debated over WD 640Gb and Samsung 750GB myself as well.No one can answer that. Most consumer hard drives have very comparable failure rates(MTBF). There have certainly been some known models as clunkers such as IBM's Deskstars(aka Deathstars) a bunch of years ago. Maxtor is pretty much the only brand I don't consider, but even I know that's pretty much subjective experience. I say go with the best performer, the WD640.

[Madwand]

what's so great about the wd se16 640gb?

Capacity, price, capacity/price, performance.

[Mr.Guvernment]

it is more then just platters being 2 and 3..

the WD has more DENSE platters - thus is it faster. think of it as a different architecture then the other drive.

[nightelph]

I ordered that drive from newegg Friday night EST for $84.99 shipped!

Edit: Now its back to $84.99. This morning the link above showed $109.99 + shipping.

[Mr.Guvernment]

i just grabbed 2 from directron.com nice low price as well

[Shiggity]

I ordered that drive from newegg Friday night EST for $84.99 shipped!

Edit: Now its back to $84.99. This morning the link above showed $109.99 + shipping.

Nice, I just got one myself and already want 1-2 more! :D

[nightelph]

Man, twelve years ago my electronics professor had a 40gb drive. I couldn't believe anyone could need that much space. Now look how cheap things are. :) :) :)

[jokers_greg]

they have two very dense platters. 320gb on each. The more you fit on one platter, the faster the seek times (if everything else is constant).

[nightelph]

they have two very dense platters.

Thanks to the perpendicular recording. :)

Mine came in the mail today.

[deathman20]

I just got a 640Gig as a external backup drive last week. Its great. 475Gig backed up in ~90min.


Just my 2 cents, I got the WD6400AAKS about a month ago. It is by far the fastest HDD I've ever used. It took me less than 2 minutes to transfer around 50GB of movies, and I think the biggest bottleneck was me. ;) It was like moving the data from one part of my HDD to another.

Might be stretching that a bit far... 50,000 Meg / 120sec = 416meg a sec = not possible for any drive out currently on market. 9min is a more respectiable number ;)

[BigBadBaz]

I just got a 640Gig as a external backup drive last week. Its great. 475Gig backed up in ~90min.




Might be stretching that a bit far... 50,000 Meg / 120sec = 416meg a sec = not possible for any drive out currently on market. 9min is a more respectiable number ;)

Possibly. :)

All I know is that I was hitting Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V as fast as I could and the tranferring was keeping pace with me. Never more than 3 files transferring at once. And I mean movie files (>700MB).

I'm afraid i wasn't watcjing the clock, but it certainly didn't fell like it took more than 2 minutes. ;)

[nightelph]

I'll update with HDTach results tonight.

[BossBorot]

I'll update with HDTach results tonight.

should be around 100mb/s avg transfer and 12.4ms seek

[nightelph]

http://i514.photobucket.com/albums/t342/whitelight64/WD640.jpg