WD 1TB vs 640GB Caviar Black drives

[Audioaficionado]

So what are the advantages of the 640GB over the 1000GB drives?

Ones got 2 platters and the larger one has 3. I assume the density is similar or the same platters.

WD Caviar® Black™ WD1002FBYS 1 TB, 3 Gb/s, 32 MB Cache, 7200 RPM
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=488

WD Caviar® Black™ WD6401AALS 640 GB, 3 Gb/s, 32 MB Cache, 7200 RPM
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=551

They are about the same cost per gigabyte. Is the 640 that much faster to offset the larger storage value (extra platter) of the 1TB drive?

I want to run 'em in pairs Intel Matrix RAID 1 mirrors.

I want to pull the trigger soon before some random bill eats up the $$$ I've alloted.

Thanx

[Neuromancer]

If the 1 TB drive only has 3 platters than it should actually performa better than the 640GB theoretically.

640GB is 2x320GB platters.

The 1 TB would be 3x 333.34 GB platters

I would suspect though, either the 1TB is really 4x250 OR
the 640 eliminates some space on the very inside of the drive to help keep STRs up.

[Trap05]

If they are just for storage I don't know why you wouldn't go with the terabyte drives I mean if you have the extra cash that extra 300GB will come in handy

[Audioaficionado]

If the 1 TB drive only has 3 platters than it should actually performa better than the 640GB theoretically.

640GB is 2x320GB platters.

The 1 TB would be 3x 333.34 GB platters

I would suspect though, either the 1TB is really 4x250 OR
the 640 eliminates some space on the very inside of the drive to help keep STRs up.

http://www.storagereview.com/wd_announces_caviar_black

Posted June 13th, 2008 by eugene
Western Digital this week announced its latest drive, another terabyte drive. Unlike the firm's 1 TB Caviar GP, however, the new Caviar Black features just 3 platters a la the Samsung SpinPoint F1 and a 7200 RPM spindle speed. WD has also finally upped its largest buffers to 32 megabytes.

:thup: :thup: :thup:

Maybe I can get my cake and eat it too :D

[Neuromancer]

http://www.storagereview.com/wd_announces_caviar_black


:thup: :thup: :thup:

Maybe I can get my cake and eat it too :D


WD® DELIVERS NEW HIGH PERFORMANCE 1 TB DRIVE

Fastest 3.5-inch 7200 RPM Drive on the Market*

Looks like you answered your own Question :)


Yah the new LARGE hdds offer great performance...

[hitokiri_808]

The WD Black 1TB is 3 platter whereas the green is 4 platter. I saw some benchmarks here on the forums that showed the black was a little faster than the 640s.

[trueplaya4ever8]

Hmm. More space is good? So they preform better than their 640gb counterparts? I was looking into getting 4 640's and raid 0'ing like 200gb and making the rest storage...

If the 1TB are faster I'd just get 4 of them...

[MongGrel]

These look good to me, was thinking about trying the RE3's out in the future if was gonna stick a few more in.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=503

The egg has em at not a bad price I guess. I assume from everything Id read there they pretty frigging durable. And fast :)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136313

[raisethe3]

What's the RE3 mean?

[forceman]

The RE drives are the enterprise versions.

And the new WD Green 1TB drive also uses 3 platters (the EADS version).

[exe163]

I don't really know how exactly does platter relates to speed but the Caviar Blacks are definitely one of the best performing 7k2 mainsteam HDD on the market right now. Can't go wrong with any one of them.

[Audioaficionado]

Well I ended up getting 2 Western Digital RE3 WD1002FBYS 1TB drives for $330 Shipped from ZipZoomFly. Saved $60 over Newegg's price.

Too bad my most importaint non backed up storage drive just dropped out last night before I had time to copy the importaint stuff over to my future 1TB mirrror array :cry:

Lost ten years of saved emails, all my online purchased software, detailed speaker project plans, etc.

That Samsung drive was running great until it just winked out and dropped off Vista's hardware detection list. No warning messages, noise or clicking, just -wink- and gone. :shrug:

Well at least I don't have to spend days/weeks sorting through my full 250GB digital garage to get rid of the junk anymore. It just burned down to the ground LOL.

[trueplaya4ever8]

Well I ended up getting 2 Western Digital RE3 WD1002FBYS 1TB drives for $330 Shipped from ZipZoomFly. Saved $60 over Newegg's price.

Too bad my most importaint non backed up storage drive just dropped out last night before I had time to copy the importaint stuff over to my future 1TB mirrror array :cry:

Lost ten years of saved emails, all my online purchased software, detailed speaker project plans, etc.

That Samsung drive was running great until it just winked out and dropped off Vista's hardware detection list. No warning messages, noise or clicking, just -wink- and gone. :shrug:

Well at least I don't have to spend days/weeks sorting through my full 250GB digital garage to get rid of the junk anymore. It just burned down to the ground LOL.


Damn man. Sorry to hear that. :(

[exe163]

Well I ended up getting 2 Western Digital RE3 WD1002FBYS 1TB drives for $330 Shipped from ZipZoomFly. Saved $60 over Newegg's price.

Too bad my most importaint non backed up storage drive just dropped out last night before I had time to copy the importaint stuff over to my future 1TB mirrror array :cry:

Lost ten years of saved emails, all my online purchased software, detailed speaker project plans, etc.

That Samsung drive was running great until it just winked out and dropped off Vista's hardware detection list. No warning messages, noise or clicking, just -wink- and gone. :shrug:

Well at least I don't have to spend days/weeks sorting through my full 250GB digital garage to get rid of the junk anymore. It just burned down to the ground LOL.
I think it's fixable. Looks like the motor died, try to get some professionals open up the disk and find some ways to read it.

If you have important stuff definitely store them in mirror drives. Best mirrored SSD drives. When SSD drives "died" you could still read form the drive.

There is still hope!

[forceman]

You also might be able to buy a controller board for the drive somewhere (like ebay) and swap it out - could get the drive back working again.

[Audioaficionado]

I have a second Samsung drive I could swap circuits with if need be.

I don't know if there is any firmware differences but they showed up with identical ID #s when I'd look at SMART data logs.

Anyway I'll just unplug it and wait until I get that RAID 1 mirror set up.

Update: Well I shut the compter down and ignored it for about an hour. Gave it a good dusting and checked all the SATA connections. Then I fired it back up and my drive magicly reappeared.

Now I'm backing everything up on multiple drives. I can't wait for that 1TB mirror goodness and reorganize everything.

[Audioaficionado]

Well I got a pair of ES3 WD1002FBYS installed and Vista actually runs faster on a RAID 0 matrix slice. Almost fast enough to satisfy me compared to a faster XP or Linux installation. Those RE3 enterprise drives should be even better than the ones I first contemplated on getting. ZipZoomFly had 'em on sale for only $80 more than a pair of WD1001FALS drives.

[seer33]

back to the original question posted... is the 1tb WD black on par with the 640 WD black drive? The 640 drive is ~$80 right now, but the 1 TB can be had for ~105 (@ ZZF) I'm planning on getting 2 of either, and raid 0'ing them....If the 1TB drives are just as fast, might as well go that route. So does anyone know?

[somegeek]

I've been looking at the same comparison. Someone noted the 1Tb drive is louder than the two platter 640MB drive. I imagine though if you slice the first 100GB for your system drive, it'd be marginally quicker than the two platter drive since you'd have 33GB per outer edge on each platter vs 50GB.