I got my Western Digital Black edition 1TB, 32MB cache buffer, And a lovely 145MByte Data transfer rate.
First of all, the drive is Super, Just like all my other hard drives, All other 3.5′ hard drives i have are either WD, Segate, Or deskstar, i have never owned a samsung, but i assure you, all reaining hard drive manufacturers are surely the good ones, i remember back in the day when a MAXTOR drive would eventually get you into unexpected trouble (Never liked maxtor, they were problematic)
Now, my favorite is Western Digital, i am a loyal customer, and they are loyal manufacturers.
So, what’s the deal on this black edition ?
In short, unlike what you expected the real boost comes from the Dual Processors that can do the math faster to enable that lovely 145MB/s (1160 Mb/s). the 32MB cache is nice, but the processor is the real deal, along with the 3 internal disks and the 6 internal heads.
The reviews of the drive on the internet say it is an average drive, i assure you it is not, it is a very nice drive up to now, even windows vista admits it, but i will need to get some numbers ready for you.
I already have a bunch of other 1TB hard disks, and so i will be comparing to those here, i will also collect as much data as possible to find out if this drive is really worth the extra $30 you pay over a standard seagate drive that is also 1TB !
My first impression is that it is, my Home made random access tests did not show any advantages for the drive (4 seconds disadvantage in the 10 min imprecise test), but don’t count on that, i wrote this software in 2 hours flat and so it is not The best test to compare drives…
I doubt there is 64 NCQ in the drive, but i will see once i move this drive to another computer that can detect this stuff (Intel’s tools).
For now, i will go on with my testing, but i assure you, the drive looks like it is the best drive i have owned to date in the 7200RPM category. Stay tuned.
What about the green edition WD10EACS ?
Never owned one, But i did not go for it for the following reasons
Ok, so you do understand it is a 16MB cache, comes at a very close price, with a promise to save you up to $14 a year in electricity costs, and therefore save the planet.
1- Power Saving: $14 is an exaggerated number when i did the math with the numbers on the website, You can only save half of this in a laboratory and it will take an expert from western digital to assist you if you want to save that amount of money/Power, as for the environment, you produce much more carbon dioxide in a 2 second run of your cars engine compared to what this drive can save and still be usable, Don’t get me wrong, i am obsessed with saving planet earth, but i can really do better saving energy from my toaster and TV than from a poor hard drive with 2 small motors and a low power consumption processor (The hard drive’s processor).
2- The whole concept somes at a price (Low to be trutheful) in terms of responsivness, the drive has variable speed disks, and heads need to dock at certain speeds so that they do not fall onto the disk (IntelliPark)! the wind generated by the disks is what keeps the heads floating.
It all sounds nicer on paper, the truth of the matter is, not much is the difference, the Black edition does have all the power saving features that Green has as long as they don’t compromise performance..
And if you really really want to save energy, ask Windows/Linux to do the saving… with a 5 Year warantee, i assure you they took into account the start stop cycles of your drive and you can have the computer switch it off as often as it takes to save mother earth.
Damn, i sound like an OIL PIG, i am not, i value nature and our future, it is just that i don’t want to lose my Objectivity and get obsessed.