Discussion Forums > Technology
WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
nstgc:
The RE line of enterprise class HDD by WD are just blacks with TLER and perhaps some extra QC. Since they are essentially the same drive as the enterprise class drives you know that at the very least they are well made.
datora:
.
--- Quote from: datora on June 15, 2012, 02:01:55 PM ---Some of have "bothered to check," both regularly and recently. In some cases on a weekly basis for the past several years.
--- End quote ---
I think you glossed over this part. And, yeah, that should read "Some of us have "bothered to check," "
You want to see my sources, you would have to read various tech websites, forums and online stores for the past three years on nearly a daily basis. Keeping up on tech is one of my obsessions. It ebbs & flows on which tech I'm exactly up on each month, I always have more to learn, but general knowledge levels are high and current, especially on HDD tech since I have had an acute interest in acquiring more this year.
My recommendation for the WD Black drives is not based upon "some sugar pill reputation." It is based upon the consistently best reviews for any drive in its class. Also, my personal experience over the past decade. I have yet to have any Western Digital drive fail on me, and I still have 40 GB, 80 GB and 160 GB PATA drives in service, some going on ten years plus. IBM, Maxtor, Seagate, Samsung, Hitachi ... I have at least one if not three dead drives from each of those manufacturers in the last decade. That was a really funny thing you said about me not doing "first-hand review-based research, " BTW. I only spend several weeks to a couple months intensely researching specific tech before I put money out for it, be it mobos, GPU cards and especially HDDs. I do make compromises on things I buy, but I know very exactly what compromises I'm making and match them carefully against my actual requirements.
BTW, HGST is a division of Western Digital. Something you could have noticed with three seconds worth of google research. They do compare favorably with the WD Black editions, but are still edged out when you consider price, performance and reliability, plus the 5-year warranty.
Samsung drives are manufactured by Seagate in their China factories. I still have several original Samsung 2 TB F4 Spinpoints that were all manufactured in Korea by Samsung prior to the purchase of that division. They are great drives, but they are designed as mass Eco storage drives and are SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) not SATA III (6.0 Gb/s). Anyone using them as an OS drive is a fool asking for failure by abusing the design of those drives. It is barely better than using a WD Green drive as an OS drive, and the WD Green editions actually have improved in the past 18 months, whereas the Samsungs (under Seagate) are starting to generate unhappy customer reviews already. Specifically, Samsung used to manufacture in both Korea and China; the China-manufactured drives were failing while the Korea-manufactured drives had virtually no failures when used as per their design as low-energy mass storage devices. Seagate never really demonstrated an improvement in their horrendous record from 2009/2010 and into early 2011. They may have improved their QC during 2011, but it's too early to know for certain at this time ... and now they manufacture the Samsung brand in China, either in their own facilities (probable) or perhaps the (previously) Samsung facilities, which had already begun to demonstrate problems prior to the takeover.
We have now exhausted options. You are unable to name a single brand/model that compares with the WD Black in it's price, performance and reliability class, along with just about the only 5-year warranty in the world. As expected. There is nothing. I knew that because I follow the industry weekly if not daily. There hasn't been another option at that point for several years. You have to really bump the cost way up and buy ... Western Digital premium tech, such as the VelociRaptor or the RE4 or such astronomically-priced enterprise tech. Topic of the day is Keepin' it Real in the desktop: Blue edition vs. Black edition by WD. there are plenty of alternatives to the Blue edition line, but none for the Black. Topic closed.
You have offered up the fabulously informative statement "most other manufacturers (which are cheaper) have decent performance anyway" without naming a single manufacturer, brand or model. We're not talking about your arbitrary opinion of "decent" here. We're talking about a specific model that compares to a WD Black. You can't name one because there isn't one. As I said earlier, I would be very, very happy if you can. I would love to have an alternative to consider that meets or exceeds all the WD Black specifications.
None of this is recent developments. Its' been going on for three years, with major shifts in price last September due to what happened in Thailand and a slew of mergers/acquisitions through 2011 and into early 2012. People can go with Seagate, which spent over three years fucking their customers up the ass with horrendously terrible garbage, or you can go with Western Digital, which has a triple-A, solid gold rating. All the other names you see pasted on the drives are just marketing old brand names at this point to suck people in on name recognition
The Samsung Spinpoint technology could possibly save Seagate if they get their house in order and get their manufacturing QC up to modern standards. The HGST tech, under WD, will probably replace their Blue edition line as a budget drive for people who won't invest in the Black edition lines. Probably in upcoming years we will see the Hitachi technology incorporated into the WD lines and new models will become available. Seagate is in second place in a two-man race at the moment, and they got a late, late start out of the gate. They have a lot of catching up to do if they want to remain competitive with Western Digital.
However, I'm just laughing out loud that you are claiming that a Samsung F4 Spinpoint operating on a SATA II platform is comparable to a Western Digital Black operating on a SATA III platform. That's just fucking hilarious. Almost as funny as claiming that HGST drives are an "alternative" to WD and Seagate. You've been a real laugh riot today. thank you for playing!
Clannad_92:
--- Quote from: kitamesume on June 15, 2012, 08:06:21 PM ---the whole PC is moving back and forth from the living room and to my bed room for the past few days
--- End quote ---
and why is that?
xShadow:
--- Quote from: datora on June 16, 2012, 02:36:52 AM ---.
--- Quote from: datora on June 15, 2012, 02:01:55 PM ---Some of have "bothered to check," both regularly and recently. In some cases on a weekly basis for the past several years.
--- End quote ---
I think you glossed over this part. And, yeah, that should read "Some of us have "bothered to check," "
You want to see my sources, you would have to read various tech websites, forums and online stores for the past three years on nearly a daily basis. Keeping up on tech is one of my obsessions. It ebbs & flows on which tech I'm exactly up on each month, I always have more to learn, but general knowledge levels are high and current, especially on HDD tech since I have had an acute interest in acquiring more this year.
--- End quote ---
Great. Those articles....?
--- Quote ---My recommendation for the WD Black drives is not based upon "some sugar pill reputation." It is based upon the consistently best reviews for any drive in its class. Also, my personal experience over the past decade. I have yet to have any Western Digital drive fail on me, and I still have 40 GB, 80 GB and 160 GB PATA drives in service, some going on ten years plus. IBM, Maxtor, Seagate, Samsung, Hitachi ... I have at least one if not three dead drives from each of those manufacturers in the last decade. That was a really funny thing you said about me not doing "first-hand review-based research, " BTW. I only spend several weeks to a couple months intensely researching specific tech before I put money out for it, be it mobos, GPU cards and especially HDDs. I do make compromises on things I buy, but I know very exactly what compromises I'm making and match them carefully against my actual requirements.
--- End quote ---
Okay, great to know your life story.
--- Quote ---BTW, HGST is a division of Western Digital. Something you could have noticed with three seconds worth of google research. They do compare favorably with the WD Black editions, but are still edged out when you consider price, performance and reliability, plus the 5-year warranty.
--- End quote ---
... I did know. That wasn't even my point. I was just pointing out that there were alternatives, and saying that the companies owned by WD or Seagate didn't necessarily have to exhibit their characteristics, and I was asking you for sources... though I as I realize later on, as I keep quoting you, that you don't seem to be on the same page that I am.
--- Quote ---Samsung drives are manufactured by Seagate in their China factories. I still have several original Samsung 2 TB F4 Spinpoints that were all manufactured in Korea by Samsung prior to the purchase of that division. They are great drives, but they are designed as mass Eco storage drives and are SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) not SATA III (6.0 Gb/s). Anyone using them as an OS drive is a fool asking for failure by abusing the design of those drives. It is barely better than using a WD Green drive as an OS drive, and the WD Green editions actually have improved in the past 18 months, whereas the Samsungs (under Seagate) are starting to generate unhappy customer reviews already. Specifically, Samsung used to manufacture in both Korea and China; the China-manufactured drives were failing while the Korea-manufactured drives had virtually no failures when used as per their design as low-energy mass storage devices. Seagate never really demonstrated an improvement in their horrendous record from 2009/2010 and into early 2011. They may have improved their QC during 2011, but it's too early to know for certain at this time ... and now they manufacture the Samsung brand in China, either in their own facilities (probable) or perhaps the (previously) Samsung facilities, which had already begun to demonstrate problems prior to the takeover.
--- End quote ---
Is it hard for you to just give me your sources? Do you have walls of text floating around in that head of yours? Is that all it's made of? I'm asking you for simple evidence. I'm not asking you what you've apparently researched. I want the sources. I don't need you to post walls of text. I'm asking you for something that should take you 5 minutes.
And FYI, SATA II vs SATA III doesn't even matter for anything except SSD's.
--- Quote ---We have now exhausted options. You are unable to name a single brand/model that compares with the WD Black in it's price, performance and reliability class, along with just about the only 5-year warranty in the world. As expected. There is nothing. I knew that because I follow the industry weekly if not daily. There hasn't been another option at that point for several years. You have to really bump the cost way up and buy ... Western Digital premium tech, such as the VelociRaptor or the RE4 or such astronomically-priced enterprise tech. Topic of the day is Keepin' it Real in the desktop: Blue edition vs. Black edition by WD. there are plenty of alternatives to the Blue edition line, but none for the Black. Topic closed.
--- End quote ---
And this is where you're wrong. I was talking about price/reliability, in this sense:
http://home.ubalt.edu/ntsbarsh/opre640a/RiskTree.gif
This is a simple probability tree. This is the price of a WD Caviar Black. Without its current sale, it is 240 dollars.
This is the Samsung 2TB option. Without its sale, it's still 100 dollars cheaper.
Although these are current prices, this was about what I was looking at when I was making my choice years ago, in terms of price disparity.
I'm asking whether or not the Caviar Black offers such superior reliability and features that it would put it in a completely superior cost analysis category.
Which is apparently not what you're arguing.
You're even bringing crap in about using it as an "OS drive". Who the hell would buy a 2TB drive to use as an OS drive? If I was wanting to buy an OS drive in this day and age, it wouldn't be a 2TB drive, and it wouldn't be a Western Digital. It would be an SSD, because for the price of that 2TB Western Digital you can get a good, reliable 1xx-2xx gig SSD that would outperform the heck out of it.
I'm asking whether the brands below it are so far down in reliability that such a probability tree would favor the Caviar Black.
--- Quote ---You have offered up the fabulously informative statement "most other manufacturers (which are cheaper) have decent performance anyway" without naming a single manufacturer, brand or model. We're not talking about your arbitrary opinion of "decent" here. We're talking about a specific model that compares to a WD Black. You can't name one because there isn't one. As I said earlier, I would be very, very happy if you can. I would love to have an alternative to consider that meets or exceeds all the WD Black specifications.
--- End quote ---
No, now you're twisting my point around. I wasn't talking about something now that necessarily compared to the Caviar Black in the HDD market in terms of just raw reliability. I was simply saying that based on the last time I looked over it, I didn't notice its feature set to be worth the huge price premium it had, considering it performed only marginally better than other things in the 2TB storage tier. Hence, why I chose the Spinpoint. And hence why I have approximately 70-100 more dollars in my pocket than if I chose the Caviar Black, and why I'm therefore happier with my decision. And FYI this happened less than 4 years ago.
--- Quote ---None of this is recent developments. Its' been going on for three years, with major shifts in price last September due to what happened in Thailand and a slew of mergers/acquisitions through 2011 and into early 2012. People can go with Seagate, which spent over three years fucking their customers up the ass with horrendously terrible garbage, or you can go with Western Digital, which has a triple-A, solid gold rating. All the other names you see pasted on the drives are just marketing old brand names at this point to suck people in on name recognition
--- End quote ---
Rammus says ok.
--- Quote ---The Samsung Spinpoint technology could possibly save Seagate if they get their house in order and get their manufacturing QC up to modern standards. The HGST tech, under WD, will probably replace their Blue edition line as a budget drive for people who won't invest in the Black edition lines. Probably in upcoming years we will see the Hitachi technology incorporated into the WD lines and new models will become available. Seagate is in second place in a two-man race at the moment, and they got a late, late start out of the gate. They have a lot of catching up to do if they want to remain competitive with Western Digital.
--- End quote ---
Rammus says ok again.
--- Quote ---However, I'm just laughing out loud that you are claiming that a Samsung F4 Spinpoint operating on a SATA II platform is comparable to a Western Digital Black operating on a SATA III platform.
--- End quote ---
Actually, it is. FYI, like I said earlier, SATA II/III doesn't matter for HDD's because they don't have a high enough throughput to even use SATA II. Considering that the TC mentioned fairly high GB numbers, I'm assuming a storage drive. After all, who the fuck would be stupid enough to buy a 1TB+ drive for their OS drive? If you were gonna do that, again, you could get a smaller SSD that would do the job much better.
--- Quote --- That's just fucking hilarious. Almost as funny as claiming that HGST drives are an "alternative" to WD and Seagate.
--- End quote ---
... Thanks for twisting my words.
--- Quote --- You've been a real laugh riot today. thank you for playing!
--- End quote ---
You know. I didn't know this until now... but you're a real dick, you know? I'm even trying to keep it civil for once, because I honestly thought you just had the best intentions. Can you stop dicking around and give me your sources? I'm asking this because the mere study of reviews has not shown me any of what you're talking about.
I kind of regret bothering to respond though. Instead of a simple array of categorized links that will tell me what exactly you've been looking at (so I may read it for myself, and understand where you are coming from better), I'm going to get walls of text about how you're the shit and you know what you're talking about, and I'm a total idiot, etc etc etc. I'm looking forward to it. *Rolls eyes*
Pentium100:
The newest drive I bought is a WD RE4 since it stays on 24/7 (currently 1865hours powered on and a total of 4 power cycles). I still use quite a few older desktop-grade drives (mainly Seagate IDE) but I read that recently Seagate desktop drive quality went down so I decided to only buy enterprise-grade drives from now on and some reviews suggested that WD RE4 is a bit better than Seagate Constellation ES.
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