Author Topic: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?  (Read 8804 times)

Offline nstgc

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #20 on: June 16, 2012, 01:53:28 AM »
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.

Offline datora

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #21 on: June 16, 2012, 02:36:52 AM »
.
Some of have "bothered to check," both regularly and recently.  In some cases on a weekly basis for the past several years.

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!
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Offline Clannad_92

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #22 on: June 16, 2012, 03:43:45 AM »
the whole PC is moving back and forth from the living room and to my bed room for the past few days
and why is that?

Offline xShadow

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #23 on: June 16, 2012, 04:07:09 AM »
.
Some of have "bothered to check," both regularly and recently.  In some cases on a weekly basis for the past several years.

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.

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.

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.

... 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.

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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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.
... Thanks for twisting my words.

Quote
  You've been a real laugh riot today.  thank you for playing!

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*
« Last Edit: June 16, 2012, 04:19:29 AM by xShadow »

Cute, huh?

Offline Pentium100

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #24 on: June 16, 2012, 05:29:23 AM »
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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Offline vuzedome

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #25 on: June 16, 2012, 08:29:48 AM »
Oohh, two different ideologies or way of life crashing.

No offense to anyone but what the hell, pick a side boys because the winner will obviously dictate to us why they think what they did is right and why we should emulate them in their ways of life.
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Offline Saras

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #26 on: June 16, 2012, 08:32:18 AM »
...

1# 2TB black drives aren't worth it. GB/$ is only favourable on their 750gb-1tb lines and those are the ones mostly bought.

2# The drives you compare with the WD blacks are of a different category. You are literally comparing apples and oranges. If you want to compare those eco samsungs do so with WD greens and Barracudas.

And here you are if you want to do that http://www.storagereview.com/samsung_spinpoint_f4eg_review_hd204ui
« Last Edit: June 16, 2012, 08:34:08 AM by Saras »

Offline krumm

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #27 on: June 16, 2012, 11:29:20 AM »
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.

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.

I hope you do realize that Samsung drive manufacturing is now owned by Seagate(the trash of hdds for awhile now).  Less then 4 years ago you got a good drive, but now seagate is seeping into them and the reviews already show.

Also I have never dealt with customer service as good and easy as Western Digital.  The free software they give you is great, and their drive replacement is top notch.  With the blacks if they die in 5 years, WD will get it to you in 2-3 days.  That Samsung you listed, made by Seagate, only has 1 year warranty, have fun with that.

I would have bought Samsung drives in the past, but now with Seagate making them there is not a chance.

Offline kitamesume

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #28 on: June 16, 2012, 01:31:02 PM »
the whole PC is moving back and forth from the living room and to my bed room for the past few days
and why is that?

my living room has a 32" screen with a nice sofa, but doesnt have any internet nor does my PC have a wifi(i might buy a dongle eventually) and i cant leave the PC there.

my bedroom has the main router just outside the door so a 5meter cable is enough to reach the PC and i can leave the PC turned on there. i do watch on my bedroom from time to time but nothing beats a big screen.

edit: ah and WD essentials are pretty neat, i got three of them (2x500 1x1000) and none has died just yet.
« Last Edit: June 16, 2012, 01:38:49 PM by kitamesume »

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Offline megido-rev.M

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #29 on: June 16, 2012, 04:32:52 PM »
The Essentials are great external drives. I have a 1.5TB, and I would have gotten another were it not for the AC adapter shape.

Offline xShadow

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #30 on: June 16, 2012, 08:57:37 PM »
Actually, I'm probably gonna go ahead and drop out of this argument, because I have college papers to write and whatnot, and it looks like this is going to take too long. I'm too close to graduating with my CompE degree to screw around at the last few semesters.

Actually, no, I'm screwing around already. Oh well!

I will address two posts first, though (in a bit too much detail):

...

1# 2TB black drives aren't worth it. GB/$ is only favourable on their 750gb-1tb lines and those are the ones mostly bought.

...The GB/$ (or more commonly $/GB but whatever. o_0) only gets worse as you go down the capacity ladder.

Currently the 2TB drive is 210 dollars.
2000/210=9.52GB/$
The 1TB drive:
1000/120=8.33GB/$
500GB:
500/95=5.26GB/$

Which makes sense because there are the fixed costs of making the drive casing, and materials, included in every single drive, regardless of how many platters they have, or what the density of each platter is. In terms of $/GB you're always better off getting a larger drive. The problem is reliability. I don't know how much this has changed recently (if at all), but, from my experience, lower capacity drives have higher reliability.

I assume the point you're trying to make is that its GB/$ gets more comparable to cheaper brands as you go down the line. I'm not going to bother seeing if that's actually true, but that trend would make sense (after all, all hard drives have some fixed material costs regardless of capacity).

Quote
2# The drives you compare with the WD blacks are of a different category. You are literally comparing apples and oranges. If you want to compare those eco samsungs do so with WD greens and Barracudas.

I have to disagree. With the advent of SSD's and their gradual decrease in price, the purpose of most HDD's these days is to just serve as storage drives. Because most people aren't going to shell out 240 or 210 dollars on a slow, expensive 500GB-2TB drive to use as their system drive. Not to mention the Caviar Black won't generally be that much faster than an eco drive. SATA II/III is an inconsequential difference as far as hard disks go. In fact, I seriously doubt that the current Caviar Black would be that much faster or reliable as a boot drive than a Samsung Spinpoint (READ: BEFORE SEAGATE BUYOUT). But either way it would be stupid to use it as such.

It doesn't spin like a Raptor, and it's not nearly as good as an SSD. If you wanted a VERY reliable system drive that just HAS to have high capacity AND has to be at least 500 GB... then fine; I will admit that Caviar Black is a good choice. Just a terribly expensive one, nonetheless. Just make sure that when you're looking at prices you know that its price premium is definitely worth it.

Quote
I hope you do realize that Samsung drive manufacturing is now owned by Seagate(the trash of hdds for awhile now).  Less then 4 years ago you got a good drive, but now seagate is seeping into them and the reviews already show.

You are correct. I've read some of the more recent reviews and it appears as if even the model is different. It seems like we might have to wait a while to get anything comparable to replace how good the Spinpoints were in terms of performance/price. Hell that might have been why they got bought out. Their quality merchandise was just going that cheap. I'm just saying that, before you put Caviar Black on this huge pedestal, consider whether there are any alternatives that are either out, or are going to be out. For instance, before Seagate bought them out, I would definitely argue that Samsung Spinpoints were a superior choice, in almost every way. Some people on other forums agree with me.

Quote
Also I have never dealt with customer service as good and easy as Western Digital.  The free software they give you is great, and their drive replacement is top notch.  With the blacks if they die in 5 years, WD will get it to you in 2-3 days.  That Samsung you listed, made by Seagate, only has 1 year warranty, have fun with that.

Depends. Here's a summarization of the google study to help us out. Now, I'm not going to argue that the current Samsungs are a good deal by any measure of the word. However, supposing you make sure to do a nice "burn-in" run of your new hard drive, most infant moralities will be weeded out long before 1 year. Now, notice the characteristic curve after one year. Pretty much every drive has a 10% chance of dying every year after 1 year. The WD might have a slightly lower chance, and it has a 5 year warranty. That's fine. But it also costs twice as much as most of its alternatives. Suppose you burn out any infant fatalities early. If the drive you get for half price lasts at least 2.5 years, you've already won. Actually, considering you have money left over to get an extended 2-3 year warranty, that's even easier. Granted I will admit that touching Samsung right now is not a good idea, and that many other "competitors" are sketchy choices.


I see that most people on here are probably going to disagree with me anyway though. It's just that my thought process is a bit wonky compared to how you guys think, I guess. Well, I'm done with this argument though. Debates on the internet are decided the minute one side decides to give up, so this one's yours datora. Please make some super condescending post, preferably relating your terribly superior industry research.

Cute, huh?

Offline datora

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #31 on: June 17, 2012, 03:06:22 AM »
.
To summarize, after all that: you finally admit that there isn't anything that competes with the WD Black in its performance/reliability class for the job it's designed to do.  That's why I called you on it after your first post: you asserted there were equivalent drives available for much lower prices, I called bullshit.  I'm sorry I was right; I would have loved to have had another source that I missed that could compete.

Basically, every argument you provided would have been pretty solid, if you had been comparing WD Blue editions to the possible alternatives you suggested.  Well, apart from trying to introduce SSDs into it.  Not even apples and oranges at that point, more like apples and SSDs.

And my "life's story" doesn't involve bookmarking every forum post and review I've run across for the past three years awaiting the day someone demands that I provide them all when they go galloping off-topic into some fantasy world of theirs.  Your opinion that someone is being a dick seems to be "when they don't just shut up and agree with you when you're posting rubbish."  If that's how you're going to define it, get used to spending your life surrounded by "dicks."

<BEGIN> TOPIC: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?

Answer: WD Black edition drives are clearly, if not vastly, superior to Blue edition drives.

<END> TOPIC

<BEGIN> OFF-TOPIC: is the extra cost of the WD Black worth it?

Answer: It's a personal decision.

OFF-TOPIC: Are there other drives available that compete with the WD Black in it's performance/reliability class?

Answer: All major factors considered: No.

<END> OFF-TOPIC
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Offline xShadow

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #32 on: June 17, 2012, 05:26:01 AM »
Edit:
Okay, so I had something typed up here because your last post annoyed me. Honestly I don't wanna fuck with this anymore though. I'll just narrow it down to the only thing I care to clarify at this point.

Quote
And my "life's story" doesn't involve bookmarking every forum post and review I've run across for the past three years awaiting the day someone demands that I provide them all when they go galloping off-topic into some fantasy world of theirs.  Your opinion that someone is being a dick seems to be "when they don't just shut up and agree with you when you're posting rubbish."  If that's how you're going to define it, get used to spending your life surrounded by "dicks."

Wrong, I called you a dick because the tone of your post was: asshole, arrogant. I wouldn't care if you were simply proving me wrong. You were being a dick about it (well not to mention missing the point entirely, but who cares at this point). And if you don't notice it, that's even worse. I honestly didn't even mean to start arguing against you on the subject matter that we have been. I made the second (and probably third) posts in this thread because your tone annoyed me, I was tired, and I felt like I had to fuck with you just because of your tone.... which means in general I wasn't even generally presenting the point I wanted to make until my last two posts. But whatever. This is through.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2012, 09:21:30 AM by xShadow »

Cute, huh?

Offline Saras

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #33 on: June 17, 2012, 09:46:49 AM »
Yes, I should have said $/gb. And yes, the price becomes doable compared with the competition when you go <1tb.

I'm not going to let you off this easily though. There is indeed a very good reason for WD blacks to exist. Perhaps not for someone who just wants to play a game once in a while. But if you intend to make any sort of a server or a raid system. Blacks are ideal for that, they have, while lower still very much comparable reliability to enterprise drives while being quite a bit cheaper. If you want a reliable NAS that doesn't cost a fortune, blacks are the way to go.

Also. 4 ~500gb drives in a raid 5 is a much better option than any single 2tb drive. The 2TB drive WILL be cheaper to run, and likely cheaper to get (if you discount the fact that 500gb drives are cheap as fuck nowadays and that there are pleeeenty of sales for them), however there's no way it could compare with either speed or reliability.

Offline nstgc

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #34 on: June 18, 2012, 02:28:20 AM »
Personally, I would go with the RE4s over the Blacks. I believe they go through extra QC while only costing $5 more. The only part of TLER that is turned on by default, as far as I know, is the reading part. Chances are that won't cause any problems, and if you are worried about it, I think it can be disabled all together with a command line program.

Offline megido-rev.M

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #35 on: June 18, 2012, 03:01:16 AM »
Interesting. What would be a suitable external enclosure for the RE4?

Offline Dhruv

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #36 on: June 18, 2012, 03:20:02 AM »
i have a Freeagent GoFlex Desk 2TB External HDD
how good is that?
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Offline Sakura90

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #37 on: June 18, 2012, 03:37:55 AM »
<BEGIN> TOPIC: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?

Answer: WD Black edition drives are clearly, if not vastly, superior to Blue edition drives.

<END> TOPIC

<BEGIN> OFF-TOPIC: is the extra cost of the WD Black worth it?

Answer: It's a personal decision.

OFF-TOPIC: Are there other drives available that compete with the WD Black in it's performance/reliability class?

Answer: All major factors considered: No.

<END> OFF-TOPIC
Lol, nice discussion here. Those were the answers I was looking more or less, but it was a fun ride reading all this :P

In the end, I'm offering it for sale for a good price. I already have 4x2TB and I was thinking of keeping a 500GB drive for moving data here or there. But thinking it twice... 500GB is too much. I already have enough HDD space for backups... maybe for taking a movie or two to a friend's house, a dorama for the Japanese class xD or some music. But for that a large pendrive would be enough.

The idea was to swap the Black with my Seagate, and sell the Seagate. But I'm going to get much more selling the Black. I had several Seagates before and they were all perfect (included one that had firmware issues, don't remember the model, although I updated it very shortly after I got it). I can't say that with WD. My 2 last system drives (aside my current Seagate) were WD Blues, and both failed. The first had motor problems, it didn't spin up. It was sudden from a day to the next. Just out of the 3 year warranty. The next Blue collected tons of uncorrectable, pending and reallocated sectors, months after I got it.

Of 2 Greens, 1 (EADS model) popped up 8 reallocated sectors, little more than 2 years and half of using it (not hard, mainly backup drive). The other (2 years or so, EARS model) had been running flawlessly for now, and it has seen rough use and me carrying it around. Great drive, except that the Samsungs HD204UI (have 2) are noticeable faster. Not that I care much.

So I have a horrible experience with Blues and 1 and 1 with Greens (just got another after selling the one that came from RMA, it was 1.5TB EARS, I sold it and got a 2TB EARX). With Seagate just my current and a couple of 500GB drives from 2009, early 2010. All were fine and sold them fine. Never got any complains. I don't know why Seagate takes so much shit from everyone... let's see how long my current lasts :P


Here I don't have any choice most of the time. And if you want warranty, the only one that cares is WD, that has local RMA. It's WD Green for large drives or paying fortunes for a Seagate or Hitachi (if you can find one) and end with a 6 months warranty from the retailer only. Blacks are insane, that's why I said I'd get a nice sum for it :P

« Last Edit: June 18, 2012, 03:41:07 AM by Sakura90 »
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Offline vuzedome

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #38 on: June 18, 2012, 05:00:06 AM »
i have a Freeagent GoFlex Desk 2TB External HDD
how good is that?
Seems to be getting a lot of positive reviews on consumer targeted review sites, not the usual geeky tech hardware reviewers that have oodles of redundant benchmark tests that I assume most of us usually go to instead.
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Offline Dhruv

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Re: WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?
« Reply #39 on: June 18, 2012, 02:55:38 PM »
i have a Freeagent GoFlex Desk 2TB External HDD
how good is that?
Seems to be getting a lot of positive reviews on consumer targeted review sites, not the usual geeky tech hardware reviewers that have oodles of redundant benchmark tests that I assume most of us usually go to instead.
oh well maybe i'll buy a WD next time
which is the best  one?
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