Discussion Forums > Technology

WD Blue vs Black: Reliability?

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xShadow:
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):


--- Quote from: Saras on June 16, 2012, 08:32:18 AM ---
--- Quote from: xShadow on June 16, 2012, 04:07:09 AM ---...

--- End quote ---

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

--- End quote ---

...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.

--- End quote ---

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.
--- End quote ---

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.
--- End quote ---

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.

datora:
.
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

xShadow:
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."
--- End quote ---

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.

Saras:
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.

nstgc:
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.

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