2TB Drive For Birthday

[Not Bman]

I am looking to buy this drive for my birthday early, since the deals going on now.

PC Cyber Canada - For All Your Computer Needs

Yet, I look at this page with all the 2TB drives

PC Cyber Canada - For All Your Computer Needs

And the one I want is already one of the cheaper priced drives. Now looking at the features, being Caviar Green and all. Seems like the best drive. Am I missing something? WD or any retailers don't list the Green as 7200RPM but every review says it is. That would be the only downside, so.....?

 

[Admiral Michael]

According to the spec sheet the RPM is "IntelliPower". It must vary the speed depending on the needs.

IntelliPower - A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate, and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance. Additionally, WD Caviar Green drives consume less current during startup allowing lower peak loads on systems as they are booted.

On these current models do the RPMs matter anymore? I can stream a full Blu-Ray rip (30gb file) off one over the network. I have 2 of these drives and they are awesome.

I think if you want performance you're suppose to get a either a blue (mid performance) or black (high performance) model.

 

[LeeJend]

Think of a HD as an race car driving around in on a track just waiting to crash. The higher the speed the more likely it is to crash. That slower speed is good. less heat, less wear, less noise.

While seek time will be lower data transfer rates are higher now with perpendicular encoding. So unless your disk is fragmented RPM is not as important as it used to be.

I have a couple 1 TB and a 1.5 TB Greens and have had no issue with them.

I need to get a 2TB (actually I need a 3 TB but they're not available yet) but have been scared off by the high percentage of bad reviews and DOA's. I know many of the DOA's are DOA users but it's still scary when it takes 20 hours to load the HD with media. I'd definitely go Green drives for the reliability advantage.

 

[dreamliner77]

I don't know if you have other retailers available to you but based off of reviews, I'd recommend the Samsung 2TB 5400RPM drive.

Newegg.ca - SAMSUNG EcoGreen F3 HD203WI 2TB 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

 

[Not Bman]

I would like a Samsung drives, I have there 1TB drives right now. Yet I would rather get 64MB Cache and 7200RPM, even if it don't matter that much lol

As long as there is no major difference in the listed Green one I want, I will be getting it. I thought there might have be something big I missed lol

Thanks guys. This drive is also going to be storage for media and backups. Will later on get a better performance one for my OS.

 

[dreamliner77]

The WD Green drives are really only 5400 RPM drives so that logic is flawed. My advice would be to only use a 2TB for storage. Get a 2TB 5400 for storage and maybe a fast 500GB for OS, etc.

 

[Petros]

The WD Green drives are really only 5400 RPM drives so that logic is flawed. My advice would be to only use a 2TB for storage. Get a 2TB 5400 for storage and maybe a fast 500GB for OS, etc.

This is kinda how my computer is set up. I love my 5400 RPM drives, and slower moving parts = last longer if my knowledge of mechanics is correct.

 

[Not Bman]

I think the 7200RPM drives are slow. I do alot of copying, moving within one drive, and through/between multiple drives. I assume that 5400RPM would be worse, not sure how much. Yet I do like the idea about them lasting longer, even though I have not had issues with any of my drives since I had my first computer.

And yes a fast 500GB for OS would be awesome, even a large SSD, except for the fact that a OS drive also includes all installations of software and games, and my system drive is currently around 400GB. With time that might go up, though it's been stable around that for years now.

The Green drive being "able" to do 7200RPM even though it probably never will still makes me feel better lol


Anyways, that stuff is for another time. The Green 2TB drive I have bought (yes I did end up getting it) is for storage. What I am waiting for is for SSD drives to get up to the TB sizes, get 100% stable (in terms of regular SATA drives) and price drops. Then I would have a 500GB or 1TB SSD as my OS/Installs. Then I would have a drobo connected through firewire or USB 3.0 with like 12TB in it or something like that. That would be all my backups, media, etc.

That would be ideal.

 

[Not Bman]

I need to get a 2TB (actually I need a 3 TB but they're not available yet) but have been scared off by the high percentage of bad reviews and DOA's. I know many of the DOA's are DOA users but it's still scary when it takes 20 hours to load the HD with media. I'd definitely go Green drives for the reliability advantage.

Yea the 3TB external that just came out looks awesome, but I found it quite weird that the first 3TB drive is external, usually it's internal. Also, I think 3TB is stupid, i hate numbers like that. I want my 4TB drive NOW!

And another thing, why has the 10,000RPM drives not been more mainstream, you can only get them from a few manufacturers, and only up to 160GB correct? Stupid!

 

[LeeJend]

My racecar waiting to crash applies. High speed is not easy to do so yields and reliability are low. Not a good product line. Especially since perpendicular encoding at 7200 RPM allows the same data transfer rates.

Now 10k RPm with perpendicular encoding would be FAST but hitting the smaller magnetic domains at 10k RPM is risky.

So 7200 RPM Perpendicular is the optimum choice except for speed freaks.

 

[Not Bman]

So that's just the limitations of standard SATA drives then? Which is why there are now the SSDs. Once those are perfected and have larger sizes, I assume SATA drives are dead?

I actually don't know much about the SSDs. Do they have RPM? If not, what would the speed of them be if they did have RPM? Does that make sense lol

 

[LeeJend]

A pure SSD is just a huge thumb drive. It is all solid state.

There are hybrid drives that combine an SSD with a really big SATA drive. When used with a compatible operating system they move frequently used files (like files used for booting) to the SSD part and use the SATA for less often used bulk storage. You get size and speed at a reasonable price.

It's going to be awhile before there are reasonably priced TB SSD's.

 

[dreamliner77]

One thing we often forget about when discussing spindle speeds is the difference that data density makes in the overall speed of a drive. For instance with two identical capacity drives (500GB), a drive with a single 500GB platter will be much faster (not quite a factor of 2) than a drive with two 250GB platters. This is because the data is packed much closer together and the read head does not have to travel as far to read blocks of data.