Western Digital 640 GB Caviar Black SATA 3 Gb/s 7200 RPM 32 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive - WD6401AALS by Western Digital
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Our Price: $79.95 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Western Digital 640 GB Caviar Black SATA 3 Gb/s 7200 RPM 32 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive - WD6401AALS
Digital camera Review: A Beast Hard Drive
Summary: 5 Stars
I am both a Seagate fan and a Western Digital fan. My old system had two Seagates and while they were reliable, I wanted speed and lots of it. I decided on a 32MB cache hard drive, but Seagate did not have the space that Western Digital offered with this amount of speed. Plus I love black, and the black name just made me want it more. It is a fast, quiet, cool, and reliable drive for a great price. As the other reviewer said, just get a couple of these and RAID them instead of spending a premium on the 10,000RPM Raptors.Digital camera Review: A very fast and reliable drive
Summary: 5 Stars
For anyone wondering what the difference is between this drive and Western Digital Caviar Blue 640 GB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 3.5 Inch, 16 MB Cache, 7200 RPM SATA II WD6400AAKS:
1. 32 MB cache compared to a 16 MB cache on their Blue line - This is not hugely noticeable but it does make a difference.
2. 5 year warranty compared to 3 year warranty on the Blue. If you combine that with Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Diagnostics software and S.M.A.R.T. feature (which monitors hard disks for problems and potential failures), then you really don't have much to worry about with hard drive crashes.
3. Construction - The Black line contains a dual processor and StableTrac, which secures the motor shaft at both ends to reduce vibration and keeps the platters more stable. The Blue line is only secured on one end.
Considering this drive is only slightly more expensive than the Caviar Blue, there is really no reason anyone should get that drive over this. As of October 2009, this is probably the best drive out there right now for gaming and performance computing. I have benchmarked it with a Western Digital 150 GB VelociRaptor SATA 10,000 RPM 16 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive WD1500HLFS and other than the boot up time, the differences between the two drives was not that great. I would go with the Caviar Black and it's larger cache (and one less platter) for a MUCH cheaper price than a velociraptor drive as far as gaming goes.
Digital camera Review: Awsome
Summary: 5 Stars
This Hard Drive is the best Ive owned, is ultra fast, sustained speed of 105MB/s reading :O, 100% recommended, is quiet.Digital camera Review: Buyer Beware !
Summary: 3 Stars
The drive is working but for how long ? It came in a box. Thats it a box! No packaging or anything to buffer the drive from the shipping process. I should have sent it back right away. I figure this way I can inform everone as the drive ages and also see just how bad the lack of packaging is in the long run. Good luck to anyone buying a drive from Amazon. Please send it back if you experience the same as me.Digital camera Review: Disappointed : 2 replacements in 2 years
Summary: 1 Stars
I've bought this drive (640G) in 2009 as an exchange for seagate 500G which originally came with my
dell desktop
(Seagate becomes somewhat noisy and I also wanted a little bigger capacity.
denote, that despite the noise, Seagate worked fine for 3.5 years and I never had any data loss/correctness problem with it).
It turned out it was a BIG mistake ( I should have bought another Seagate).
WDC, which I bought, worked OK for 1 year then I couldn't boot from it.
Since it was under warranty, I called WD and they send me a replacement drive.
Luckily I was able to connect a bad drive as a slave and salvage all the important data.
Today, the replacement drive (which I have had for less then a year developed the problems
: "Timeout waiting for IRQ" per Dell Diagnostic Suite.
I called WD again and they are sending me second replacement.
Representative told me they sending "re-certified" drives to replace bad ones under warranty
He assured me "re-certified" are as good as new.
I am EXTREMELY disappointed in this drive quality - 2 replacements in 2.5 year,
each time I need to spent hours on diagnostics, salvaging data, reinstalling OSs etc.
(I understand one can get wrong but two in the row !). I am consider myself very lucky
that in both cases I can connect bad drives as slave and at least access them to get the data out.
I'll never buy their product again.
P.S. I need to mention that their customer service is good, no waiting on the phone, replacements
are send quickly ( they need credit card if you want advanced replacement - getting a new drive
before sending them back an old one, while cc is not actually charged, this amount is sort "withheld" from your balance).
But id doesn't cover for such quality problems with the drive itself.