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: Incredible HDD
Summary: 5 Stars
I am satisfied with this hdd. Fast, quiet, and reletively cheap. SO far best hdd i even had.Digital camera Review: Incredible speed for the price
Summary: 5 Stars
This drive was highly recommended as the fastest drive available before going up to the 10krpm Velociraptor series, and after putting both in my system, I believe the claims are true.
This drive runs quietly, where I can't even hear drive accesses like I can with other drives. That's one of the most noticeable differences between this and the Velociraptor, aside from the speed, of course.
So, what is the speed difference between this Caviar Black drive and the Velociraptor? I ran HD Tune 2.55 to find out.
The test system was a brand new Core i7-920 based system using an ASUS P6T-Deluxe motherboard with on-board SATA. The 300GB Velociraptor is installed as the system drive, the 640GB Caviar Black as the data drive.
Caviar Black 640GB:
50 MB/s min, 109.4 MB/s max, 85.8 MB/s average
Access Time: 12.3ms
Burst Rate: 127 MB/s
Velociraptor 300GB:
74.6 MB/s min, 120 MB/s max, 100.9 MB/s average
Access Time: 8.6ms
Burst Rate: 188.3 MB/s
While the max rates are very close, you'll notice that the min rates are quite different, and the burst rate is even more so.
To put these tests into perspective, I also ran HD Tune on my previous system, which is a Pentium 4 3.06GHz Windows XP box with an 80GB Seagate IDE system drive and a 500GB Seagate ST3500641AS SATA drive for data.
I won't even post the 80GB's numbers because they are too pathetic and the technology it's based on is outdated, but I think a comparison to the SATA drive is apt because many people might have such a drive and may be contemplating the value of a replacement/upgrade.
Seagate 7200.9 500GB:
30.2 MB/s min, 61.3 MB/s max, 48.8 MB/s average
Access Time: 14ms
Burst Rate: 97.3 MB/s
As you can see, the new Caviar Black drive outpaces the older Seagate by a wide margin. An almost 76% increase in average speed, coupled with 14% better access times, makes for an upgrade that is going to be noticeable in disk-instensive operations, provided the rest of the system is not a bottleneck.
Bottlenecks are exactly what I didn't want in my new system. The Velociraptor came highly recommended by a local system builder that I trust, as he said that with the new systems he was building, the hard drive was fast becoming the bottleneck. Based on these tests and my usage of the new machine, I have every confidence that he was correct.
I decided to go with the Velociraptor for my system drive because I wanted the fastest drive possible, especially for quick accesses. While I could have gone with a second Velociraptor for the data drive, I wanted more storage space and lower cost.
While breaking in my system, I used both HD Tune's error scan function and Windows 7's thorough chkdsk routines several times. These tests took several hours to run, and I ran them directly after installation, and then after transferring about 300GB of data to the drive. No problems have been found in any of those tests.
I hoped that the Caviar Black was the bang-for-the-buck alternative, and I believe that was a wise choice. The Caviar Black 640GB drive represents a great value and delivers terrific performance.
Digital camera Review: Love IT!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I got this product a few weeks ago and so far it has worked excellent. Very quiet and fast. I definitely recommend this it.
Digital camera Review: Nice HDD
Summary: 5 Stars
Nice speed, sturdy construction, easy to mount and plenty storage space
Notice faster transfers
Excelent product
Digital camera Review: No problems, would order it again.
Summary: 5 Stars
This was my first time building a computer, so I had to do a lot of searching for information as to what I was attempting to do. I went with the Western Digital 640 GB Caviar Black SATA 7200 RPM 32 MB, and I am extremely satisfied. The product arrived on time, installed easily, and has worked as expected after installation. I am extremely satisfied with my decision!