"The choice of words by WD is obviously confusing people."
While current specs don't directly say it has variable rpm, they claim 5400-7200rpm range of operation due to IntelliPower technology. They claim it's technology so it leads people thinking there's something new to it.
But in reality, WD sucks at bringing new technology. It's patent portfolio is worst of all HDD makers and they merely licence rights to use them. Hitachi and Seagate own vast majority of intellectual property and Samsung owns some. Of course most of these patents are pretty obsolete these days but it does give a slight idea where WD stands. They are a market innovator: they customize drives for different markets others don't serve.
"They are basically obscuring information in their current documentation. So the documentation could be updated to explain things a bit better."
"Could." How about "would"? I seriously doubt that will happen as long as WD management lives in belief that they're serving performance enthusiasts (and only them) instead on regular users. Misconception about variable rpm fit nicely to performance enthusiasts since even Hitachi, which I would consider de-facto desktop performance leader at 7200rpm spindle rate, uses such a technology through APM feature and it doesn't compromise performance.
I'm also not sure abot whether it's just a misconception or half-intentional misleading. Maybe some prerelease paperlaunch documents talked about variability which might have later been removed from the docs (without correcting the misconceptions created by older docs).
Btw, I ordered that WD already and canceled F1 order. I found a retailer that sold it for around 260 eur (incl. 22% VAT) (not incl. postage). F1 I ordered was around 290 eur. Most other retailers selling 1TB in Finland sell it for higher than 300 eur. Hitachi's lowest price according to MBnet price watch was still at 330 and many stores will still charge you with 360 eur.
Getting a terabyter that cheap, I don't really care if it's 7200rpm. Well, I do care, but I'd still be "moderately happy" to have solved my dire need of capacity. If it's a 5400rpm unit I receive, I'm even happier.
Retailer has it on stock and it should arrive either by next Friday or early next week.
I'll post my findings when I get the drive.
I'll try to make some subjective analysis of the noise (which is kinda hard because I don't own T-series or other widely used drive that is considered quiet for reference point), random access time measurements (to further find if it's 5400rpm or 7200rpm), STR and power consumption. I don't have prebuilt method of measuring power draw so I'll probably just measure operating temperature when run bare sitting on a desk. Reference might be 7K250 which is not a quiet drive but at least it's power consumption is well known. (I'll just have to disable APM on 7K250 so that it doesn't go to low-rpm when idling.) Temperature measurement of drive with digital multimeter + thermocouple.
Alternatively I could use external power brick 2A 5V, 2A 12V with molex output. Put a current meter between 12V output on power brick and 12V input IDE-to-SATA power adapter cable which in turn connected to HDD. Solid connections between 5V and GND. Then repeat for 5V line and run the test again. It's a bit hazzle, though.
They are basically obscuring information in their current documentation. So the documentation could be updated to explain things a bit better.
