WD6400AAKS released

[dhanson865]

"So it is only a matter of time until we see a 960GB and 1280GB drive. The only question is how they will market them.

Will the 960 be called a 960, 950, or 935?

Will the 1280 be called a 1.25 TB?"

I believe it will be 1TB drive, because when you have 3 platters it's not that hard to expand a space a little bit...

Yes but at 1TB the old 1024 vs 1000 issue makes it more of an issue. At some point the drive capacities get so far out of whack they need some margin.

Samsung calls their new platters 334GB and WD calls theirs 320GB maybe WD is just as well engineered but they want that margin?

At 1TB by the marketing rule of storage (1,000,000,000,000 bytes) the unformatted space is 953.7GB in base-2 and the usable space is about 935GB as windows sees it (not counting Vista SP1 adjustments). 967GB is the middle point so calling it 960 is pretty close to the middle ground between Marketing wanting to call it 1TB and lawyers/engineers wanting to call it 935GB (I'm assuming someone somewhere brings this up every year at some meeting).

We used to have the same problem with marketing CRTs until LCDs came around and pretty much killed that issue.

Hopefully SSDs can do the same for storage as LCDs did for displays.

Though I'm fine if the drive manufacturers wise up and realize they lose credibility by using a technically accurate measurement to mislead uneducated consumers. I'd be happy to see drives marketed by their actual usable space or at least the unformatted space.

If that is why the WD6400AAKS isn't known as the WD6700AAKS then more power to WD I say...

[dhanson865]

follow up with specs

WD6400AAKS Formatted Capacity 640,135 MB = 625 GB

Can anyone confirm that say XP SP2 or your favorite flavor of Linux reports the drive as 625GB?

Samsung HD642JJ (spinpoint F DT) "Max. 334GB Formatted Capacity per Disk" capacity : 640 GB

Does 640 on the specs mean 625GB in windows?

And when does 334x2=640?

Is it a marketing/legal/nomenclature decision or is it down binning of platters that have some bad sectors from the factory?

Samsung does have a 1TB drive in the same family so either they save the best platters for the 1TB model or they just fudge it for marketing purposes. Either way their specs on the web site don't make it easy to tell how much usable space you'll get until you buy one and format it yourself.

[Luminair]

> Though I'm fine if the drive manufacturers wise up and realize they lose credibility by using a technically accurate measurement to mislead uneducated consumers.

Windows explorer is what is reporting sizes wrong, not the drive marketing...

Sometimes when windows says GB, it actually means GiB...

[AZBrandon]

> Though I'm fine if the drive manufacturers wise up and realize they lose credibility by using a technically accurate measurement to mislead uneducated consumers.

Windows explorer is what is reporting sizes wrong, not the drive marketing...

Sometimes when windows says GB, it actually means GiB...

When does Windows do that? Everything I've seen, it properly scales along units of 1024. KB is really KB and so on. I don't have a terabyte drive so I can't confirm that, but I do know that for the disk and for files which it lists by GB, when you check the actual byte count and divide by 1024^3 it is that number of gigabytes.

Anyway, by the numbers, even the unformatted space for a trillion bytes is 0.909 terabytes, so we're reaching a point where it's off by a full 10%, and that's not even counting formatting loss. Hence, Windows still shows the gigabyte figure in the view screen and as 931gb it doesn't seem as far off, but 931gb is still "only" 0.909 terabytes.



I guess to most folks it isn't important, but it would be nice if the drive manufacturers would start reporting accurately. Calling it a "terabyte" drive when it only holds 0.909 terabytes is just plain inaccurate.

[oberbimbo]

Formatted capacity is a totally useless measure because every filesystem will have different formatted capacity.

I have no problem with them using 10^12 bytes for a TB as long as its openly declared. It's not like you don't know what you're buying, really.

Now bring on the 1TB 3 platter Greenpower, I say.

[Cryoburner]

I don't see any real issue with using base-10 drive capacities either. Technically, hard drives are using the SI prefixes correctly, while the file systems are misusing them. The kilo prefix means 1000, not 1024, just as tera means 1,000,000,000,000 and not 1,099,511,627,776. What an OS like Windows refers to as a kilobyte should actually be called a Kibibyte, according to the IEC standard. The same goes for other hardware that uses SI prefixes incorrectly, such as ram and cpu cache.

It's not like you're getting cheated either, since all drive manufacturers use base-10 capacities in marketing their drives. Sure one could produce a Tebibyte drive, but it would likely take longer to develop and cost more than a comparable Terabyte drive.

Hopefully SSDs can do the same for storage as LCDs did for displays.

Solid State Drives don't always use base-2 capacities either. They can actually be more deceptive, since they sometimes set aside extra space for wear leveling. Also, while LCD measurements are more accurate than CRTs, a diagonal measurement can still often be considered deceptive, because it doesn't reflect the viewable area for different aspect ratios. A 19" widescreen LCD covers less area than a standard 19" LCD by as much as 10%. That might be getting off topic though. : )

[AZBrandon]

I suppose it all comes down to buyer beware. An informed consumer does their research and is never surprised with what they get. Good point about the CRT vs LCD, and 4:3 diagonal versus 16:10 diagonal being different square inches of viewable display area. As long as you know what you're getting into, it's just something to know, not to be surprised about. People only tend to feel cheated when something is a surprise to them.

[dhanson865]

Seagate Offers Refunds on 6.2 Million Hard Drives from Nov 2007.

Also I thought this quote sums a concept up nicely

The difference between 2^10 bytes and 10^3 bytes is 2.4%. (kilobyte)

The difference between 2^20 bytes and 10^6 bytes is 4.9% (megabytes)

The difference between 2^30 bytes and 10^9 bytes is 7.4% (gigabytes)

The difference between 2^40 bytes and 10^12 bytes is 10% (terabytes)

In other words, treating 10^(3n) as equivalent to 2^(10n) makes less and less sense as the capacities go up.

As to aspect ratios making a diagonal measurement a less accurate representation of size of screen:

1. CRTs were marketed based on glass that was behind the case (bezel, plastic, metal, whatever name you want to use for that opaque material).

2. LCDs are marketed based on viewable area.

Any confusion about widescreen 19" vs 4:3 19" would exist with either technology.

[Luminair]

When does Windows do that? Everything I've seen, it properly scales along units of 1024. KB is really KB and so on.

That is not properly... Windows gives you KiB values but labels them KB...

[AZBrandon]

I understand where the disconnect is. You're saying that KB = 1000 and KiB = 1024. This is a matter of when the software was written and which standard the companies intend to follow. Some standards bodies continue to cling to the original standard (KB = 1024) whereas sanctioning bodies who've taken bribes from the hard drive manufacturers have been paid off to redefine KB = 1000.

Well ok, so officially no money changed hands, but ultimately that's what it comes down to - some people have accepted the changing of the definition of existing words and others have rejected it. Mainly, the hardware manufacturers actually selling the products adopted the new definitions for marketing purposes and the software manufacturers who feel a close affinity to the traditional definition have rejected it. The fact that Seagate lost a lawsuit on the matter as recently as 2007 seems to indicate that the traditionalists may be winning.

[Cryoburner]

Seagate Offers Refunds on 6.2 Million Hard Drives from Nov 2007.

The fact that Seagate lost a lawsuit on the matter as recently as 2007 seems to indicate that the traditionalists may be winning.

Actually, Seagate 'settled' the lawsuit, so they didn't actually lose in court. They could have gone through with a trial, and may have won, but it would likely cost them more than to just reach a settlement. The refunds they're offering are for 5% of the pre-tax purchase price, with the average payout estimated at $7.00. Anyone claiming this will also need to fill out and mail a form along with a receipt or statement to prove their purchase. So for an hour of work you might come out $5.00 or so ahead. They're also providing the plaintiff with a $5,000 incentive award, while her lawyers will of course get $1.75 million out of the deal.

That brings us around to the real reason why lawyers file frivolous lawsuits against companies for things like this all the time. They know that they can get a sizable sum of money just by getting the company to settle, which they usually do. Consumers don't get anything out of the deal aside from some fine print on the back of the box explaining that 1 Gigabyte equals 1 billion bytes. The money to pay for these lawsuits has to come from somewhere as well, driving up the cost of future products while diverting money away from support and development.

[nick705]

I understand where the disconnect is. You're saying that KB = 1000 and KiB = 1024. This is a matter of when the software was written and which standard the companies intend to follow. Some standards bodies continue to cling to the original standard (KB = 1024) whereas sanctioning bodies who've taken bribes from the hard drive manufacturers have been paid off to redefine KB = 1000.

No, you still haven't grasped the main point - it's a simple matter of following the pre-existing SI convention, followed by everyone *except*, apparently, certain elements in the IT industry, where the prefix "kilo" indicates x1000, and "giga" indicates x1000000000. It's got absolutely nothing to do with whether or not "some people accept it," and if anyone "changed the definition" it was the original computer programmers who (ab)used the SI standard prefixes as rough shorthand for certain powers of two.

And your comment about sanctioning bodies taking bribes from HD manufacturers is, with all due respect, plain silly - are you suggesting that the concept of a "kilometre" equalling 1000 as opposed to 1024 metres is all down to Seagate?

[Cryoburner]

Back on topic, Newegg is having a hard drive sale today through the 28th, and the 6400AAKS is going to be $99.99 with free shipping.

I'm tempted to get one, despite not needing 640GB of storage right now. You can't beat the price for the capacity at just over 15.6 cents per gigabyte. I was hoping to get a 320GB F1, but they're not available here yet, and the 6400AAKS offers similar performance and twice the capacity for only around $30 more.

[nicko]

That's great deal. If I could, I'd get one

[flyingsherpa]

Back on topic, Newegg is having a hard drive sale today through the 28th, and the 6400AAKS is going to be $99.99 with free shipping.

Gah, figures, I just bought 2 last weekend from newegg for $115 each

[anakintjc]

Which would be more quiet: the Samsung F1 320/640 or this drive?

I read in the recommand HDD section that MikeC stated :
"Heavy users who want to avoid seek noise will probably prefer the Western Digital, but users whose drives spend most of their time in idle may prefer the smoother idle noise of the Spinpoint T"

Is this still the case?

I prefer performance/silence so the Caviar GP dropped out (bit too slow),
i like quick response in the OS (where the 6400 has the advantage of lower ms)!

Which one would you recommand (although the hdd will spend mostly idle-time )?

[nicko]

I'd recommend the drive with the lowest acces time. I think that's WD 640GB with about 12.5ms (random acces time). 320GB version has much higher RAT (about 16ms).

I don't know about Samsung 320/640GB drives, but I'd guess they're about 13-14ms....

[dragonfruit]

I read in the reviews on newegg about for Western Digital Caviar GP WD5000AACS 500GB that:

"Do NOT attempt to use this drive for your OS, gaming, or real-time applications that may need to access the drive periodically. I was having an issue with 1-2 second freezes every few minutes while web browsing & gaming, and it was due to the IntelliPark feature of this drive. I now have two of them, and only use them for media storage. I use other drives (WD Caviar, Raptor, and Seagate Barracudas) for OS/gaming/application drives."

"Put this drive into a new system build and noticed that the build was making a strange noise. A tiny bit of pressure on the top of the case killed the noise. Seems this drive was creating a vibration when active that was translating into noise from the case. Tried another drive in the case, WD SE16, the noise stopped. Put in a different GP drive and the same noise."

"The seek noise is very perceptible. Not annoyingly loud, but distinct, even through a closed Antec case. This might be because the rest of the system is very quiet, but I was expecting better, after having read the reviews for this drive. I'll probably try a Samsung next."

I also read somewhere (can't find now quickly) that when parking the head it makes annoying cliking noise.

Have you experienced the same problem with Caviar 640 GB WD6400AAKS?
Does it freeze like GP, and make cliking noise when parking unparking the heads?

[Edwood]

I read in the reviews on newegg about for Western Digital Caviar GP WD5000AACS 500GB that:

"Do NOT attempt to use this drive for your OS, gaming, or real-time applications that may need to access the drive periodically. I was having an issue with 1-2 second freezes every few minutes while web browsing & gaming, and it was due to the IntelliPark feature of this drive. I now have two of them, and only use them for media storage. I use other drives (WD Caviar, Raptor, and Seagate Barracudas) for OS/gaming/application drives."

"Put this drive into a new system build and noticed that the build was making a strange noise. A tiny bit of pressure on the top of the case killed the noise. Seems this drive was creating a vibration when active that was translating into noise from the case. Tried another drive in the case, WD SE16, the noise stopped. Put in a different GP drive and the same noise."

"The seek noise is very perceptible. Not annoyingly loud, but distinct, even through a closed Antec case. This might be because the rest of the system is very quiet, but I was expecting better, after having read the reviews for this drive. I'll probably try a Samsung next."

I also read somewhere (can't find now quickly) that when parking the head it makes annoying cliking noise.

Have you experienced the same problem with Caviar 640 GB WD6400AAKS?
Does it freeze like GP, and make cliking noise when parking unparking the heads?

I haven't had any of those problems with my WD6400AAKS.

-Ed

[rpsgc]

I haven't had any of those problems with my WD6400AAKS.

-Ed

AFAICT me neither.

[bgavin]

I bought two from Newegg for the upcoming IP35 Pro / P182 build. Both are the SE16 model, not GP, so there should be no parking or power down issues at all.

Part of the decision was made by spread-sheeting the capacity vs. cost, and choosing the drive with the lowest cost per gigabyte. I have good luck with the SE16. The RE2 is getting a lot of negative feedback on Newegg, so I avoided them.

[dragonfruit]

I bought two from Newegg for the upcoming IP35 Pro / P182 build. Both are the SE16 model, not GP, so there should be no parking or power down issues at all.

SE16 640GB has the same parking mechanism as Caviar GP:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=394

[Cryoburner]

SE16 640GB has the same parking mechanism as Caviar GP:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=394

Actually, according to that page, it uses a different parking mechanism. The SE16's is called SecurePark while the GP's is called IntelliPark.

SecureParkâ„¢ - Parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when the drive is off. This ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface resulting in improved long term reliability due to less head wear, and improved non- operational shock tolerance.

IntelliPark - Delivers lower power consumption by automatically unloading the heads during idle to reduce aerodynamic drag.

From the sound of it, IntelliPark disengages the heads at idle, when the disk is still spinning, while SecurePark only does so when the drive is powered down. If you use power management to turn off the drive it will park the head, otherwise it should leave it in place until the computer is shut down.

[sykora]

I read in the reviews on the newegg.com about similar to WD Caviar 640 GB (the same parking method) Western Digital Caviar GP WD5000AACS 500GB that:

"Do NOT attempt to use this drive for your OS, gaming, or real-time applications that may need to access the drive periodically. I was having an issue with 1-2 second freezes every few minutes

Nope, no such problems. Ever.
And I use my WD6400AAKS as OS + gaming drive.

I have Intel P35 chipset mb, I tried this disk in intel/gigabyte sata slots, disk set as AHCI and IDE - no problems

"Put this drive into a new system build and noticed that the build was making a strange noise. A tiny bit of pressure on the top of the case killed the noise. Seems this drive was creating a vibration when active that was translating into noise from the case. Tried another drive in the case, WD SE16, the noise stopped. Put in a different GP drive and the same noise."

After seeing many posts about WD6400AAKS on forums and on my PCshop's review page -> some of these disks are very quiet and some vibrate.

Unfortunatelly my disk vibrates.

I have almost silent system in a cheap case that has thin metal parts and putting something heavy on top helped. But not enough.
I had to silence the HDD. (dishwashing sponge under disk => absolute silence) Intake fan blows directly on disk, so there is no heat problem

"The seek noise is very perceptible. Not annoyingly loud, but distinct, even through a closed Antec case. "

No problem with seek noise now.
So the solution is better case or anti-vibration kit
Or possibility to return your drive and get a silent one. Or be able to try before buy.

I also read somewhere (can't find now quickly) that when parking the head it makes annoying cliking noise.

I have never heard anything like that

I initially was going to purchase Samsung F1 500 GB, but after seeing on newegg and elsewhere how many failures occured, and that Samsung vibrates a lot, I switched my interest to WD Caviars, however I want it for both OS and data, so it would be annoying if it would freeze for 1-2 s and made cliking noises when parking.
What are your experiences regarding that, particularly in 640 GB Caviar? Does it freeze like GP? What about clicking when parking?
In test it seems to be equal in performance to Samsung F1 (but it was 1 TB not 500 GB they were testing I think):
http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14380/15

It was either samsung og WD for me (2x 3x0GB plates, fast, silent etc.) and after seeing so many Samsung failure posts everywhere I got the WD

BTW 640GB or 1TB are way faster than 500/750GB versions (and 640GB had the best price/size ratio here)

WD is slightly faster than Samsung in transfer tests.

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/2260 ... offxx9.png
(2 tests, red with AAM on silent and blue with AAM set at max preformance)

The test was done on HDD with several partitions on it (not as standalone 2nd drive with 1 partition only) And it was the system drive at the time of the test - done mainly to see difference between silent/performance AAM setting (16ms/12ms). That's why you see some jumps and spikes.

[falcon26]

Just purchased the WD from newegg to replace my samsung spinpoint T. After reading reviews from various sources the WD seems to beat the samsung in every dept, from noise to speed to power so I hope it holds true for me as well...

[rpsgc]

Just purchased the WD from newegg to replace my samsung spinpoint T. After reading reviews from various sources the WD seems to beat the samsung in every dept, from noise to speed to power so I hope it holds true for me as well...

The WD6400AAKS is noisier than the Samsung HD501LJ, at least seek noise.

[falcon26]

I've got the 320GB model. And from the reviews I read the WD was quieter in both seek and idle. But I guess I'll find out on weds when I get it

[dragonfruit]

Does anyone know why 640 GB Caviar suddenly became more expensive everywhere (it was 109 USD in US, now it is 129 USD, it was 57.23 GBP in the UK, now it is 59.22 GBP). I hope it is not because we praise those disks on this forum?
GP and SP1 500 GB price remains the same at the same time.

[dhanson865]

http://silentpcreview.pricegrabber.com/ ... bottomline

$97+S&H is my current best price.

I have definitely seen items reviewed well here or hyped up on the forum jump in price.

[falcon26]

Yeah I'm glad I got mine when I did. One day it was $109 when I got it, and the next day it was like $130 ouch Must be a very popular HD