I'm struggling deciding between the 640GB versions of the WD Caviar Black or the Blue. I'm going to use this as my OS drive in an Antec Solo case just under 1m from my ears.
1. Is there a real-world difference in noise & heat between the two?
2. Is there a real-world performance difference between the two?
WD Caviar Black or Blue? Noise/Heat/Performance?
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The cache is certainly different, but I get the impression it's more of a marketing gimmick than an actual real-world differentiator.
I found a set of benchmarks directly comparing the two, and in theoretical use (HDTach) the Black does have better performance. But it's hard to tell from that review whether that translates to noticeable real-world differences (aside from the 2-second shorter cold-boot time, which would be noticeable I guess).
According to the WD specs, the "Acoustics" between the two drives are identical, yet I notice most people here seem to strongly prefer the Blue for noise, which is why I posed the question.
I can't find a direct comparison that includes an analysis of noise and temps. Still uncertain.
I found a set of benchmarks directly comparing the two, and in theoretical use (HDTach) the Black does have better performance. But it's hard to tell from that review whether that translates to noticeable real-world differences (aside from the 2-second shorter cold-boot time, which would be noticeable I guess).
According to the WD specs, the "Acoustics" between the two drives are identical, yet I notice most people here seem to strongly prefer the Blue for noise, which is why I posed the question.
I can't find a direct comparison that includes an analysis of noise and temps. Still uncertain.
You know 640GB drives are last generation, right? I wouldn't get either version now. I guess if it was really cheap it would be okay--I have a WD6400AAKS I'll be selling soon. 
The tiny caches on hard drives are mostly irrelevant. It would be fun if some company made a hard drive with a SODIMM slot. Maybe if we could stick 4GB on a drive it might make a difference.
Now with $129 60GB SSDs, disk performance is getting less important. Mechanical disks need to get quieter, not faster. It seems like the current generation Caviar Blacks are a move in the wrong direction.
The tiny caches on hard drives are mostly irrelevant. It would be fun if some company made a hard drive with a SODIMM slot. Maybe if we could stick 4GB on a drive it might make a difference.
Now with $129 60GB SSDs, disk performance is getting less important. Mechanical disks need to get quieter, not faster. It seems like the current generation Caviar Blacks are a move in the wrong direction.
[quote=QuietOC]The tiny caches on hard drives are mostly irrelevant. It would be fun if some company made a hard drive with a SODIMM slot. Maybe if we could stick 4GB on a drive it might make a difference.[/quote]
I guess you're one of those people who think adding cache to system RAM is the same as having bigger HDD cache. Main advantage of HDDs built-in cache is related to write caching and read-ahead caching. Ridiculously big write cache will only increase risk of lost data during a power shortage. Too big read-ahead cache would be useful either because the benefit of having cache on the HDD is because HDD knows the physical layout of sectors and can read extra sectors between seeks. For cache sizes that take several seconds to fill by reading from the platters, the benefit of knowing the physical layout of the drive starts to diminish and approach that of motherboard RAM cache. Motherboard RAM cache would also be more favourable because it can be shared with many HDDs and it doesn't just sit there unused (=reserved for "X") when HDD "X" is not used.
Certainly, cache is cheap. 2, 8, 16, 32, 64... why not even 128 or 256 MB, doesn't really matter. But at some point you wouldn't be seeing much benefit from it. The optimal amount of cache will however grow as HDDs become physically faster (with linear data density).
I don't know where the performance plateau is located... 64, 128, 256 or even 512MB. All I know is that benefit from adding cache will gradually disappear, and that 4GB is ridiculous overkill for HDD cache.
I guess you're one of those people who think adding cache to system RAM is the same as having bigger HDD cache. Main advantage of HDDs built-in cache is related to write caching and read-ahead caching. Ridiculously big write cache will only increase risk of lost data during a power shortage. Too big read-ahead cache would be useful either because the benefit of having cache on the HDD is because HDD knows the physical layout of sectors and can read extra sectors between seeks. For cache sizes that take several seconds to fill by reading from the platters, the benefit of knowing the physical layout of the drive starts to diminish and approach that of motherboard RAM cache. Motherboard RAM cache would also be more favourable because it can be shared with many HDDs and it doesn't just sit there unused (=reserved for "X") when HDD "X" is not used.
Certainly, cache is cheap. 2, 8, 16, 32, 64... why not even 128 or 256 MB, doesn't really matter. But at some point you wouldn't be seeing much benefit from it. The optimal amount of cache will however grow as HDDs become physically faster (with linear data density).
I don't know where the performance plateau is located... 64, 128, 256 or even 512MB. All I know is that benefit from adding cache will gradually disappear, and that 4GB is ridiculous overkill for HDD cache.
There's a new Caviar Black, model WD1002FAEX, SATA III, 64 MB cache: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=792
500 GB platters? Maybe.
There's also a new Caviar Blue, 32 MB cache: WD10EALS: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=793
500 GB platters? I don't know.
500 GB platters? Maybe.
There's also a new Caviar Blue, 32 MB cache: WD10EALS: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=793
500 GB platters? I don't know.
The Black has already been reviewed, but WD specs it to be nearly as loud as the 2TB, so why is anyone here interested?ekerazha wrote:There's a new Caviar Black, model WD1002FAEX, SATA III, 64 MB cache: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=792
500 GB platters? Maybe.
There's also a new Caviar Blue, 32 MB cache: WD10EALS: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=793
500 GB platters? I don't know.