Hard drive advice wanted - WD IntelliPower - Yah or Nah?

[Paul Ekert]

2TB WD WD20EZRX Green, 3.5" HDD, SATA III 6Gb/s, IntelliPower, 64MB Cache 8ms OEM

Western Digital WD20EZRX 2TB Green SATA III 6Gb/s Hard Drive - HDD - Scan.co.uk

Hi to everyone.

Long time lurker, first time poster (I think).

Been looking around for some hard drives for a new PC build I hope to put together in the new year. The "Chirp" stories I have read on Seagate drives put me off from buying any of those, so now I am looking at WD drives. Thing is, they don't seem to indicate a spin speed, only that it maxes out at 7,200 and then is controlled by IntelliPower.

Now paint me suspicious if you will, but I am always dubious of these things.

So, anyone editing with these? And if so, would you recommend them?

Best

Paul

Home Page - Paul Ekert Writing Showcase

[Chris Soucy]

Hi, Paul.............

It appears that the Green series drives have an intelligent controller that allows the spin speed to be reduced under "no use/ idle" conditions. They can still read & write but the access time will be greatly increased.

Hence why they don't say "7200", because most of the time, it won't be.

That's how they get the power saving.

The drives you should be looking at are their Black series which DO specify 7200, as they don't slow down in "idle".

WD Black


CS

[Paul Ekert]

Thanks Chris, if only the Seagate drives didn't have the chirp issue I'd just jet those!

[Harm Millaard]

Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 are very good and fast. It is the previous range of 7200.11 and 7200.12 that caused problems. Alternatively, you could also look at the enterprise range, the Seagate Constellation ES range for 24/7 use.

@Chris, I believe the Greens have a constant spindle speed, but the biggest drawback is that they spin-down and spin-up so frequently, further aggravating the half-duplex problem of SATA connections.

For editing Greens are ill-advised.

[Paul Ekert]

Any suggestions on how I can know when ordering Seagates if they are .14's or the .11s&.12s?

Is there a serial number or model number I should be looking for?

[Jeff Pulera]

"Green" drives are not a good idea for video editing as the power saving features harm performance. If looking at WD, then the Caviar Black drives work well.

Thanks

[Paul Ekert]

Thanks, looks as though Caviar Black is the way to go.

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Jeff Pulera

"Green" drives are not a good idea for video editing as the power saving features harm performance. If looking at WD, then the Caviar Black drives work well.

Be aware that some of the WD Blacks that are currently sold new on the market are four-year-old platter layout designs that barely perform faster than the newest 5400 RPM WD Greens in sequential transfer rates. (I'm talking about most of the currently available drives whose model numbers end in "FAEX".) The FAEX series Blacks, with the exception of the 4TB model (which uses five 800GB platters), all use 500GB platters that are now four years old (design-wise). This limits maximum sequential transfer rates on the outer tracks to 130 to 140 MB/s (versus the 120-ish MB/s maximum sequential transfer rate on the outer tracks of the newest WD Greens). The only WD Black that's significantly faster than most of the other WD Blacks is the WD1003FZEX (which in the US is currently available only in Bulk/OEM) - and it is currently only offered in the 1TB size. Even at that, the WD1003FZEX (and by extension the 1TB WD Blue WD10EZEX) are both very slightly slower in sequential transfer speed than the 1 to 3 TB Seagate Barracuda Desktop 14 (formerly the 7200.14) series drives (by a margin of about 2 MB/s - 192 MB/s versus 194 MB/s on the outer tracks).

[Paul Ekert]

So the Seagate Barracuda Desktop 14 is the better bet?

[Randall Leong]

Paul,
Yes. Only the 1TB, 2TB and 3TB models of the Seagate Desktop 14 are worth considering. The models with less than 1TB capacity use older platter configurations with a significantly slower sequential transfer speed while the 4TB model only spins at 5900 RPM.

[Paul Ekert]

So now the question is how do I ensure I will be ordering a Seagate Desktop 14?

[Randall Leong]

Note the model numbers of the drives. The ST1000DM003, ST2000DM001 and ST3000DM001 are the model numbers to look for. Most of the other Seagate model numbers are of older-design drives (for example, the ST1000DM005 is a rebadged Samsung F3 HD103SJ, which was one of the fastest-performing 7200 RPM drives of the 2009 generation).

[Paul Ekert]

Cool, thanks. I have located them on Scan.co.uk for a good price. Marked up as the series 14 drives, so that's good to know.

Just to be sure, these drives don't suffer chirping? is that correct?

[Harm Millaard]

For single disk usage I would start with the Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 or the WD Caviar Black, with the nod to Seagate for their performance.

For raid0 configurations the Seagate has my preference.

For parity raids I would only look at enterprise models like the Seagate Constellation ES range or HGST 7K4000 Ultrastar range. Significantly more expensive, but designed for 24/7 operation with extended warranty. Consumer disks often suffer from the TLER problem and WD Caviar Black are the most notorious among them.

[Randall Leong]

Speaking of the WD Black (the "Caviar" name was recently dropped):

The line was recently updated. There should be fewer and fewer of the FAEX drives remaining on the market as I speak. The new models end in FZEX, as in the new 2TB WD2003FZEX. (There is a 500GB version of the new WD Black, whose model number is WD5003AZEX, which is sold only in Bulk/OEM packaging.) These newer FZEX Blacks are slowly being phased into reseller stock. Still, these newer Blacks are a whisker slower than the Seagate 7200.14 in sequential transfers.