I agree with energy efficiency not meaning much with caviar Blacks running at just 10-15 watts, hardly the most power hungry thing in your system. I'm just wondering when the Black 2TB edition will be released? Probably when other companies have competing 2TB drives huh?
Off topic a bit but I just bought a 1TB Caviar Black over the Samsung Spinpoint F1 do to hearing about its higher than average failure rate. I was wondering what you guys at bit-tech think about Samsungs failure rate? Especially since you guys said you bought half a dozen of them.
I don't take much notice of 4 platter drives.
They are mostly just there to set capacity benchmarks.
For most people, either buying a 1.5TB drive now or waiting for a 3 platter 3x666GB model that will cost less and perform better makes far more sense.
It's true... Seems the answer is it's too slow to be a system drive and too expensive to be a storage drive.
The only place it can hold it's own is why I'm reading the review... The server under the stairs here has 13 drives to total a relatively small 4TB capacity (once you remove those drives sitting around in the RAID arrays as spares and a backup). This is the absolute maximum for the case and probably too much heat when you add the twin processors. A drop of 4 watts by 13 is a good amount, also only 3 drives minimum (although would use 7 for backup) to reach the same capacity - so the removal of drives will cut about 100watts and a cooler/quieter environment.
That being said, I won't be purchasing that many for the same conclusion as the review... Too slow for system files, too expensive for storage.
When another company or two bring out 2TB drives the prices will fall to be reasonable, that's the time to consider this drive.
Originally Posted by wharrad When another company or two bring out 2TB drives the prices will fall to be reasonable, that's the time to consider this drive.
The GP drives are 5,400 rpm, WD just don't explicitly state this to avoid putting people off.
From what I understand the drive speed is variable anywhere between 5,400 RPM and 7,200PRM, with lots of etailers listing the theoretical maximum 7,200RPM as the drive's spindle speed. In the end it's a moot point though - it's still slow.
Bit Tech does good HD!! Good review, It's good to show people how much difference a good HD can have on performance over a cheapo unit. I wonder how 3 Spinpoint F1 1TB drives in Raid 5, would have performed in your tests, any possibility of adding Raid configurations to your test suite in the future?
Originally Posted by Tim S Is that not what we said in the article?
As a bottom line: "The van was slower than the Porche, and had worse handling (see graphs here). But it's OK if you want to haul stuff in it, I suppose".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bindibadgi But by your argument what sports cars are half the price of the van and are only 3 MPG less? Come on here! Don't be fooled by marketing Nex. For the price of other 1TB or even 1.5TB drives it's plenty slower and doesn't save you that much money. The only saving grace of it is that it's really, really quiet, but then I'd get a 1TB green over a 2 still - there's a heft premium for it and not that much more to gain.
OK for a storage drive you still want fast continuous reads and writes - this thing is barely faster than what was available 2 years ago - it's only bigger.
Your points would be better made if you compared it to other large storage drives. Any van is a crap sportscar. but to know whether it is a crap van, you need to compare it to other vans.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ¦Cold¦ Who cares how much power they use, it's not like they're running on batteries and as has been pointed out above by Tim the cost saving is negligible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Baz OK this is getting frustrating - energy efficiency in this case doesn't mean SQUAT. 4W is a laughable saving on your home energy bill. As far as hard disks go, the difference between an "energy efficient" HD and a run of the mill one is tiny - as we wrote about in the review and have referenced in this thread multiple times now.
Well... no. First: low power also means low heat. Second, this is a large storage drive. Their native home is likely to be a large server, where they can be observed chittering away in big herds. Now think of 10 drives. 40 Watts is not so shoddy now. Think of a large farm with 100 drives. 400 Watts --starts to add up, doesn't it?
Now think of power consumption at start-up, active read/write etc. All of a sudden the leccy bill starts mounting.
I take your point that its pricing makes it relatively poor value compared to other, slightly more energy hungry but cheaper large storage drives. But the point is: you did not compare it with those drives. You can't tell a good apple by comparing it to oranges. You have to compare it to other apples. On qualities relevant to apples.
You all seem to be missing the bigger picture here.
For the drives intended purpose it more than fit's the bill, yes a little on the expensive side however it's just been released. As for 4 watts not being much? Not as a single drive, in one PC however if more people went for energy efficient PC's then 4 watts per hard drive, per PC is an enormous saving in the long run.
Sure the PC in my sig is not exactly the most efficient, but these days it's seldom on. Only when the urge for some zombie slaying bites do I use it. Laptop for everything else!
To say that we should not buy into the green movement is utter ignorance, not that I'm here to argue climate change however we all have a role to play in making the world a better place for future generations!
EDIT - Nexxo beat me to the - It all add's up part!
Originally Posted by Nexxo As a bottom line: "The van was slower than the Porche, and had worse handling (see graphs here). But it's OK if you want to haul stuff in it, I suppose".
Your points would be better made if you compared it to other large storage drives. Any van is a crap sportscar. but to know whether it is a crap van, you need to compare it to other vans.
Well... no. First: low power also means low heat. Second, this is a large storage drive. Their native home is likely to be a large server, where they can be observed chittering away in big herds. Now think of 10 drives. 40 Watts is not so shoddy now. Think of a large farm with 100 drives. 400 Watts --starts to add up, doesn't it?
Now think of power consumption at start-up, active read/write etc. All of a sudden the leccy bill starts mounting.
I take your point that its pricing makes it relatively poor value compared to other, slightly more energy hungry but cheaper large storage drives. But the point is: you did not compare it with those drives. You can't tell a good apple by comparing it to oranges. You have to compare it to other apples. On qualities relevant to apples.
To be fair, these are not enterprise-class hard drives, so no fruit based analogies.
Originally Posted by LeMaltor Glad I bought my Samsung :D
Me too. Love my Spinpoint. It's the coolest running drive I have every had and performs.
Green stamps on drive products are just sales tactics. Guys if you really want to save so much energy and performance is not an issue......... then cut down the volts to everything you have and under clock your components. Then you could sluggishly save the world one PC at a time.
I believe the article is balanced if you read well. They took everything into consideration on how different people would view this product on specific needs. What a hassle it would be to give a "Green" product its own comparison chart. There is probably a GreenPC.com site for that kind of thing you could go too. I don't care to google for it. :)
I think this is still a good solution of you're running a file server for home or small business. The drive speed wouldn't matter, since the network is the bottleneck, but you can use a small NAS box with LOTs of storage. This drive has its niche market, but I wouldn't put it inside my main PC.
Yeah, I fail to see how HDD's can be labeled green anyway, when SSD's seem to require less power than the 'greenest' of 'green' drives. It's about like that stirling-engine powered southbridge cooler from a while back: neat engineering, but questionable power savings overall in your PC by deleting one .5 W fan
Originally Posted by Nicb Green stamps on drive products are just sales tactics.
But they refer to real qualities. The WD GreenPower drives are the lowest power consuming 3.5" mechanical drives on the market. Of course SSD's are more economical still, but then again a horse and cart is also greener than a "green" Smart Car. It's all about context.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nicb I believe the article is balanced if you read well. They took everything into consideration on how different people would view this product on specific needs. What a hassle it would be to give a "Green" product its own comparison chart. There is probably a GreenPC.com site for that kind of thing you could go too. I don't care to google for it. :)
By that argument we should compare Intel Atom processors high-end quad-core i7's. Although that does give you a frame of reference for their performance, it tells you nothing about how they would perform in their actual application domain, as would a comparison with, say, a VIA Nano.
Originally Posted by Nexxo But they refer to real qualities. The WD GreenPower drives are the lowest power consuming 3.5" mechanical drives on the market. Of course SSD's are more economical still, but then again a horse and cart is also greener than a "green" Smart Car. It's all about context.
By that argument we should compare Intel Atom processors high-end quad-core i7's. Although that does give you a frame of reference for their performance, it tells you nothing about how they would perform in their actual application domain, as would a comparison with, say, a VIA Nano.
I have to disagree. Green drives use a little less energy JUST to be true enough to claim a green label. I was not saying it's a scam or "some" few people could not benefit from having one or many together in a Raid. I see no reason for a dedicated comparison review when it comes to a small difference of energy green to high performance drives.
I think the point of the review is; Hey you want to go "green" this is how much slower it is and the energy it uses. Do you see the benefit?
CPU's?? You can not use the example of Intel Atom and a i7 comparison to a green or high performance drive comparison. Thats a whole different spectrum. CPU's define what the PC will be used for, they set the foundation of what you can expect from the setup. Drives on the other hand even though they do change the performance will not have "That Vast" of a difference.
I think it is important to compare high performance with green drives. So you can see if it's worth it. And as for a regular computer "like most people have" I say they are not worth it for me.
I Know green drives will not noticeably save you money in your home. And will not put a dent in the energy consumption issues we have in the world. Turn out the lights when you leave the room.
My life and business is about these issues, we are a green family. My business is to construct Plasma gas Plants that eliminate land fields and turn the waste into energy. My Regal family sale and build solar projects for home and businesses around the world. (I take serious notice of green products) Here is some local news on what we do excuse the use of "Wiki" its outdated but it explains the basics of the plants well;
Good Review, even if it all added, up what server with 100 HDD farms would buy a green 2TB drive? Wouldn't they just get thousands of SSDs? Or the Caviar Blues? Which are much better.
Sorry I jumped off my first comment too fast. I skimmed through the review and didn't find the section i wanted. And started bashing ><
Having reread the whole review, i thought it was very decent. It shows how Green HDD is much slower then other HDD.
However i still think there should be a small section on power saving, noise and heat it generate. But this was also absent on the Samsung review i will say this as a suggestion rather then critics.
I'd say the WD Green 2TB drive's closest competitor is the Seagate 7200.11 1.5TB, which is listed at a far lower price point, yet seemingly beats it in every benchmark.
I concur that it's a bit unfair to pit the WD Green against performance drives. If anything the article should have drawn more comparisons with said Seagate drive.
By the way, is the Seagate 1.5TB a safe buy these days? There was talk about a firmware update, but I haven't really kept up with the news on that end.
One thing i'd liked to have seen in this review is how this drive compares to the other WD Green drives, and the other 5400rpm drives.
These Drives are perfect for storage applications, being much quieter then the Samsung F1 and other 7200rpm drives and also generating less vibration and heat. You could hard mount one of the green drives in a cramped obscure area of the case without worrying about it overheating or making noticable amounts of noise through resonance.
I don't see why people would want a 1tb drive as an OS drive, surely you don't need more than 640gb for that.. and it's not such a great idea to use one as an OS and a Storage drive, even if you use partitions.. Because you'd end up trying to do multiple things on the same drive at the same time, and cripple the performance relative to a two drive setup using a fast OS drive and a seperate storage drive.
If you do use a seperate OS drive and storage drive, the storage drive only really needs to be able to read at least as fast as the main drive can write, and fast enought to stream any media you want to play.. I'm sure even the slowest green drive would be faster at installing something onto the main drive then a 1tb drive would be when installing something from a storage partition to the OS partition.
I also don't think the price of this new 2tb drive is all that bad considering it's the first and only one on the market atm.. I know people who paid over $800 AUD for the hitachi 1tb drive months after it was available here in aus, and this 2tb drive can be had for less than $550 around here right now. It's not like Seagate's 1.5tb drive wouldn't be this expensive if it was the biggest one atm and din't have anything wrong with it. That was almost $500 AUD when it was released here before iirc.
I wonder how many people who're considering a 2TB drive (presumably for media storage) are also considering any of those SSD drives it was compared to? I mean, I wouldn't have thought that a 32GB SSD and a 2TB platter drive were aimed at the same market? Be nice to see the same figures with the erroneous choices omitted.
Originally Posted by darkb One thing i'd liked to have seen in this review is how this drive compares to the other WD Green drives, and the other 5400rpm drives.
These Drives are perfect for storage applications, being much quieter then the Samsung F1 and other 7200rpm drives and also generating less vibration and heat. You could hard mount one of the green drives in a cramped obscure area of the case without worrying about it overheating or making noticable amounts of noise through resonance.
I don't see why people would want a 1tb drive as an OS drive, surely you don't need more than 640gb for that.. and it's not such a great idea to use one as an OS and a Storage drive, even if you use partitions.. Because you'd end up trying to do multiple things on the same drive at the same time, and cripple the performance relative to a two drive setup using a fast OS drive and a seperate storage drive.
If you do use a seperate OS drive and storage drive, the storage drive only really needs to be able to read at least as fast as the main drive can write, and fast enought to stream any media you want to play.. I'm sure even the slowest green drive would be faster at installing something onto the main drive then a 1tb drive would be when installing something from a storage partition to the OS partition.
I'll get some numbers for the 1TB Green in time for the next HDD review.
And I use a Samsung 1TB as my boot disk, not so much for the capacity (although it's certainly nice), but more for the awesome performance.
Comments 26 to 50 of 54
ReplyOff topic a bit but I just bought a 1TB Caviar Black over the Samsung Spinpoint F1 do to hearing about its higher than average failure rate. I was wondering what you guys at bit-tech think about Samsungs failure rate? Especially since you guys said you bought half a dozen of them.
They are mostly just there to set capacity benchmarks.
For most people, either buying a 1.5TB drive now or waiting for a 3 platter 3x666GB model that will cost less and perform better makes far more sense.
The only place it can hold it's own is why I'm reading the review... The server under the stairs here has 13 drives to total a relatively small 4TB capacity (once you remove those drives sitting around in the RAID arrays as spares and a backup). This is the absolute maximum for the case and probably too much heat when you add the twin processors. A drop of 4 watts by 13 is a good amount, also only 3 drives minimum (although would use 7 for backup) to reach the same capacity - so the removal of drives will cut about 100watts and a cooler/quieter environment.
That being said, I won't be purchasing that many for the same conclusion as the review... Too slow for system files, too expensive for storage.
When another company or two bring out 2TB drives the prices will fall to be reasonable, that's the time to consider this drive.
spot on
The GP drives are 5,400 rpm, WD just don't explicitly state this to avoid putting people off.
From what I understand the drive speed is variable anywhere between 5,400 RPM and 7,200PRM, with lots of etailers listing the theoretical maximum 7,200RPM as the drive's spindle speed. In the end it's a moot point though - it's still slow.
Now think of power consumption at start-up, active read/write etc. All of a sudden the leccy bill starts mounting.
I take your point that its pricing makes it relatively poor value compared to other, slightly more energy hungry but cheaper large storage drives. But the point is: you did not compare it with those drives. You can't tell a good apple by comparing it to oranges. You have to compare it to other apples. On qualities relevant to apples.
For the drives intended purpose it more than fit's the bill, yes a little on the expensive side however it's just been released. As for 4 watts not being much? Not as a single drive, in one PC however if more people went for energy efficient PC's then 4 watts per hard drive, per PC is an enormous saving in the long run.
Sure the PC in my sig is not exactly the most efficient, but these days it's seldom on. Only when the urge for some zombie slaying bites do I use it. Laptop for everything else!
To say that we should not buy into the green movement is utter ignorance, not that I'm here to argue climate change however we all have a role to play in making the world a better place for future generations!
EDIT - Nexxo beat me to the - It all add's up part!
To be fair, these are not enterprise-class hard drives, so no fruit based analogies.
Me too. Love my Spinpoint. It's the coolest running drive I have every had and performs.
Green stamps on drive products are just sales tactics. Guys if you really want to save so much energy and performance is not an issue......... then cut down the volts to everything you have and under clock your components. Then you could sluggishly save the world one PC at a time.
I believe the article is balanced if you read well. They took everything into consideration on how different people would view this product on specific needs. What a hassle it would be to give a "Green" product its own comparison chart. There is probably a GreenPC.com site for that kind of thing you could go too. I don't care to google for it. :)
I have to disagree. Green drives use a little less energy JUST to be true enough to claim a green label. I was not saying it's a scam or "some" few people could not benefit from having one or many together in a Raid. I see no reason for a dedicated comparison review when it comes to a small difference of energy green to high performance drives.
I think the point of the review is; Hey you want to go "green" this is how much slower it is and the energy it uses. Do you see the benefit?
CPU's?? You can not use the example of Intel Atom and a i7 comparison to a green or high performance drive comparison. Thats a whole different spectrum. CPU's define what the PC will be used for, they set the foundation of what you can expect from the setup. Drives on the other hand even though they do change the performance will not have "That Vast" of a difference.
I think it is important to compare high performance with green drives. So you can see if it's worth it. And as for a regular computer "like most people have" I say they are not worth it for me.
I Know green drives will not noticeably save you money in your home. And will not put a dent in the energy consumption issues we have in the world. Turn out the lights when you leave the room.
My life and business is about these issues, we are a green family. My business is to construct Plasma gas Plants that eliminate land fields and turn the waste into energy. My Regal family sale and build solar projects for home and businesses around the world. (I take serious notice of green products) Here is some local news on what we do excuse the use of "Wiki" its outdated but it explains the basics of the plants well;
http://www.amarillo.com/stories/111206/bus_5907541.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_arc_gasification
Having reread the whole review, i thought it was very decent. It shows how Green HDD is much slower then other HDD.
However i still think there should be a small section on power saving, noise and heat it generate. But this was also absent on the Samsung review i will say this as a suggestion rather then critics.
I concur that it's a bit unfair to pit the WD Green against performance drives. If anything the article should have drawn more comparisons with said Seagate drive.
By the way, is the Seagate 1.5TB a safe buy these days? There was talk about a firmware update, but I haven't really kept up with the news on that end.
These Drives are perfect for storage applications, being much quieter then the Samsung F1 and other 7200rpm drives and also generating less vibration and heat. You could hard mount one of the green drives in a cramped obscure area of the case without worrying about it overheating or making noticable amounts of noise through resonance.
I don't see why people would want a 1tb drive as an OS drive, surely you don't need more than 640gb for that.. and it's not such a great idea to use one as an OS and a Storage drive, even if you use partitions.. Because you'd end up trying to do multiple things on the same drive at the same time, and cripple the performance relative to a two drive setup using a fast OS drive and a seperate storage drive.
If you do use a seperate OS drive and storage drive, the storage drive only really needs to be able to read at least as fast as the main drive can write, and fast enought to stream any media you want to play.. I'm sure even the slowest green drive would be faster at installing something onto the main drive then a 1tb drive would be when installing something from a storage partition to the OS partition.
I wonder how many people who're considering a 2TB drive (presumably for media storage) are also considering any of those SSD drives it was compared to? I mean, I wouldn't have thought that a 32GB SSD and a 2TB platter drive were aimed at the same market? Be nice to see the same figures with the erroneous choices omitted.
I'll get some numbers for the 1TB Green in time for the next HDD review.
And I use a Samsung 1TB as my boot disk, not so much for the capacity (although it's certainly nice), but more for the awesome performance.
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