Topic: WD HARD DRIVE ISSUES

[mmedley.]

+1 for Acronis. Love it.

[adrianf74]

The other nasty problem with WD Green drives is that they will park the heads automatically after eight seconds of inactivity. This can result in ridiculous load cycle counts if you use these drives for anything other than the storage of backups. I'm not sure whether or not they tend to spin down after short timeouts, but if so, that would be another reason to avoid these drives for working storage.

This is is an issue that can be fixed by two or three methods; just google it.

[liveween]

They aren't slower

They actually ARE slower - I have never seen a drive sold as "GREEN" that ISN'T a 5400 rpm drive.

For anyone with external drive mounting issues - if your drive STILL fails to mount after attempting the aforementioned "Remove drive from enclosure > Install drive internally in your desktop machine" method, you can try the following:

Acquire the proper PCB/LOGIC BOARD for your specific drive, remove the old board, install the new board and attempt to mount.  I have had great success with this method.

If you have an identical HEALTHY drive laying around, you could always BORROW the PCB/LOGIC BOARD from it (be sure to label both of the boards before removing them) - otherwise, you can source the PCB by either purchasing a used identical drive (be CERTAIN that the part number of the actual physical drive - NOT the part number of the external drive - matches EXACTLY) or by purchasing a PCB on Ebay or elsewhere (HERE is an example of an Ebay-sourced PCB).

Please remember to take the proper anti-static measures when handling a bare drive, ESPECIALLY when removing/installing the PCB.


Good luck!


- kobi.
liveween.com
WEENTV

[it-goes-to-eleven]

They aren't slower

They actually ARE slower - I have never seen a drive sold as "GREEN" that ISN'T a 5400 rpm drive.

You obviously haven't googled or looked.

And as the areal density increases, the number of bits per platter rotation increases.   That increases the transfer rate at a given rpm.  That's why transfer rates go up, even though rpms have not increased in many years.

[liveween]

They aren't slower

They actually ARE slower - I have never seen a drive sold as "GREEN" that ISN'T a 5400 rpm drive.

You obviously haven't googled or looked.

And as the areal density increases, the number of bits per platter rotation increases.   That increases the transfer rate at a given rpm.  That's why transfer rates go up, even though rpms have not increased in many years.

You obviously are obsessed with being correct whilst assuming way too much.

5400 revolutions per minute is 1800 revolutions per minute SLOWER than 7200 revolutions per minute.

All drives currently touted as "Green" ARE 5400 rpm drives.

I have used newer 5400 RPM Green drives on an internal SATA bus to edit multiple HD video angles - steady playback is IMPOSSIBLE, even at low quality/low framerate playback settings. 5400 RPM drives are WORTHLESS for this application, even the newer drives which possess the technology that you site above in your own defense.

Why?

BECAUSE THEY ARE SLOWER.

PERIOD.

I consult the Tapersection forums regularly for accurate answers to a myriad of questions.  Anyone consulting this thread deserves an ACCURATE answer, which is that GREEN (5400 RPM) DRIVES ARE SLOWER & PERFORM AT LEVELS BELOW THAT OF 7200 RPM DRIVES.


- kobi.
liveween.com
WEENTV

[it-goes-to-eleven]

They aren't slower

They actually ARE slower - I have never seen a drive sold as "GREEN" that ISN'T a 5400 rpm drive.

You obviously haven't googled or looked.

And as the areal density increases, the number of bits per platter rotation increases.   That increases the transfer rate at a given rpm.  That's why transfer rates go up, even though rpms have not increased in many years.

You obviously are obsessed with being correct whilst assuming way too much.

And you seem to want to shift a discussion about drive performance into a personal attack...

[JasonSobel]

All drives currently touted as "Green" ARE 5400 rpm drives.

I don't know if there are more, but a quick google search came up with these:

Western Digital Caviar Green WD5000CSRTL 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136334

Western Digital Caviar Green WD6400AACS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136298

[rjp]

When I look at WDC's spec sheet for their Caviar Green drives, they cop out on rotational speed - they just say "IntelliPower," with the following claim:

A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate, and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance. Additionally, WD Caviar Green drives consume less current during startup allowing lower peak loads on systems as they are booted.

All this mumbo-jumbo and no numbers. Hmmmmmmm.

As I said before, I wouldn't use them for anything other than backups. The performance hits that come from trying to save every last milliwatt are more trouble than they're worth.

[liveween]

All drives currently touted as "Green" ARE 5400 rpm drives.

I don't know if there are more, but a quick google search came up with these:

Western Digital Caviar Green WD5000CSRTL 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136334

Western Digital Caviar Green WD6400AACS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136298

Both of those drives incorporate Western Digital's "Intellipower" algorithm, which fluctuates the rotational speed between 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM.  Neither of them are true 7200 RPM drives, and neither of them perform as such.


- kobi.
liveween.com
WEENTV

[it-goes-to-eleven]

Both of those drives incorporate Western Digital's "Intellipower" algorithm, which fluctuates the rotational speed between 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM.  Neither of them are true 7200 RPM drives, and neither of them perform as such.

It sounds like you didn't partition them correctly, and the 4k sectors were not aligned.

If you don't understand the importance of areal density vs. rpm, you'll never grasp drive performance.  If you did, you'd know there are plenty of 5400 rpm drives with higher transfer rates than 7200 drives.

[liveween]

It sounds like you didn't partition them correctly, and the 4k sectors were not aligned.

It sounds like I didn't partition them AT ALL, because I never had neither of them in my physical possession, nor did I claim to.

Have you noticed that you are STILL assuming way too much, even after you've been made aware of said personality flaw?

(That was a rhetorical question)

If you don't understand the importance of areal density vs. rpm, you'll never grasp drive performance.  If you did, you'd know there are plenty of 5400 rpm drives with higher transfer rates than 7200 drives.

If you don't understand the importance of listening when people that AREN'T you are talking, you'll never grasp the concept of listening > processing > reacting LOGICALLY.

While I haven't tried EVERY 5400 rpm drive known to man, I have used SEVERAL - BOTH of which claimed ON PAPER higher transfer rates than my reliable entry-level Toshiba 7200 rpm SATA drives - and both of which performed at a level FAR BELOW that of said Toshibas.

LAG CITY

UNUSABLE FOR MY APPLICATION

!SLOWER!

Understand?

I certainly hope so, because I will NOT be explaining it again.

I think RJP said it best when he said the following:

As I said before, I wouldn't use them for anything other than backups. The performance hits that come from trying to save every last milliwatt are more trouble than they're worth.

INDEED,

- kobi.
liveween.com
WEENTV

[it-goes-to-eleven]

Have you noticed that you are STILL assuming way too much, even after you've been made aware of said personality flaw?

Dude, again, this is a fairly basic discussion about hard drives.   Apparently you find that very personally frustrating and want to dumb-down the thread to the level of personal attacks.   That really isn't what this site is about.