- 7200 RPM 16MB Cache
- SATA 6.0Gb/s
- For Daily Computing
- 30 DAYS WARRANTY
slower performance than 3Gbit/s
01/10/2011
This review is from: WD Blue 500GB Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 16MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD5000AAKX
Pros:
It's no louder than any other HDD. As usual, Newegg's delivery time was excellent, and online tracking is indispensable.
Cons:
This drive had the effect of actually slowing performance on my machine (Gigabyte MoBo 880GMA-UD2H, 4GB DDR3 RAM, Phenom2 x4 965 proc, XP SP3, 6Gbit/s cable) by 35 seconds(!) at boot-up. I measured its performance against my existing Samsung HD502HJ 500GB 3Gbit/s HDD, by cloning, and ran the test 3 times each. Load time for PremierePro CS4 was 10 seconds slower and Photoshop CS4 was about 5 secs slower. GRC's Spinrite 6 reported that it would need 40 hours to check it for errors (option 4), vs 14 hours for the Samsung, reporting a very much slower read ability. (A 500GB Hitachi Deskstar HDD I use on a different machine also is reported by Spinrite to require only 14 hours.)
Overall Review:
On further google reading, it appears that a 6Gbit/s HDD is absolutely pointless because spinning platters can't possibly output anywhere near the throughput potential of SSDs, for which that speed is intended. See wikipedia.orgs's entry for SATA, "...even the fastest conventional hard disk drives can barely saturate the original SATA 1.5 Gbit/s bandwidth...".
I wish I'd known that before I hit "buy". I'm returning it & I'll instead buy another Newegg 3Gbit/s Samsung or Hitachi HDD while I save for a SSD.
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- steven f.
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Verified Owner
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Owned For:
1 day to 1 week
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