WD Blue SSHD 4TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive - SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD40E31X

Pros: Standard size Visible to Legacy BIOS (non-UEFI) No tweaks needed for Windows or Ubuntu to use Runs fairly cool No stutter file transferring (conditional)

Cons: Still mechanical Roughly half the speed of first-gen SSDs at load (single operation) Binary capacity advertised - 4TB = 3.63TB when formatted exFAT

Overall Review: The drive was able to achieve almost 93MB/s when copying files from the drive it was replacing (WD Green - WD20EARS), but only for about 75 seconds. Then it maintained roughly 64~72MB/s. Maybe with a UEFI BIOS (the kind in modern mainboards, where you can use your mouse and flash from within it) this could be a boot drive, but not with legacy. I even left just a single 640GB partition and moved it to the front of the drive, but Windows 10 wouldn't 'see' it as a potential install location (and yes, I spent about 4 hours changing it from a GPT disc to an MBR disc). The hybrid drive IS an excellent concept, but I'm not seeing much of an improvement - partly because I can't use it as a system drive, I am seeing a MASSIVE improvement in loading games I have installed on it. Mass Effect loaded everything within 5 seconds, Start-menu, menu-to-save. The 8GB of SSD cache helps there, as playing for several hours a day has 'trained' it to load that data. Mass Effect 2 is a different story, but we can agree that ME1 to ME2 is, well, not describable in approved terms. Excellent price, above average performance for a mechanical hard drive, and so far plenty of capacity for my current needs. For the time being though, I can only recommend this as a storage drive or a secondary to supplement a lower-capacity SSD.

Pros: Can be used in any application with little trade off Speedy Quietest spindle drive Ive ever owned Stays nice and cool under heavy writing

Cons: Random read not as good as a 7200rpm until data is Cached to the 8GB NAND. Cost?

Overall Review: This thing is a BEAST! This Drive Benchmarks nicely as you can see from other reviews, but I feel that "the numbers" don't always tell the story of how the drive will perform in real world use. Here is my Experience with this drive over the last few weeks. Sequential Write: So I moved my entire Steam Library (over 500GB) and all my documents on this drive the second after I formatted it. The write speed never dipped below 85MB/s. It peaked over 200MB/s a few times and easily maintained a avg of 130MB/s. That kind of performance on a 5400rpm drive is pretty impressive when you consider the variety of file types and sizes. MP3s, JPEGs, ISOs, and super small program files. Sequential & Random Read: loading games from this drive, felt very SSD like. Its a good bit faster than my 1yr old 1TB WD Black spindle drive That I used to store my Steam library on. Most games load in less than 20seconds initially, but then after running the game a few times they were stating in less than 10seconds. This is very similar to the speed I see when I install a game on the SSD that my Operating system is installed on. Nice! Power user thoughts: For the $180ish this drive cost, you could easily get a 4TB 7200rpm HDD and a very fast 120GB SSD combo. But this is and entirely different setup that might require a bit more knowledge to run, Back up, etc. so for simplicity sake, this New WD Drive is a stellar option. But from a performance stand point its not the best option for the money. You could run a Intel SSD and 1TB spindle drive with IRST set up in RAID (this process take a few clicks and your done on the software end). Not only would the setup be likely faster but you could also configure it more ways to suit your needs. The setup Ive been running for a while now: 120GB SSD (Windows & Core Programs) 1TB HDD (Games & Documents) BUT, now that I have this Drive I am using it as a dedicated Games drive and its much faster than my old setup. The difference is very noticeable, even more so after the game has been loaded a few times. Bottom line: the Performance is there. its not like the "hybrid" drives from 5 yrs ago. This thing moves with the 8GB of NAND! Its also ridiculously quiet. the sound is best described as someone drumming their fingers on a wooden table, a room or two away from you. its a very Muted, low frequency sound. This was observed with an open side panel about 30" from my ears. Its very fast compared to any of the other spindle drive Ive used and worth the money for a no nonsense solution for Very fast 4TB drive. I would easily recommend this drive to anyone.

Pros: Ton of storage (formatted capacity of 3.725TB, 3.63TB accessible) SSD caching definitely makes this after than a standard platter HDD Drive runs pretty cool (about 2 degrees C cooler than 4TB WD Green drive) NewEgg's new shipping for bare HDD's is EXCEPTIONAL (full seashell packaging isolated and packed inside another box) More SSD cache than most hybrid drives of this size (8GB vs. 4GB in most drives) Extremely quiet drive (could only hear it while it was starting up)

Cons: Pretty pricey compared to other 4TB platter HDD's Will only see performance improvements in specific applications (small files frequently accessed, OS files, etc) Platter seek times seem very average, more than likely due to the 5400 RPM spindle speed

Overall Review: This is a great drive, but I think it's just a LITTLE too expensive. Compared to a standard 4TB platter drive you're spending $40-50 more for this drive (about 30-40% more) and really only getting about a 10% general improvement in performance. Obviously, doesn't compare to a true SSD (see my benchmarks below), but compared to a standard platter drive it is definitely faster. All in all, I trust WD as a brand, and I would personally pay $20 more than a competitor for the same product to know I'm getting a trusted brand. Overall rating: 4/5 eggs, subtracted 1 egg for the price being just a little steep ($175 at the time of review). Benchmarks (comparison drive is a 4TB WD WD40EZRX Green drive): ATTO: Blue - 4KB transfer 131MB/s write, 135MB/s read Green - 4KB transfer 100MB/s write, 128MB/s read Blue - 8192KB transfer 146MB/s write, 144 MB/s read Green - 8192KB transfer 133MB/s write, 134MB/s read CrystalDiskMark: Blue: Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 142.673 MB/s Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 142.857 MB/s Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 2.575 MB/s [ 628.7 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 2.255 MB/s [ 550.5 IOPS] Sequential Read (T= 1) : 148.701 MB/s Sequential Write (T= 1) : 142.466 MB/s Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 0.838 MB/s [ 204.6 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 2.152 MB/s [ 525.4 IOPS] Green: Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 133.559 MB/s Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 130.359 MB/s Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 0.964 MB/s [ 235.4 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1.315 MB/s [ 321.0 IOPS] Sequential Read (T= 1) : 133.403 MB/s Sequential Write (T= 1) : 127.502 MB/s Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 0.335 MB/s [ 81.8 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 1.186 MB/s [ 289.6 IOPS] Intel 530 180GB SSD: Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 478.653 MB/s Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 185.902 MB/s Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 192.830 MB/s [ 47077.6 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 136.577 MB/s [ 33344.0 IOPS] Sequential Read (T= 1) : 358.210 MB/s Sequential Write (T= 1) : 173.427 MB/s

Pros: The idea of this drive is to offer a SSD-like performance with HDD storage capacity at value price. The 8GB of NAND flash is a small size compared to the rest of the drive, so it acts as a fast cache for the most used sectors of the hard drive. This may not seem like a lot of space, yet for a boot drive with the OS it will improve performance. I tested this drive with several hard disk testing tools, and with an installation of Windows 7. Testing tools write new data and read it, which does not take advantage of the cache, so I mainly tested as an OS boot drive. This SSHD drive combines the flash memory so they appear as one drive, unlike other SSHD drives which appear as two drives after installing. As I rebooted the Win 7 OS, I noticed a speed improvement. I had similar results when opening programs.

Cons: None observed yet.

Overall Review: I wonder if the HDD heat will impact SSHD drives life times, and if they will have a 7200 speed in the future. I have read articles about SSD failures and the lose of all data. With this drive, and the SS as a cache, this should not be a problem.

Pros: Fast - My Steam games loaded noticeably quicker after being moved to this drive. Quiet - If it makes noise, I can't hear it. I have a very quiet case, PSU, liquid CPU cooler, and GPU cards. At idle there is barely a hum from my PC. I swapped this drive in for a 640GB, 7200 RPM Seagate drive. If anything, it is quieter than the Seagate. Cool - The temperature inside my case has actually dropped a few degrees since replacing my higher RPM drives with this.

Cons: Yeah, I got nothing.

Overall Review: My Steam folder lived by itself on a 640GB, 7200RPM Seagate drive. I cloned it onto this drive, and then cloned my MMORPG drive and my music drive to it as well. (I mean, 4TB! I still have a ton of empty space!) I removed the old drives and ran the clones to test the WD drive. My main OS drive is an SSD. I have an Intel i7-4930K, 24GB of RAM, and SLI GeForce 970s. The first game I tried was Borderlands the Pre-Sequel. Load times were so fast I couldn't believe it. It cut down the loading screen between levels from about 20 seconds to around 5. I started testing all sorts of games, and everything is noticeably quicker to load. This isn't an upgrade you will buy and wonder if it is doing you any good. You will definitely notice the difference. iTunes even benefited. I admit I was a bit worried when I saw 5400 RPM, because once you get used to 7200 or 10,000 RPM drives, you never want to go back. But, in this instance the 8GB of NAND flash is clearly enough to more than compensate for the lower platter speed. Given some of the studies I've read about SSDs and data volatility, I am leaning towards getting more of these drives. Superb product. I can't think of any reason not to own one, especially given the price is way cheaper than any decently sized SSD drive.

Pros: great

Cons: great

Overall Review: great

Pros: None.... I keep wishing but they never deliver.

Cons: Takes mins to access anything on it. Even when your desktop is rated in the top 1000 of the world. Cant even play a movie from drive while transferring data to it. Stuttering, pausing... cant even play 4k video at all! Can't even do a speed test as it errors, transfer rates about 70k a second....smh. Takes days to transfer 3TB. EVERY WD DRIVE I HAVE EVER PURCHASED FAILS THE WD TOOLS RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX.

Overall Review: Did advanced RMA for another 4TB, where you purchase drive and can "attempt" to transfer data and send bad drive back. Soon as I mailed drive back the "new" one they sent failed. To top it all off WD support said they never received old drive even though I provided tracking info and they have had it for a week, can you say scammers? Would it be asking to much to have support that can actually speak English and can actually do anything? So the story is 3 4TB drives and they are all junk. If you deal with this company be ready top file BBB and State Attorney General complaints to get a resolution. 14.54BILLION in revenue and not one cent going into building anything decent, prolly the reason why the stock is dropping like a rock.

Pros: Considering the results (failed drive), there are none.

Cons: Drive failed after less than one week in service.

Overall Review: Given my experience, I wouldn't trust these drives to keep my data.