Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Wrap Up / Conclusion
Pricing and Availability
Caviar Black 1TB: Great drive. I was expecting a little more, but not because of the SATA 6Gb/sec interface. With dual actuators at play, a massive 64MB cache, 500GB platters, and the same dual core CPU of the 2TB models, this drive should have at least matched those other drives in performance. It appears Western Digital was not as aggressive with the track geometry in these drives, fitting the same amount
Marvell Controllers: The last thing a reviewer wants to see is artificial performance gains from drivers. Not only do they suck up resources unnecessarily, they risk data loss by caching data being written to the drive. It wouldn’t be so bad if this was user selectable, but it’s not. The only way to disable this caching is to stick with the (much) older driver. This is unacceptable. Marvell needs to leave the cache settings to the OS and stop trying to mask the fact that their controller can’t burst at full SATA 6Gb/sec throughput without resorting to such trickery. We’ve been tooting that horn at PCPer since October of last year, and will keep doing so until Marvell stops unnecessarily sucking up system resources to do what Windows already does in the first place.
Marvell Controllers: The last thing a reviewer wants to see is artificial performance gains from drivers. Not only do they suck up resources unnecessarily, they risk data loss by caching data being written to the drive. It wouldn’t be so bad if this was user selectable, but it’s not. The only way to disable this caching is to stick with the (much) older driver. This is unacceptable. Marvell needs to leave the cache settings to the OS and stop trying to mask the fact that their controller can’t burst at full SATA 6Gb/sec throughput without resorting to such trickery. We’ve been tooting that horn at PCPer since October of last year, and will keep doing so until Marvell stops unnecessarily sucking up system resources to do what Windows already does in the first place.
Marvell controllers may be necessary to squeeze additional throughput from next gen SSD’s,
but they have proven to be unnecessary for current spinning disk tech.
but they have proven to be unnecessary for current spinning disk tech.
As of this writing, the WD1002FAEX is rapidly dropping to just over $100. I expect it to dip below once volumes pick up.
PROS:
Warranty
All Caviar Black and RE4 series drives come with a 5 year warranty. MTBF is rated at 1.2 million hours (137 years).
Final Thoughts
- With only 2 platters, offers good performance with relatively low heat production.
- Performance trails behind the 2TB models.
- SATA 6Gb/sec interface sees negligible gains for this generation of drives.
All Caviar Black and RE4 series drives come with a 5 year warranty. MTBF is rated at 1.2 million hours (137 years).
Final Thoughts
The WD1002FAEX joins a long line of excellent drives from Western Digital, and seems to be as good a time as any for bumping up the interface throughput. Hopefully the push to SATA 6Gb/sec will help drive adoption of this new standard across the rest of the industry. That said, it did little to boost performance of this new drive. We may see better improvements down the road, but we are currently stuck with third party controllers for this speed grade.
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I find it odd that the author
I find it odd that the author chides Marvell for the interface performance: in effect doubling the Windows O.S. for transference.
I am bewildered he then goes on to say that the 2TB Drives are faster, but perhaps, should be equalled by the WD1002FAEX.
If the Marvel controller were saturating on the Motherboard, it probably would similarly saturate for the 2TB Hard Disks. Assuming that the OEM PC and the Windows O.S. have not changed, this particular difference must lie within the testing of the WD1002FAEX.
[While it is alleged that] Marvell’s 88SE9123 or 88SE9128 controllers have not been able to deliver improvements to 3GB/sec as suggested; this is partly and largely due to Marvell’s SE91XX drivers having flaws.
Some software requires
Some software requires caching to be disabled. For example, SQL Server. When the driver ignores convention, you have no choice on having a reliable system.
1.5 and 2 TB have a major and
1.5 and 2 TB have a major and minor arm whereas 1 TB has only 1
1.5 and 2 TB have a major and
1.5 and 2 TB have a major and minor arm whereas 1 TB has only 1
Have had two of these fail –
Have had two of these fail – from completely different systems. Steer clear!!