Conclusion, Pricing, and Final Thoughts
Conclusion:
PROS:
- Excellent sequentials (finally beating the 10K RPM Velociraptor!)
- Larger DRAM cache enables best-in-class IOPS performance
- 5 year warranty (great to see on a mechanical storage device)
CONS:
- Higher power consumption / heat output of 7200 RPM drives must be considered in the system build (any object drawing 10W of power with no cooling will run hot).
Pricing:
Intro MSRP's:
Black:
- 5TB: $264 ($0.053/GB)
- 6TB: $294 ($0.049/GB)
Red Pro:
- 5TB: $269 ($0.054/GB)
- 6TB: $299 ($0.050/GB)
With the Red Pro coming in at only $5 more than the Black, I'm inclined to suggest the Red Pro for single drive usage to anyone who has the slightest possibility of migrating the drive to a RAID-1 (or larger) at some point in the future. Regardless of warranty or track record, you never want 5-6TB of your data relying on a single device.
Warranty:
- 5 years!
Final Thoughts:
Western Digital continues to show they can simultaneously innovate and iterate across all of their product lines. While my go-to recommendation for low cost bulk storage will stay with the slower spinning Red and Green models, those looking for high performance storage in the 5TB and 6TB capacities can't go wrong with the new Black edition drives. Those needing more performance from their NAS or RAID should definitely go with the Red Pro, provided they can handle the added power draw and heat output that comes with 7200 RPM drive speeds. With a 5-year warranty and coming in at a competitive cost/GB, you really can't go wrong with either of these new models!
Awarding gold here as my default recommendation to the majority of bulk data storage use cases remains with the more power efficient Red and Green lines.
On the internals page you
On the internals page you quote the caches on these drives in GB, not MB. I wish I had a drive with 128GB of DRAM cache on it!
Haha. I was just thinking the
Haha. I was just thinking the same thing when I read that. Although I suppose that would make it similar to the hybrid drives that Seagate releases. But I think those only have like 20GB of flash. Not sure what 128GB would do.
Unfortunately those only have
Unfortunately those only have 8GB (used to have 4GB), which is really not enough IMO.
Fixed – thanks!
Fixed – thanks!
“A point to bring up here is
“A point to bring up here is that the 5TB and 6TB models of these two lines come equipped with 128GB of DRAM cache, up from the 64MB used on smaller capacities”
You fixed all but the 1st occurrence in that paragraph.
First paragraph you have
First paragraph you have “cleaper” instead of “cheaper.” Other than that, good review. Thanks.
Corrected. Thanks!
Corrected. Thanks!
Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for your patience. I don’t have any for spelling checkers, when the article is great.
Same paragraph “… those two
Same paragraph “… those two lines are mean to be power saving …”
Is that supposed to read “… those two lines are meant to be power saving …”
Still waiting on 2tb
Still waiting on 2tb Velociraptors
The WD Black 4TB wd4003fzex
The WD Black 4TB wd4003fzex has been available for the last couple years and is a nice improvement over the WD Black 4TB wd4001faex. I’m surprised it wasn’t included or used instead of the older drive in the review.
Well what can I say, about
Well what can I say, about time WD released something bigger and a bit more consumer friendly (price-wise) than Re. With TLER on Pros I can start to consider them too. I firmly believe in HGST, but I also have soft spot for WD. It’s good that they moved into 5/6TB area and finally ditched that relic of HDD tech – 5400 rpm.
Allyn, I can’t tell from the
Allyn, I can’t tell from the picture but is the cache DDR3? 512 MB modules have been available for quite sometime. Why wouldn’t they just put one of those in instead of that 128 MB chip?
Cost shouldn’t be an issue, so would it be a programming challenge to take advantage of extra cache?
“A point to bring up here is
“A point to bring up here is that the 5TB and 6TB models of these two lines come equipped with 128GB of DRAM cache, up from the 64MB used on smaller capacities. ” You better fix that.
Bigger!
Faster!
LESS
Bigger!
Faster!
LESS RELIABLE!
MORE EXPENSIVE!
Buy it now, sheeps!
Do you have a single fact to
Do you have a single fact to back that up?
On a more positive note, I think this is the first time you’ve ever managed to write a post without using the word “godlike”. Congratulations!
Is there really newer
Is there really newer velocitier raptors coming?
Is there really newer
Is there really newer velocitier raptors coming?
Correction to specs: Red Pro
Correction to specs: Red Pro has UBER <10 in 10^15, which is same as <1 in 10^14.
Cheap marketing trick easy to miss.