Is this the normal access speed for a 2TB Black?

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vroom_skies

[H]ard|Gawd
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Sep 25, 2005
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Hey all,
This doesn't seem right to me, so I'm looking for feedback.
I would have expected the drive to spin up much faster then that, however I might just be used to SSD & 10K drives.
This drive is used as my internal data disk that I want quick access to. I'd rather not have to wait that long to have access. If this is the case I would have just stuck with the 2TB F4.

Here is a quick video showing what I'm talking about:


Thanks
 
That links to a photo, not a video. In my experience you can expect a 7200 rpm drive to take around 10 seconds to become ready from a cold start. How long is it taking?
 
This drive is used as my internal data disk that I want quick access to. I'd rather not have to wait that long to have access.
Click to expand...

Disable OS spindown of your disks. Or make the spindown several hours. Or just buy a SSD.
 
dustNbone said:
That links to a photo, not a video. In my experience you can expect a 7200 rpm drive to take around 10 seconds to become ready from a cold start. How long is it taking?
Click to expand...
It should link to a video, works for me and others. Seems the spin up time ranges from 15- 20 plus second.

drescherjm said:
Disable OS spindown of your disks. Or make the spindown several hours. Or just buy a SSD.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I didn't even know you could do that. I'll have to look into it. I have an SSD for my boot drive. I don't exactly have the spare funds to get 2TB worth of SSD storage.

Thanks
 
vroom_skies said:
It should link to a video, works for me and others. Seems the spin up time ranges from 15- 20 plus second.
Click to expand...

That is a reasonable spin up time for a 7200 RPM drive.

Edit: 15 to 20 seconds is reasonable. Longer than that may be a sign of a failing drive. Check if the drive thinks this is a problem with CrystalDiskInfo or some other program that checks the SMART data.
 
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drescherjm said:
That is a reasonable spin up time for a 7200 RPM drive.

Edit: 15 to 20 seconds is reasonable. Longer than that may be a sign of a failing drive. Check if the drive thinks this is a problem with CrystalDiskInfo or some other program that checks the SMART data.
Click to expand...
Alright, I'll check into it. Thanks for the help.
The one thing that I don't understand is that the drive doesn't seem to start spinning up until a good 8 or so seconds after I launch a file.

staticlag said:
http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y145/vroom_skies/Videos/?action=view&current=MVI_6079.mp4

Wow that is really slow.
Click to expand...
Do you happen to have a 2TB Black? I for one feel it is quite slow.

On what seems to be an average the 2TB F4 takes 10-15 seconds to spin up when the 2TB Black takes 15-20 seconds. I would have thought a tad bit differently, however it is 5400 vs 7200 rpm. Is my thinking correct in that the 2TB Black is the fastest 2TB HDD?

Thanks
 
Here is what CDI is reporting:
HDDSmart.jpg
 
Is my thinking correct in that the 2TB Black is the fastest 2TB HDD?
Click to expand...

It used to be the fastest 7200 RPM drive but it is built with 2010 densities (500GB / platter) so drives from Seagate and Hitachi are faster now. Especially the drives with 1TB platters.
 
Thanks for the info.
The drive doesn't appear to be faster when horizontal. Either way it will be mounted vertical in my case.
 
dustNbone said:
That links to a photo, not a video. In my experience you can expect a 7200 rpm drive to take around 10 seconds to become ready from a cold start. How long is it taking?
Click to expand...

No, that was really slow imo.
I have WD Blue PATA drives that start in about 4-5 seconds.
10 seconds to start up a WD Black SATA drive doesn't sound right.

It takes WD Green drives about 7-8 seconds to start, so for a 7200RPM drive, that is definitely abnormal.
 
extide said:
WD Blacks are rather old technology at this point. Samsung F4's and Hitachi 7K.1000's are better I believe.
Click to expand...

Correct, WD's quality and technology edge has fallen and dulled over time.
Their current drives are about on par with late 2010 HDD tech.

Samsung and Hitachi are much better at this point imo.
Also, lots of WD Green and Black drives have been having high failure rates at this point.

The only WD drives I trust at this point are their RE4 nearline-class drives and Blue desktop-class drives.
 
vroom_skies said:
If that's the case, is what I'm experiencing accurate? It's slower then my 2TB F4.
Click to expand...

Access time isn't the same as spinup time. Access time refers to how long it takes an already spinning drive to access a particular sector by moving the head to the correct track and waiting for the platter to spin around to the correct position.

7200 rpm drives will tend to take longer to spin up than 5400 rpm drives as they have to accelerate the platters to a higher speed before they can start to read from them.
 
7200 rpm drives will tend to take longer to spin up than 5400 rpm drives as they have to accelerate the platters to a higher speed before they can start to read from them.
Click to expand...
From what I've seen, it's the opposite.
7200RPM drives have always spun up faster than 5400RPM drives, at least with the WD drives I've worked with in the last 3 years.
 
Definitely make sure the spin down is turned off. It's debatable, but I do believe it also puts extra wear and tear for nothing, just keep it spinning.

I have 6 1TB blacks in raid 1 and if I open a movie off it via SMB it's instant play once VLC loads (which is a few seconds)
 
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