Best 1TB and 2TB HDDs?

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Flogger23m

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I am looking to get a new HDD as I am running out of space. I am looking to get either a 1TB or a 2TB depending on how large or small the price difference is between my options. I do not plan on doing RAID or anything. The new drive will be for data/programs and possibly my OS install. 7200 RPM would be a must.

I notice that the WD 2TBs are considerably more expensive than the Seagate 2TB drives and the reviews on the Seagates seem to be low. Are the Seagate 2TB drives really that bad?

And from a reliability standpoint are the 1TB drives of higher quality than the current 2TB offerings?
 
Hitachi has been "more" reliable for me with no clicking noise or any sounds. It's quiet and works
Seagate 2TB has been giving me a clicking noise, especially under heavy load, which I just can't fix but it is still working and it's about 1 years old...
seagate Barracuda 750GB died due to stupid firmware issue (which I was never emailed or told about) and lost all my data.
WD Green (not 1TB or 2TB) a 500GB gave a warning to me. I saw it on hddtune but I don't remember what it was... It had to do with the data cable but this drive has been working fine for almost 4 years now.

A issue I had with the Hitachi was, out of the blue, I lost my partition table on the Hitachi (which was encrypted with Truecrypt). So I ended up loosing everything.

The Hitachi was more expensive than the Seagate and WD. But the warranty on the Hitachi was better...

So for me... I'd take a Hitachi but they are expensive and very hard to find now after they got bought out.
 
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After the issues with the HDD market year before last we have seen super high prices. Thanksgiving of 2010 I picked up my WB Black 640GB for $75 shipped to my door, now you are lucky to find them for less than $130. I am adding an external HDD setup to my iMac (will partition for a small part that is going to be my time machine backup) and was wondering the same thing. As Steve3 said, Hitachi has gotten much better, Seagate and WD will always demand a premium but I have found them to always be super reliable (always had WD drives up til now) and yesterday I picked up a Samsung F4 2TB EcoGreen drive for $99 w/shipping from the Egg. Between 1TB and 2TB prices will be pretty competitive since lots of the new drives are moving to the 1TB platters, once you decide to move from 2TB to 3TB that is where you are going to see the most price increase (normally about $30-$50), then on top of that throwing in such things as faster drive speeds and what not. If you are planning on using it just for storage and nor really using for accessing programs then get a green drive (5400rpm) if you want applications and OS on it, I would recommend getting an SSD or 7200/10000rpm drive for that stuff as the access times will be much faster.
 
I have had the best luck with hitachis over the last 2 or so years. Although I only have around 200 drives so that is too small of a sample size to be scientific.
 
From a performance standpoint, the WD Black 1TB's are the best available. From a reliability standpoint, Hitachi is making the more reliable drives above 1TB, Samsung used to be the best at 2TB, but since Seagate bought them and rebranded them, only time will tell if they're still the same drives or not.

As it standstoday , for performance 1TB and under, I would look at WD Black drives. Anything above 1TB, I would look at Hitachi.
 
drescherjm said:
I have had the best luck with hitachis over the last 2 or so years. Although I only have around 200 drives so that is too small of a sample size to be scientific.
Click to expand...

200 is a small sample? Good Lord that's a huge sample for an individual.
 
Blkout said:
200 is a small sample? Good Lord that's a huge sample for an individual.
Click to expand...

Scientifically I believe you need thousands to 10s of thousands to say anything statistically meaningful about the millions of drives out there. A single user with a few dozen drives can not make any scientifically meaningful conclusion about reliability since many factors could have cause their own success or failures.

John
 
gregnash said:
After the issues with the HDD market year before last we have seen super high prices. Thanksgiving of 2010 I picked up my WB Black 640GB for $75 shipped to my door, now you are lucky to find them for less than $130.
Click to expand...

You're kidding, right?
Because 640GB for $75 = $0.117 per GB
Newegg has a 1TB for $110 = $0.11 per GB

So it's cheaper now. Not only that, but the WD Black 640GB has been discontinued. What's your point again? We can't buy a 640GB black for $75? no shit. But why complain when you can get a 1TB for $110?

WD blacks are largely irrelevant now anyway because of cheap 5400/5900 rpm drives and ssds.
 
Seagate has a new strategy where their offering is 7200rpm only, so they sell the basic barracudas for the same price as WD green drives. For WD 7200rpm is either the basic blue or the "high end" black.
 
Blkout said:
From a performance standpoint, the WD Black 1TB's are the best available.
Click to expand...

Not any more. The current 1TB WD Black still uses a two-platter design that has not been updated at all in the past two-and-a-half years. Its maximum and average sequential transfer speeds are below average by current standards. However, its seek performance is relatively fast compared to other 7200 RPM hard drives.
 
J Macker said:
You're kidding, right?
Because 640GB for $75 = $0.117 per GB
Newegg has a 1TB for $110 = $0.11 per GB

So it's cheaper now. Not only that, but the WD Black 640GB has been discontinued. What's your point again? We can't buy a 640GB black for $75? no shit. But why complain when you can get a 1TB for $110?

WD blacks are largely irrelevant now anyway because of cheap 5400/5900 rpm drives and ssds.
Click to expand...

Sorry that was a typo should have been $45. And yes I know that the 640GB Black is no longer available. What I was trying to say was that 1) drive prices have gone way up, and 2) depending on what he wanted a "fast" drive may not be necessary unless he plans to launch applications and do OS items from it.

Furthermore, thread crap elsewhere... I just picked up a 2TB drive for $99 to my door, so your $110 1TB would equate to twice the cost.
 
your 2TB for $99 wasn't a WD black.

Apples != oranges

I was keeping it a fair comparison and decided NOT to bring up the 2TB for $100 because it was a samsung F4 and not a wd black.

relevant discussion is NOT a TC.
you're just mad because I pointed out that you were wrong.
 
HEh, good old prices... paid for my 2TB WD Black about $130 (that was standard price for 2TB disk in Poland those days), now it's twice the price....

Still, been using the drive for several months, and it did not fail me. Though, if you want storage only disk, I'd suggest WD Green, or that 3TB Hitachi disk that was around those days (don't know if it's still produced or what's the price)
 
E4g1e said:
Not any more. The current 1TB WD Black still uses a two-platter design that has not been updated at all in the past two-and-a-half years. Its maximum and average sequential transfer speeds are below average by current standards. However, its seek performance is relatively fast compared to other 7200 RPM hard drives.
Click to expand...

So the WD blacks are, overall, not as fast as Seagates/Hitachi/Samsung?

My current drive is a WD Black 1TB FALS which has been going for 3 1/2 years with no issues. What is the difference between the Blue and Black drives aside from warranty? Is there a noticeable speed difference? Newegg also fails to mention how long the warranty is on the Blue drives. The Blacks are 5 years, are the Blues 3?

Regarding 1TB drives:

I have also read that the current WD Black 1TB drives are rather loud. My current WD Black drive is noiseless and would prefer something with a similar noise level with speeds on par or better than my current WD drive.

Though looking at newegg reviews for the WD1002FAEX 1TB, I came across this:

While other reviews have complained about the drive being loud, I've literally been unable to hear it spin up and operate. It appears as if the issue with those drives is the acoustic management setting is not activated which a simple utility can correct, so please don't let that dissuade you from picking up this HDD.
Click to expand...

So, essentially, to get quiet operation there is a software setting I have to enable (in HD Tune, Crystal HD, or something else?)? Will enabling this setting reduce performance?

As for Samsung, I am looking at the Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB. It is $20 cheaper than the WD Black and $10 cheaper than the WD Blue and the reviews are noticeably higher. Though while the WDs have 64MB of cache, this has 32MB of cache. Compared to the WD1002FAEX 1TB and Blue WD10EZE, how does this F3 compare in terms of performance and noise?

My only concern with the Samsung is that there is only a one year Warranty according the newegg.

Regarding Seagate drives I need some help. There are four 1TB drives within $16 of each other on newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007603%2050001305%20600003269%20600003298%20600003340&IsNodeId=1&name=7200%20RPM

I noticed that the cheapest one has 64MB of cache whereas the ones with 32MB actually cost more. Is there a reason for this? Of all those drives, which would be the most reliable? Which is the best bang for the buck of those four?

I would also like to stress that while I want a fast and quiet drive, reliability is my largest concern. I would plan on using the drive for 3-5 years so I need something that will last.
 
this was a little while ago now (8 or 12mths), i remember reading about a data centre/cloud storage centre that exclusively used hitachi drives (not sure if they were consumer grade units like 5K3000 or 7K3000) after having a dreadful run with WD & Seagate in their massive storage arrays. they had such insignificant statistical drop-outs of disks from their RAID arrays, they were shocked. i think i found the article linked in a thread here in the 'storage' sub forum.

its a shame hitachi's drive division been bought by WD. the hitachi 5K3000 were great drives (got a bunch in my NAS arrays) but there's no place for them (don't think they are even manufactured any longer) anymore b/c they'd complete directly with WD's shitty green drives. It’s the same story with samsung HD division being bought out by Seagate.
 
J Macker said:
your 2TB for $99 wasn't a WD black.

Apples != oranges

I was keeping it a fair comparison and decided NOT to bring up the 2TB for $100 because it was a samsung F4 and not a wd black.

relevant discussion is NOT a TC.
you're just mad because I pointed out that you were wrong.
Click to expand...

Actually your statement about
J Macker said:
So it's cheaper now. Not only that, but the WD Black 640GB has been discontinued. What's your point again? We can't buy a 640GB black for $75? no shit. But why complain when you can get a 1TB for $110?
Click to expand...
is what one would consider a thread crap. No I am not mad that I paid $45 for my 640GB Black drive, it's actually a great drive. What I was trying to show was that prices have gone way up..

Apples : Apples
Here is your 2TB drive comparison: WD Black 2TB FAEX = $200
WD Black 2TB FYYS = $250
So those would be twice the cost (or close there about) of your 1TB.

The OP was looking for what seemed to be drives for a "storage" solution with the possibility of hosting the OS on the drive. I was asking the OP for some clarification as they would be better off with a fast drive (i.e. the WD Black) if he was looking for OS and application loading, conversely if he was looking only at a storage solution then the 2TB EcoGreen that I picked up for $99 to my door was not a bad deal with most solutions being $10-$20 more plus shipping.
 
aphasia said:
this was a little while ago now (8 or 12mths), i remember reading about a data centre/cloud storage centre that exclusively used hitachi drives (not sure if they were consumer grade units like 5K3000 or 7K3000) after having a dreadful run with WD & Seagate in their massive storage arrays. they had such insignificant statistical drop-outs of disks from their RAID arrays, they were shocked. i think i found the article linked in a thread here in the 'storage' sub forum.

its a shame hitachi's drive division been bought by WD. the hitachi 5K3000 were great drives (got a bunch in my NAS arrays) but there's no place for them (don't think they are even manufactured any longer) anymore b/c they'd complete directly with WD's shitty green drives. It’s the same story with samsung HD division being bought out by Seagate.
Click to expand...

You're probably thinking of backblaze who stated that failure rate on Hitachi was less than half of other brands they had in use including wdc and seagate. And that was a sample size of over 9000 Hitachi's so not anecdotal by any means. Netflix saw this and standardized hitachi as well and standardized on a box that pretty much copied backblaze form factor. https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect/hardware

HITACHI buyout has already been discussed to death on the forum. My recommend is wait to see what Toshiba produces between 3rd and 4th quarter since they've got some of the hitachi designs court ordered by the wdc buyout and if anyone is capable of building a spiritual successor to the hitachi drives its them. WDC will not. In their infinite arrogance they were really only interested in hitachi's enterprise offerings since wdc blows herds in that department ... Meanwhile they're going to keep pumping out the same desktop drives they always have.
 
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odditory said:
You're probably thinking of backblaze who stated that failure rate on Hitachi was less than half of other brands they had in use including wdc and seagate. And that was a sample size of over 9000 Hitachi's so not anecdotal by any means. Netflix saw this and standardized hitachi as well and standardized on a box that pretty much copied backblaze form factor. https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect/hardware

HITACHI buyout has already been discussed to death on the forum. My recommend is wait to see what Toshiba produces between 3rd and 4th quarter since they've got some of the hitachi designs court ordered by the wdc buyout and if anyone is capable of building a spiritual successor to the hitachi drives its them. WDC will not. In their infinite arrogance they were really only interested in hitachi's enterprise offerings since wdc blows herds in that department ... Meanwhile they're going to keep pumping out the same desktop drives they always have.
Click to expand...

i haven't been keeping up to date with the hitachi gossip in the threads tho certainly some good news about toshiba. i'm just pissed i didn't fill-up the 2 remaining bays in one of my NAS' with additional 2GB 5K3000 drives. tho considering people lost their lives and the manufacturing plants got trashed in SE asia, i guess that trumps my 'first-world' problems on disk storage...

for me, i'll either wait till the hitachi 2GB 7200rpm drives drop in price a bit or see what toshiba can bring to the market further down the track.
 
gregnash said:
The OP was looking for what seemed to be drives for a "storage" solution with the possibility of hosting the OS on the drive. I was asking the OP for some clarification as they would be better off with a fast drive (i.e. the WD Black) if he was looking for OS and application loading, conversely if he was looking only at a storage solution then the 2TB EcoGreen that I picked up for $99 to my door was not a bad deal with most solutions being $10-$20 more plus shipping.
Click to expand...

Assume I put the OS and many programs on it. I am thinking of cloning my current drive onto the new one in which case a new HDD will be my boot/program drive.
 
Flogger23m said:
So the WD blacks are, overall, not as fast as Seagates/Hitachi/Samsung?
...Compared to the WD1002FAEX 1TB and Blue WD10EZE, how does this F3 compare in terms of performance and noise?
...
I noticed that the cheapest one has 64MB of cache whereas the ones with 32MB actually cost more. Is there a reason for this? Of all those drives, which would be the most reliable? Which is the best bang for the buck of those four?

I would also like to stress that while I want a fast and quiet drive, reliability is my largest concern. I would plan on using the drive for 3-5 years so I need something that will last.
Click to expand...

Sorry for the other arguments, OP. Here's a user who posted some benchmarks with the WD Black 1TB and the Spinpoint F3 1TB:
Spinpoint F3 seek: 13.2 ms avg : 120mb/s
WD Black 1TB seek: 12.1ms avg: 90mb/s
http://forum.novatech.co.uk/showthr...s-Barracuda-7200-11-320GB&p=197140#post197140

On the other hand, storagereview says the Hitachi drives are the fastest but they only have a 3 year warranty (vs. WD Black 5 year). I own a single Hitachi 1TB drive as a secondary, but I haven't benchmarked it. It's been in use for about 3 years and no problems.

1TB WD Blue Review
2TB Black review
2TB Samsung F4 review

FWIW, I've been using a pair of Spinpoint F3 1TB drives in a RAID 0 for about 2 years now without any issues. Many other people have used the F3's for years and I haven't seen very many reports of reliability problems. I think the F3 1TBs are very reliable.


gregnash said:
...What I was trying to show was that prices have gone way up..
Click to expand...
which you failed miserably by posting $65 price originally and already admitted you were wrong. There was nothing wrong with my original price comparison that prices didn't change based on your $65 price and my price comparison for apples: apples for a 1TB drive still stands. The 2TB wd black prices are absurd, I agree. There's no point in recommending them ever. I think the only reason you're defensive is because I busted your chops on the $65 "typo".

gregnash said:
The OP was looking for what seemed to be drives for a "storage" solution with the possibility of hosting the OS on the drive. I was asking the OP for some clarification as they would be better off with a fast drive (i.e. the WD Black) if he was looking for OS and application loading, conversely if he was looking only at a storage solution then the 2TB EcoGreen that I picked up for $99 to my door was not a bad deal with most solutions being $10-$20 more plus shipping.
Click to expand...

The 2TB Black is still a poor recommendation at $250. He could have a 128GB ssd + 2TB spinpoint F4 for a total of ~$230.
WD Green is even slower than the samsung ecogreen. But yes the samsung "ecogreen" F4's are an excellent compromise. I own 5 of them as well.
 
J Macker said:
The 2TB Black is still a poor recommendation at $250. He could have a 128GB ssd + 2TB spinpoint F4 for a total of ~$230.
WD Green is even slower than the samsung ecogreen. But yes the samsung "ecogreen" F4's are an excellent compromise. I own 5 of them as well.
Click to expand...

Does Samsung make a 2TB 7200 RPM drive? It looks like all of the Samsung 2TB drives I come across are 5400 RPM.

Wish I picked up a 1TB F3 Spinpoint for $60 at Frys last year. :(
 
Flogger23m said:
which you failed miserably by posting $65 price originally and already admitted you were wrong. There was nothing wrong with my original price comparison that prices didn't change based on your $65 price and my price comparison for apples: apples for a 1TB drive still stands. The 2TB wd black prices are absurd, I agree. There's no point in recommending them ever. I think the only reason you're defensive is because I busted your chops on the $65 "typo".
Click to expand...

Sweet, so since you have never made a typo or mistake we will be sure to run everything by you first. And I agree that the 2TB black prices are absurd. Busting one's chops is one thing, but going after someone with a "it's discontinued and sucks. No shit" comment, that is a little different. But I digress, enough with the arguing, on to what this forum is about... Helping those asking questions.


Flogger23m said:
The 2TB Black is still a poor recommendation at $250. He could have a 128GB ssd + 2TB spinpoint F4 for a total of ~$230.
WD Green is even slower than the samsung ecogreen. But yes the samsung "ecogreen" F4's are an excellent compromise. I own 5 of them as well.
Click to expand...

Good to know, I knew the WD Greens were not that great and never really heard anything about the Sammy's. Looks like it will be a good addition as my storage drive for photo/video/music.
 
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I don't know of a 7200 rpm samsung 2tb drive.

I bought my 2x F3 1tb spinpoints at $55 each, I believe. I'm just about ready to transition them to the server and install Win7 on my new 240GB ssd.

My first experience with an ssd was my OCZ Agility 2. I previously had a 1TB WD Black as my OS drive.
so my OS install went from:
1TB WD Black
60gb agility 2 ssd
2x 1tb spinpoint f3's in Raid 0. (this is current)
sandisk extreme 240gb ssd (just received it yesterday for $160)

I was not impressed moving from WD Black to Agility 2. 60GB is way too small. Also, the price is a huge factor. that 60GB ssd cost me $100. after using the agility 2 as my OS drive for a year, I got tired of running out of space. Win7 has a hidden folder called "winsxs" that has backups of windows updates. This makes win7 install balloon up over time to consume ~20gb. I bought two spinpoint f3's and moved the ssd to the kitchen computer OS drive.

I've been extremely happy with my Raid 0 spinpoint F3's. I honestly don't know why I bought the 240gb ssd, because I had such a disappointing experience with my first ssd. I hope I'm wrong and I actually notice an improvement.
 
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J Macker said:
I've been extremely happy with my Raid 0 spinpoint F3's. I honestly don't know why I bought the 240gb ssd, because I had such a disappointing experience with my first ssd. I hope I'm wrong and I actually notice an improvement.
Click to expand...

Probably about the same reason that I bought the 2TB Sammy with a firewire 800 enclosure from monoprice (which is actually VERY nice from initial impression). It's a new toy and looked fun!
 
J Macker said:
I don't know of a 7200 rpm samsung 2tb drive.
Click to expand...

Do you think they will make one or is that out of the question now that Seagate owns them? I think between the 1TB drives I will narrow it down to the WD Black and Samsung. The Samsung seems to be the better drive, though the warranty is 1 year rather than 5. Perhaps 4 years extra of warranty is worth $20.

Moving onto 2TB drives, WDs are more than likely out of my price range. :( As I am looking for 7200 RPM Samsung is out of the question.

This leaves me down to one of the various Seagate 2TB or 3TB drives or Hitachi. Which models of each brand (Seagate/Hitachi) offers the best reliability/performance for the price?

After I narrow down the 2-3TB drives down to a single selection I will compare the price difference between my 1TB and 2/3TB choice.
 
Did you look at the reviews and compare numbers from the 2TB WD Black to the 2TB Samsung F4?
You shouldn't dismiss the spinpoint F4 merely because it's not 7200rpm. It's a worthy contender, albeit a little slower than the Black drives. But the fact is you can have 2TB for the roughly the same prices as a 1TB Black.

There's no market need for samsung/seagate to manufacture a 2TB 7200rpm drive.
Think about it, those who need capacity want low power. Those who want performance buy ssds.
The only middle ground is a hybrid drive and they only make sense in a laptop.

This 2TB Hitachi drive is 7200rpm and probably performs similar to the 3TB hitachi in the review. It should be faster than the 2TB samsung F4.
Here's the 3TB drive for $142. It is obviously the better choice because it's just a few dollars more than the 2TB.

Personally, I'd rather pay for the 3TB drive because fewer drives is better. But if you don't have a need for 3TB, then just get a 2TB drive.

4 years of warranty for $20 is your choice. the 1Tb drive for $110 isn't bad, but I'd much rather have 2TB for the same price and sacrifice a little performance & warranty. Just make sure to test the drive thoroughly during the first 6 months.

As far as reliability, this is the only reference I've ever seen that has manufacturer failure rates. The google report doesn't cite manufacturers it just says many drives still fail and don't report it in the SMART data.
 
So lets recap real quick:
1. Looking for approximately 2TB drive
2. Drive will be used as OS and application drive
3. Will be main drive in system
4. System has external back-up
5. Would like 7200rpm drive if possible

Seems like we are close, only real hard information we don't have from you is what your budget is?
 
2TB is a lot for OS and application drive.

Seems to me like the main decision is:
2TB Samsung for $100 (slowest, but not that bad)
1TB Black for $110
3TB Hitachi for $142.

I'd pick the Hitachi. speed & capacity.
 
J Macker said:
2TB is a lot for OS and application drive.

Seems to me like the main decision is:
2TB Samsung for $100 (slowest, but not that bad)
1TB Black for $110
3TB Hitachi for $142.

I'd pick the Hitachi. speed & capacity.
Click to expand...

Actually the Sammy is only on sale until the 30th from Newegg (promo code EMCNCHF23, can only be used once per account) and then it goes back to $119. So, if you can grab the Hitachi 3TB and maybe a small SSD for OS and apps.

Know nothing about SSDs but found this on Techbargains: OCZ Agility 4 128gb for $69.99 after $10 promo code: PQ1QC87GXFWFCH
 
Booting off a 3TB drive is a problem unless you have an UEFI mobo.
 
Aesma said:
Booting off a 3TB drive is a problem unless you have an UEFI mobo.
Click to expand...

My motherboard is an ASUS M3N78Pro:

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM2Plus/M3N78_PRO/

I have the latest BIOS though. I am assuming this won't allow a 3TB drive to be a boot drive?

gregnash said:
So lets recap real quick:
1. Looking for approximately 2TB drive
2. Drive will be used as OS and application drive
3. Will be main drive in system
4. System has external back-up
5. Would like 7200rpm drive if possible

Seems like we are close, only real hard information we don't have from you is what your budget is?
Click to expand...

Roughly $100-120 including shipping/tax. Though if the 3TB drive can work as a bootable HDD then I might spend a little more.

My current boot HDD is 3 1/2 years old. Zero issues, but we all know that it will not last forever. Getting an HDD + SSD will be too much money for me and I am out of SATA slots.
 
Flogger23m said:
So the WD blacks are, overall, not as fast as Seagates/Hitachi/Samsung?
Click to expand...

Well, by current standards the Blacks are among the slower hard drives when used as storage drives. Some of the older-design Seagates that are still in current production are even slower. However, due to their fast seek performance, the WD Blacks are relatively well suited to being OS drives (but you would have to put up with the fact that due to their capacity you might be tempted to install more and more bloatware onto that OS drive because the OS and programs combined consume little of the drives' capacity).

Flogger23m said:
My current drive is a WD Black 1TB FALS which has been going for 3 1/2 years with no issues. What is the difference between the Blue and Black drives aside from warranty? Is there a noticeable speed difference? Newegg also fails to mention how long the warranty is on the Blue drives. The Blacks are 5 years, are the Blues 3?
Click to expand...

Not any more for the Blues. As of January 2, the Blues and Greens now have only a 2-year warranty.

Flogger23m said:
Regarding 1TB drives:

I have also read that the current WD Black 1TB drives are rather loud. My current WD Black drive is noiseless and would prefer something with a similar noise level with speeds on par or better than my current WD drive.

Though looking at newegg reviews for the WD1002FAEX 1TB, I came across this:



So, essentially, to get quiet operation there is a software setting I have to enable (in HD Tune, Crystal HD, or something else?)? Will enabling this setting reduce performance?
Click to expand...

The early 1TB and smaller WD Blacks used platters that are no larger than 160GB per side (or 320GB per platter). This meant three platters on the 1TB model. And none of WD's hard drives with 320GB class platters can sustain more than 110 MB/s on the outer tracks or average more than about 90 MB/s. The current WD Blacks up to 1TB use 500GB class platters, which can sustain up to 130-ish MB/s on the outer tracks and just over 100 MB/s average. (WD Blacks larger than 1TB use a slightly different platter layout despite still using 500GB class platters, and thus can hit 140 MB/s on the outer tracks and 110 MB/s average.)

However, the particular WD1001FALS that I used to have was also noisy during seeks - and it was of the earlier 320GB-class platter design. That drive was just under three years old (based on the manufacturing date of November 2009).

Unfortunately, current WD firmware does not allow the user to manually adjust anything at all whatsoever. I tried the software seek management adjustments, only to have that setting permanently locked to the factory default setting (or the setting would not even budge from default). And yes, enabling seek management on those drives that truly allow such adjustments will significantly slow down seek performance: One such drive increased the random access time from about 13.6 ms with the feature disabled all the way to more than 25 ms with it enabled! (And yes, a 25 ms random access time was typical of some of the very last 3.5" 3600 RPM hard drives that were manufactured back in the mid-1990s.)
 
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