Confusion over WD HDD internal designs :>(

[E4g1e]

I decided to start a new thread about the different WD HDDs rather than add to a thread that has been dormant for two weeks:

I also agree with this. The WD10EALS is not a true WD Caviar Blue drive at all - but is rather a 1TB WD Black WD1001FALS drive that has had its acoustic seek management feature permanently enabled at the factory during manufacture. As such, expect a three-platter design (which has been shown to barely exceed 100 MB/s on the outer tracks sequentially) and noisier-than-average operation (especially during seeks).

Actually, with WD you'll never know which design you're going to get (for the most part). This is because I have read reports that some people who very recently bought the WD 500GB Blue got models with two 320GB platters (short-stroked internally to 250GB per platter) rather than those with a single 500GB platter (and some of the ones with two 320GB platters or three 200GB platters are actually newer-production than some of the WD5000AAKS drives with a single 500GB platter). And the reason for the continuation of production of older designs as new is that WD has multiple production lines for the different drives. For this reason, some revisions of the 320GB, 640GB and 750GB WD drives and the 1TB WD1001FALS have 500GB platters.

This means that of the "consumer" desktop WD hard drives, the only ones in current production that are confirmed to have 500GB platters are the 1TB WD Blue, the 1TB WD Black WD1002FAEX, the 1.5TB and 2TB WD Blacks and the WD Greens with Advanced Format (the EARS series).

If you have a recent WD hard drive, post your findings.

 

[sub.mesa]

A 2x250GB or 2x333GB short stroked (as you say) platter drive would have much different sequential performacne (lower) than 1x500GB single platter drive.

So even if WD did this, it would be easy recognised with benchmarks. That makes it all the more likely WD will use a different part number for these drives. If they used the same part number; you would be able to return the product for misleading customers i believe. It's like Mercedes sold a car with an identical type that is actually a cheap volkswagen.

That can't be legal. Unless the part number differs; then you... bought that specific part. The fact that you did not know what the part number actually meant is your own responsibility; not WD's. So legally, it depends on whether the changes you mentioned have caused the part number to become different. In that case, it's your responsibility, in a legal sense.

 

[E4g1e]

A 2x250GB or 2x333GB short stroked (as you say) platter drive would have much different sequential performacne (lower) than 1x500GB single platter drive.

So even if WD did this, it would be easy recognised with benchmarks. That makes it all the more likely WD will use a different part number for these drives. If they used the same part number; you would be able to return the product for misleading customers i believe. It's like Mercedes sold a car with an identical type that is actually a cheap volkswagen.

That can't be legal. Unless the part number differs; then you... bought that specific part. The fact that you did not know what the part number actually meant is your own responsibility; not WD's. So legally, it depends on whether the changes you mentioned have caused the part number to become different. In that case, it's your responsibility, in a legal sense.

You will not know this until you read the codes that come after the part number.

 

[sub.mesa]

A part number is a part number. "codes after part number" are either part of the part number, or they are not. If they are not, you could say "i bought part number XXX but got a different product, with the same part number; not my fault so give me back my money!". Legally i think you would be in a better position than the shop.

 

[E4g1e]

A part number is a part number. "codes after part number" are either part of the part number, or they are not. If they are not, you could say "i bought part number XXX but got a different product, with the same part number; not my fault so give me back my money!". Legally i think you would be in a better position than the shop.

The distributors and resellers are partly to blame for this. For example, they simply put out the 1TB WD Black SATA II 32MB cache as "WD1001FALS" when they should have given the full part number (e.g. WD1001FALS-00J7B1 or WD1001FALS-00E3A0 - the latter with two 500GB platters whereas the former with three 334GB platters).

 

[sub.mesa]

I see. In that case, if you buy WD1001FALS then you don't explicitly buy WD1001FALS-00E3A0. Unless that web-page explicitly mentions its using 500GB platters, you would have no legal basis.

But you can always email them and ask if they can deliver a specific part number. Likely they will just go and check for themselves and would be able to give you the right version. If you order online, you could mention you only want that specific part number somewhere in the order comments/notes which you can enter.

 

[Mav451]

I'm considering getting a 10EALS to replace an original 1TB Black (hint the loud ones) that is going bad...am I actually getting an old Black or a new 500gb/platter model? The Versys Tech blog post lists the 10EALS under the 500gb section, but really nobody else is listing a specific model number FTL.

 

[rive22]

The WD10EALS-00Z8A0 is a 500GB/platter model. I don't know if there are different ones out there as well.

I was surprised to see the old 1001fals had a dual platter model. What the heck these guys need to quit messin around.

 

[Mav451]

Oh - well my doubts were raised b/c of E4g's first post here. I guess I mis-interpreted it?

 

[E4g1e]

I was surprised to see the old 1001fals had a dual platter model. What the heck these guys need to quit messin around.

From some of its production lines, maybe. But my visit earlier today to MicroCenter revealed samples manufactured in June or July 2010 that were of the initial 00J7B0 revision - three 334GB platters. This confirms my finding that WD has been manufacturing both older and newer revisions of the same drive concurrently. And even if you're buying a retail-boxed 500GB WD Blue, you'll never know what you're going to get. (I was lucky the day I bought a boxed 500GB Blue to get one with a single 500GB platter.)

I ended up buying a Samsung F3 1TB drive there.

 

[E4g1e]

It's equally as confusing with Western Digital's retail-boxed drive kits. For example, I recently picked up a retail-boxed 1TB WD Black for about the same price as some resellers sell the Samsung F3 1TB drive for. It was an impulse buy, intending to test the drive. I had expected an original revision of the WD1001FALS drive (with three 334GB platters) in the retail box. The box clearly stated 32MB cache (which presumably means an SATA 3.0 Gbps interface since there has never been an FALX version of that drive). (For the record, the retail box part number for all of the 1TB Blacks since the introduction of the currently-in-use smaller retail box in late 2009-early 2010 has been WDBAAZ00100HNC-NRSN.) To my surprise, the drive inside that retail box was a newer WD1002FAEX-00Z3A0 with an SATA 6.0 Gbps interface and 64MB cache. Testing it showed it to be slightly slower than its 2TB WD2002FAEX and WD2001FASS siblings and the 1TB Samsung F3 drive but slightly faster than either the Seagate 7200.12 ST31000528AS or my Internet system's 500GB WD Blue WD5000AAKS-00V1A0 drive (and significantly faster than the old WD1001FALS-00J7B1) in sequential transfer speed. In addition, the 1TB Blacks (both original and new) have a slightly slower random access speed than their 2TB siblings - by about 0.5ms.

Now I know why: The older drive has finally been discontinued (but may still be available at some resellers). Thus, almost all of the retail-boxed 1TB Blacks found recently on large reseller shelves should have a WD1002FAEX inside the box.

 

[Mav451]

Hah epic bump on this. I should mention I RMAed one of the 10EALS drives I bought in August 2010, back on Jan 2011. The drive I received was the 1001FALS Black. At first I was slightly ticked, thinking I had gotten a 333GB plattter model, but upon closer inspection, I realized I had actually gotten the 00Y6A0 - manufactured in Jan 2011

Performance was exactly the same as my 10EALS, so I was pretty happy, which actually says more about the Blue line than it does the Black.

 

[E4g1e]

Hah epic bump on this. I should mention I RMAed one of the 10EALS drives I bought in August 2010, back on Jan 2011. The drive I received was the 1001FALS Black. At first I was slightly ticked, thinking I had gotten a 333GB plattter model, but upon closer inspection, I realized I had actually gotten the 00Y6A0 - manufactured in Jan 2011

Performance was exactly the same as my 10EALS, so I was pretty happy, which actually says more about the Blue line than it does the Black.

In addition, many retail-boxed 1TB WD Blacks sold at Best Buy during the latter half of 2010 were actually yet another variant, the WD1001FAES, which had a SATA 3.0 Gbps interface like the original WD1001FALS but 64MB of cache like the WD1002FAEX.