WD Black replaced with WD Blue - Ripped off?

ReeceN

ReeceN

Silver Level Poster
Hi.

I have just requested a RMA via WD (PCS warranty now expired) for my WD Black 500GB HDD (WD5002AALX) and have just received an email telling me that they have registered a WD Blue 750GB (WD7500AALX) to my account.
Do you think they are trying to rip me off?

500GB is enough for me, and I'd much rather have a better performing HDD!

Thanks,

Reece
 
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ReeceN

ReeceN

Silver Level Poster
Sorry, I meant to say that I RMAed it via WD not PCS.
PCS have been very good when handling issues :)
 
K

Karnor00

Bright Spark
Well, I wouldn't say they are exactly ripping you off - true the WD Blue is slightly slower than the WD Black, but you would be getting a 50% bigger drive. The two drives would be pretty much the same in price.

That said, if you don't need the increased storage space then I'd definitely get onto them to change it to a WD Black.
 
tom_gr7

tom_gr7

Life Serving
I have a 250 gb wd blue drive in a netbook and its bloody slow..... (for boot drive)

I'd ask for the same brand.
 
K

Karnor00

Bright Spark
Actually you're comparing very different rates there. The 6GB rate is how fast data can be transferred from the cache to the PC - however the cache is very small and most of the time won't have the data you happen to need so this transfer rate is pretty much irrelevant. It should be pretty much the same for both drives.

The 126MB's rate is how fast the data gets written to the disk. This is much closer to the actual rates you will see in practice (writing date is a littler slower than reading but typically not that much).

I had a quick look on google and it appears that the drives are pretty similar in performance, with probably a slight edge for the WD Black. See information in http://www.overclock.net/t/906840/caviar-black-vs-caviar-blue, but it's a bit inconsistent - some people report Black being faster, some report Blue being faster.
 
kruppsy

kruppsy

Master
Karnor00 said:
Actually you're comparing very different rates there. The 6GB rate is how fast data can be transferred from the cache to the PC - however the cache is very small and most of the time won't have the data you happen to need so this transfer rate is pretty much irrelevant. It should be pretty much the same for both drives.

The 126MB's rate is how fast the data gets written to the disk. This is much closer to the actual rates you will see in practice (writing date is a littler slower than reading but typically not that much).

I had a quick look on google and it appears that the drives are pretty similar in performance, with probably a slight edge for the WD Black. See information in http://www.overclock.net/t/906840/caviar-black-vs-caviar-blue, but it's a bit inconsistent - some people report Black being faster, some report Blue being faster.
Click to expand...

I think you're right with the data transfer comparisons, not a great deal in it. What will differ between the two drives is the fact that the Blue runs at 5400rpm and the Black at 7200rpm. This should mean the Black has superior load times, as I understand it anyway. :sweatdrop:
 
K

Karnor00

Bright Spark
kruppsy said:
I think you're right with the data transfer comparisons, not a great deal in it. What will differ between the two drives is the fact that the Blue runs at 5400rpm and the Black at 7200rpm. This should mean the Black has superior load times, as I understand it anyway. :sweatdrop:
Click to expand...

You're right that some Blue drives run at 5400rpm but some are 7200rpm. The WD7500AALX version runs at 7200rpm.
 
ReeceN

ReeceN

Silver Level Poster
Hi Karnor00, I was very tired when I wrote that ha ha.

I've just looked at the actual data sheets for Blue and Black and it does seem that actually between these two specific drives, both Transfer Rates (Buffer-Host and Host/Drive) as well as all other specs, apart from the slight lower power of the Black, are actually exactly the same.

However, reading the top "Product Features" in the data sheet of the Black, it adds that the Black has a Dual processor and dynamic cache, and am wondering if 1, it is indeed specific to the Black and 2, if it makes much real difference?

Blue Specification Sheet(WD7500AALX):
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-771436.pdf

Black Specification Sheet(WD5002AALX):
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-771434.pdf
 
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K

Karnor00

Bright Spark
I must confess I don't really know quite what effect that will have. It looks like the Black maybe has slightly better cache managment, but when the cache is 64MB out of a 500GB drive, it's never going to make a huge difference unless you are accessing the same small files over and over - and if that's happening then the files will probably be already stored in memory anyway.
 
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