WD1003FZEX CAVIAR BLACK poor access time explained!

Toinebdr wrote:

Hello World,

 

My new WD1003FZEX has very poor access time (between 16 and 17 ms), despite a good transfer rate (170max, 95 min). This is a “green-like” performance, not really corresponding to a black model.

 

The other models of the serie (WD2003FZEX,WD3003FZEX,WD4003FZEX) are around 11-12ms.

 

The result of theses poor access time is slow windows loading/reactivity.

 

Has another person noticed same issue on this model?

 

Others users found the same bad performances. May be a firmware issue ?

 

http://www.overclock.net/t/1446170/how-good-is-this-drive

 

 

Best regard.

 

Antoine.

 

For that build of drive, the average seek time is between 16 and 17ms.  However, it is incorrect to say that that is an indication of bad performance. 

Toinebdr wrote:

Hello,

 

I found the reason why this hard drive is slow.

 

This HDD, sold as a CAVIAR BLACK, has the “CAVIAR BLUE” specifications (Weight, aspect) instead of CAVIAR BLACK

 

 

 

The case of a REAL CAVIAR BLACK:

 

The WD Black drive is not a relabeled WD Blue. The drive can have similar manufacturing, which is why they look alike. The drives are also both 1TB/platter, Single platter with two heads so the weight will be pretty close to the same. However, the WD Black has additional features for performance and a 5-year warranty.

I don’t have complete confidence in WD’s spec sheets. ISTM that at least some of the information is just cut-and-pasted from other spec sheets without regard to its accuracy.

For example, I once found a WD spec sheet that had a “photo” of the label of a particular model, yet it was obvious that this was not a real photo. Instead it appeared to be image that had been PhotoShopped. What gave it away was that the model number had been misspelt.

One other problem is that WD’s model numbering takes no account of the suffix, at least not in the datasheets. The suffix indicates the drive’s “family”, among other things. In fact two drives with the same base model number may belong to different families, and these families may differ in the numbers of platters and heads.

Another variable is the firmware. It could very well be that WD has chosen to fix the seek performance at a conservative level and then disabled AAM in the 1TB firmware. If someone has 1TB and 2TB+ versions of this drive, then there is a way to compare their firmware modules using SeDiv for WD. In particular I would be looking for differences in MOD 02.

http://sediv2008.narod.ru/Easy3.9Password01234567890.rar

We are complaining about the performance. Do we need to have doctorate degree in hard drive technologies before purchasing from WD?

That aside, change the marketing tactics for your black 1TB drives so consumers don’t feel cheated. Or put a big disclaimer explaining about the lack of performance with your 1TB drives.

Signed up just for this thread too.

I bought one although the company I bought it from couldn’t reassure me either way which drive I was ordering. I took the risk and unfortunately got the ‘blue’ one.

Even with the knowledge of this info it’s tricky to buy this drive online as sellers either don’t have physical access to their stock (like amazon ones) or  just simply wouldn’t/can’t check the product.

The next best thing I found is to enquire about or look for the actual shipping weight (and NOT the weight in the product description).

To help future buyers I suggest we share our experience here of which sellers sell which versions.

Well, the WD1003FZEX might be slower than its predecessor WD1002FAEX but on the other hand it is more reliable with just one platter, it stays a bit cooler and is a bit more quiet.

I think WD was only reacting to customers complains about the predecessor. So WD can do it one way or the other, people will always complain about something. If they make it faster, people complain about noise and heat. If they make it slower, people complain because of that.

You can´t be everybodys darling :wink:

After doing some more research I have found there is no other heavier 1TB black model on sale. All the new 1tb black WD1003FZEX models, are the slow access time rebadged blues with firmware changes.

The person that posted earlier and said you get a 5 year warranty, whoopee. I didn’t buy this drive for the warranty length, I bought it for the PERFORMANCE, what WD advertises and markets the drive as, a PERFORMANCE drive.

I also have the direct previous model of the 1TB black, WD1002FAEX, which is now selling on Amazon for $18 more than the ‘new’ WD1003FZEX., because the newer one is slower and builders wanting the fastest 1TB black buy the WD1002FAEX.

Slow Access time kills hard drive performance, it has bigger impact on everyday performance compared to sustained transfer rate (all drives over the last 3 years have a sustained transfer rate above 100mb).

Access time comparison (HD tune pro)

1TB WD1002FAEX   (previous generation 1tb black model)        12.3ms

WD2003FZEX (current generation 2tb black)                                  12.4ms

WD3003FZEX (current generation 3tb black)                                  12.6ms

WD4003FZEX (current generation 4tb black)                                   12.3ms

WD1003FZEX (current generation 1tb black)                                  16.3ms

The new WD1003FZEX has a 33% slower access time than all other current and the direct previous black drives. Again access time is much more important for real world performance and this drive as an OS boot drive is as slow as a green drive. Try it and notice the small stutters like a green drive with win8.1. This is with a clean installed system.

Everytime this drive accesses data you have to wait 33% longer than the other black drives before it actually gets to the data.

WD have been deceptive with new model, the 2TB, 3TB and 4TB are fine but the 1tb model has been advertised on   misleading advice. It is not a performance drive.

And you cant change the APM value?

RE: WD1003FZEX blue rebadge

I bought several of these on the reputation that the WD black line has for performance. I should say at this point that WD has been the only brand of drive that goes into any pc build or repair I undertake for the last 7 years, so to get this kind of shady practice is known as ‘bait and switch’ at this point is shocking.

It may seem harsh, but this is a classic rip off. I am afraid my perception of WD has been substantially reduced.

Any reps care to offer me a fair solution before I remove this company from my A list?

You see, I bought these 3 weeks back when I was last in the city so I would have them on hand when I got the time to utilize them, so now it is too late to return them to the retailer.

I feel really hosed and like I have been tricked.

It depends a bit on whether reliability is better with the new design.

The older drives got hot and were quite noisy. That was a common complaint.

I guess WD found a way to improve those aspects and perhaps save money too with the “green”" drive.

It should really have had a different model number and specs.

From my point of view reliability is ahead of performance.

But to not inform ppl of the change was wrong. Ppl were buying for performance.

I would like to know if relaibility is better and by how much?

Also how does the power consumption/heat output compare?

dude take a look at the board I just posted a similar post, not nearly as detailed, but basically I bought the Black drive for its pro performance and now its too slow, and doesnt even keep up with a regular seagate purchased 5-6-7 years ago. I was looking for an update or a way to speed it up, an update or something. I am using it for pro audio recording in real time, never had an issue now getting a message that says cannot get information or files fast enough from the D drive all the audio is. Never received that before, so now I know its the drive not the cpu, Ive deleted so much stuff trying to figure out what was slowing the thing down, now I read your post and obviously its the search and playback time is just too slow with the caviar Black. and what really **bleep** is I have a few projects to record and cant afford To buy another drive right away! I have always had so much good luck with WD, now I have 0 confidence with them, I guess its seagate now. the seagate I mentioned earlier was pulled from another machine of mine wiped clean reformatted and inserted as a D drive. Never had 1 issue with it!!! so what now??? please help! either comment on my post or just send me an e-mail please!!! Thank you in advance! Brian         [Deleted]

how do you test the speed of the drive??? I see your using HD tune, is that free, or a product from WD??? I flippin broke, I need speed from my HD!!! please respond!!! Brian

HD Tune can be downloaded for a 15 day trial free.

I reckon you need to look at the overall times to read and write files - not one parameter.

File size might be important.

Maybe, I not sure of course, WD decided they could meet their advertised transfer rates with different (newer?) or cheaper hardware.

One platter instead of two. Less power, cooler.

The bigger cache and faster spin compared with the blue.

And the dual core processor on board.

The only way is to bench test the equivalent blue, old black, and new black drives.

I’ll admit my much older WD measures a faster access time (12.70) compared to the new “black” (16.5).

A quick test still shows the new black transfers faster.

What the file read and write times are for various file sizes I don’t know.

It´s true. They sell Blue drives as these “Black” WD1003FZEX. I bought it put a data on it - in my country there will be problems due this to return it back (shame) and test it with HD Tune. The Blue drives are even a bit faster then this “Black” drive. What was really silly is the fact, that I concact WD support via email and they agreed with my suspicions and said, that these Black drives are exact as Blue WD10EZEX but they put +3 years warranty for the blacks. Stupid and silly thing to do for customers, for them - more money for the same Blue **bleep**. They even said that in specifications is weight of these Black drives 0,49 kg not 0,69 kg (that is for 3TB hdds) but what I know is, that every seller listed this 1TB Black drive with 0,69 kg weight.

WD started to do as the rest of the companies in the world - make big profits at the expense of quality and in the final state to the detriment of customers experiences.

Nowadays it´s really hard to buy something really good quality made and with specifications that are not misleading.

Wake up big companies and stop screwing us - the customers.

1 Like

mike321sk wrote:

It´s true. They sell Blue drives as these “Black” WD1003FZEX. I bought it put a data on it - in my country there will be problems due this to return it back (shame) and test it with HD Tune. The Blue drives are even a bit faster then this “Black” drive. What was really silly is the fact, that I concact WD support via email and they agreed with my suspicions and said, that these Black drives are exact as Blue WD10EZEX but they put +3 years warranty for the blacks. Stupid and silly thing to do for customers, for them - more money for the same Blue **bleep**. They even said that in specifications is weight of these Black drives 0,49 kg not 0,69 kg (that is for 3TB hdds) but what I know is, that every seller listed this 1TB Black drive with 0,69 kg weight.

WD started to do as the rest of the companies in the world - make big profits at the expense of quality and in the final state to the detriment of customers experiences.

Nowadays it´s really hard to buy something really good quality made and with specifications that are not misleading.

Wake up big companies and stop screwing us - the customers.

First of all, we are not publishing specifications that are misleading.  Moreover, the Blue and Black drives are not the same.  I checked into your email to support, nowhere did we say that they’re the same.  What he did say was that the parameters were similar.  You need to check the parameters for your drive.  If the specs on your drive fall within the parameters stated on the spec sheet, then your drive is fine.  If not, then you need to contact support for further help with what may be going on with your drive.

For a further explanation for why the Blue may be outperforming the Black drive, please refer to the link below.

http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/1741-wd-blue-vs-black-comparison-best-drive-for-gaming

Bill,

Where are the access time specifications for the WD1003fzex?  Green?  Blue?

The link you provided compared the green and blue to the WD2003fzez which is not the drive we’re discussing here.

The link I provided was for the discussion at hand.  We haven’t published drive seek times for a long time, so I wouldn’t know.

Bill_S

I realize you think your customers are forgetful with an attention span is equal to a slug. You are wrong.

I also realize there is nothing you can say to justify this obvious rebadge and betrayal of the “Black” reputation, other that offer an exchange, which it doesn’t sound like your bosses are interested in.

The only thing I want you to remember is this:

Fool me once

Shame on you

Fool me twice

Shame on me.

1 Like

Right. Throw a 10 year customer out the window because you pull a bait and switch.

Hitachi and Toshiba from now on.

So what’s the final word on this? Do all WD1003FZEX CAVIAR BLACK (BLUE) produced by WD have an 16/17ms access time and are infact Blue rebrands?