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.