Are WDBAAZ0010HNC-NRSN and WD1002FAEX-00Y9A0 the same drive?

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
1

I just purchased 3 WD Black 1TB WD1002FAEX-00Y9A0 drives from Best Buy. The specs show that they are SATA 6Gbps, 64MB cache drives. When I went to register the serial numbers on the WDC.com website, they show as WDBAAZ0010HNC-NRSN drives which are the WD Caviar Black drives with SATA 3Gbps and 32 MB cache specs.

The drives I purchased have a 5 year warranty. My main concern is that if one of these drives go bad, WDC will replace them with the WDBAAZ0010HNC-NRSN drives which have differnet specs as the ones I bought.

I contacted support making them aware of this, but the guy pretty much told me this:

“The serial number shows an old model number, but actually the Caviar Black and WD Black drives are the same drive, the name was changed to the latter. There are WD Black models with 3gbps 32 mb cache, but the model you own (WD1002FAEX-00Y9A0) has the specs you were looking for.”

What bothers me is that when I registered these drives online, they ALL show up as WDBAAZ0010HNC-NRSN drives which is not what I bought. I can’t be sure, but it appears to that if I have a problem with one of me drives, WDC will try to send me a replacement drive with the 3Gbps, 32MB cache specs (specs for a WDBAAZ0010HNC-NRSN drive which I don’t own)

I just wanted to post this to see if anyone else experienced something like this, or can shed some light on this.

Just another note, the new drives that I bought have the wrong serial/model sticker on the boxes label. They all show the correct serial numbers on the box label, but the model numbers on the label show WDBAAZ0010HNC-NRSN. They should show WD1002FAEX-00Y9A0 as the model number because that’s what the drives actually are.

2

From what I gather, I think that the WDBAAZ0010HNC-NRSN Caviar Black drive is not made by WD anymore. It has been replaced by the  WD1002FAEX (6Gbps,64MB cache) and the  WD1001FALS (3Gbps,32MB cache)

At the moment, Best Buy still has a listing for the  WDBAAZ0010HNC-NRSN Caviar Black drive. I’m assuming that if you order this drive from Best Buy, you will get the  WD1001FALS drive. However, I just purchased the WD Black (6Gbps,64MB cache) drive from Best Buy and the model # on the BOX showed WDBAAZ0010HNC-NRSN, but when I opened it, I had the  WD1002FAEX which is what I wanted.

3

“WDBAAZ0010HNC-NRSN” appears to be the model number of the retail kit, not the actual drive:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?strip=1&q=cache:http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/rss/ENG/4879-705115.doc

I suspect that this allows WD to package any model that has equal or better specifications. Seagate appears to take the same approach.

4

As far as my research goes WDBAAZ0010HNC-NRSN is desktop hard drive kit, with screws and etc. WD1002FAEX-00Y9A0 is exact model number by Western Digital. You can get a different drive inside of WDBAAZ0010HNC-NRSN. You can easily seach in google WD1002FAEX-00Y9A0 and find exact drives. Good luck!

5

Here I found this drive on internet http://www.harddrivesforsale.com you can get exact drive you want from them, they describe their drive by the serial number. good luck!