Very happy with WD15EARS!

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
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I currently have 7 WD1001FALS and recently added two WD15EARS and I’m very impressed with the “large” files copying speed of the WD15EARS.

I usually get about 55-78 mb/s on the average for copying 500-600 GB folder/file between WD1001FALS and with these two new WD1500EARS, I’m getting constant 80 mb/s copying from WD1001FALS to WD15EARS for a 500-600 GB folder/file and moreover the WD15EARS is so damm silent as compared to the WD1001FALS! In the past, no matter how silent WD claimed their drives were, Seagate was always quieter and always one step ahead, but now with the WD15EARS, WD is out silencing Seagate for the first time in history (at least to me)!

I’m really impressed with the WD15EARS 5400 rpm (vs the WD1001FALS 7200 rpm) and getting  a constant 80 mb/s for large file transfer speed is really something, moreover this drive so damm silent! As for the temperature, for WD1001FALS I always see them hoovering between 30-33C and with these WD15EARS, they hoover between 29-30C.

I’'m running Windows 7 X64 and I’ve had these two WD15EARS for the past two weeks and am using them only for storing 720p/1080p large video files. To me, for OS/multi tasksing/multi I/O, the proven WD1001FALS is the King and that is undeniable, however for the simple task of storage/storing video files, WD15EARS is really very impressive.

p/s It would be very interesting to know how WD managed to make the 5400 rpm WD15EARS achiving a faster/constant tranfer speed vs the 7200 rpm WD1001FALS, 64mb cache?

WD1001FALS 1.0TB 3-platter  1X 00K1B0 - 5X 00J7B1 - 1X 00U9B0 all Made in Malaysia

WD15EARS 1.5TB 3-platter 2X 00Z5B1 both Made in Malaysia

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I’m glad the drives are working out for you.  The greater transfer rate comes from algorithms developed for use in the drive’s firmware.

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Considering to buy one WD20EARS for use as system/bootup drive with Win7 64 ultimate installed on the WDxxEARS.

I could see you are only using the WDxxEARS for data.

Did you have to do anything about the new 4k sector thing or did you just connect and formattet standard NTFS in diskmanager ?

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DualportSRAM wrote:

Considering to buy one WD20EARS for use as system/bootup drive with Win7 64 ultimate installed on the WDxxEARS.

I could see you are only using the WDxxEARS for data.

Did you have to do anything about the new 4k sector thing or did you just connect and formattet standard NTFS in diskmanager ?

    • *You wouldn’t want to use any “Green” or “Low Power” drives for main OS, trust me! There is no special steps needed for Windows 7! Once you installed the drive and the moment you click on Disk Management, Windows will tell you the drive need to be initiated and you you will then be offered 1)MBR and 2)can’t remember that one, but it’s for drive larger than 2.0TB…so I selected 1)MBR and then you will right click on the unallocated drive and select simple volume and Windows 7 will do the rest for you, simple!
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Thx for your prompt reply  :)))

Just like to have confirmed that theXXXXEARS could be used as a data drive i Win7 with success w/o doing any special to ensure performance/function.

Was tempted to use it, cause RAID editions at the same size is 50% more expensive here in europe and performance didnt look that bad compared to the WD2002FYPS i bought just when they were released cause of the lower power consumption/heat dissipation.

Think that performance of the WD2002FYPS is not that bad given it is a GP drive (usen as a Boot/Systemdrive) for WIN7 64 but I must admit that i have not tried its WD Caviar Black “brother”, WD2001FASS, but suspect the performance gap between the 2 drives is not that big.

Did a little research yesterday :

Looks like following shuld be done before the 4k sector drives will be really nice for the end user  :

Point 2 choice in disk management is GPT that at this time is ok for a data drive < than 2TB, if > 2TB the BIOS  must support the bigger than 2TB size. (thats many times not the case with the much used ICH9/10, mainboard manufactores must implement > than 2TB Matrix BIOS from Intel.

And, as far as I can see it will however also require BIOS to be able to Boot GPT partitions drive +  BIOS/drive must be able to use 4kb sectors at boot time (instead of the present 512 bytes standard) before it would be interesting to use it from a performance/capacity point.

 (at present it looks like the 4k sector drives do some kind of internal translation i.e. the drive present itself as an standard 512 sector drive (to the diskcontroller BIOS)( Can you confirm That Pls. ?) and that will in my opinion eat some performance compared to  if the drive presented itself as a 4k drive and then not had to do any internal translation between 512 to 4k sector size)

If the drive presents it self as a 4k secor drive to the controller it will also push any max cylinder limitation up by a factor 8 but dont know if that is an issue yet, but ist just a matter of time before it will be, cause drives continiue to get bigger.

And last but not least all my Disktools (cloning,partitioning,backup) have to be able to use the 4kb format.

So i think go for a RE3 or RE4 as usually or 4 pcs. Hitachi deskstar (7K1000.C) in RAID 0+1 with a hot spare,  better be safe than sorry.  (5 hitachis wil only be 500 dkk (around 80$) more expensive than the 2TB RE including the hotspare but use 4,4W/pcs.)