Recently purchased two WD Cavier black 1TB. drives from different online merchants. One has the model # WD1002FAEX-007BA0 , Malaysia Feb. 9, 2012. The second is WD1002FAEX-00Y9A0, Thailand May 14 2012. The top plates and amp ratings are different and so they are not clones. From a performance standpoint are there differences between these two drives?
nope
Hi, they have the same exact specs, check the link below so you can see.
http://support.wdc.com/product/install.asp?groupid=613&lang=en
One difference I have found is that “Caviar Black drives that have a model number of WD1002FAEX-00Y9A0 use the SATA 3.0 Gb/s pin layout - setting Jumpers 5 & 6 on these model drives will enable OPT1 which will set your drive to 1.5 Gb/s”. For other versions, the same jumper sets a speed of 3Gbps (“PHY enabled”).
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/search/1/a_id/5387#jumper
Otherwise I would suggest a HD Tune read benchmark for a definitive performance comparison.
