Hello to the high valued WD-community!
Because my Samsungs got bad blocks, I need to buy a new 4TB HDD (SATA6Gb/s, 3.5", 5400rpm, low power & quiet), which led me to the blue “WD40EZRZ”. I also checked Toshiba (P300 - “HDWD240UZSVA”) and will check Seagate (most confusing product lines & website) soon, to have all options complete and side by side.
Since I already have some WD stuff (Notebook HDD, 3 different backup-MyBooks up to a 6GB RAID) I got in contact with the “green” series there with the quick and annoying shutoff when you don´t permanently access these external HDDs. I don´t backup very often, and last backups were made (unfortunately) some time ago, so I remember me giving up to try to stop these drives from falling asleep every minute. Since they are only short-used backup drives I can live with that.
BUT NOW I need a drive for my DESKTOP and I´ve heard (read) some things about that “blue”-desktop-series:
- Is there (still) a problem with the LCC load_cycle_count (head parkings)?
- Is there (still) this quickly falling asleep behaviour (start_stop_count, power_cycle_count)?
- Is it true that these vital lifetime and productivity parameters (still) can´t be set by the consumer?
The blue 1 TB drive WD10SPZX (2,5") bought 11/2017 works absolutely fine with no issues! But how about the 4TB blue´s 3,5" (“WD40EZRZ”) NOW?
I want to say in advance, that if I don´t get here a satisfying and convincing answer, I won´t risk anything and buy Toshiba or Seagate, even when their specs should be less good! (And I won´t buy any other WD series, so take it as “cheapest blue or nothing at all”, cause i want to take WD by their words “blue=Desktop”).
But I hope someone (or WD) can help in this issue. Maybe some guru also knows the best drive to chose from in this case from the 3 remaining companies.
Thank you tech guys for your expertise knowledge in advance, because I know how hard it is to get useful, reliable and reasonable tech information in these days!
(sorry for my strange english - not native)
Hi people, meanwhile I checked all my options, including 7200rpm, all the pretty WD colours, less space and or more disks, NAS, bigger SSD, using my 4 old little defective Samsung Spinpoint F1´s in a RAID, buy nothing and wait, buy more expensive, buy least expensive, use only SD-Cards via USB3.1v2,… (Maybe someone can suggest another option I overlooked by now.)
The dilemma is, that today, because of globalism/monopoles, you can´t buy reliable, serious quality anymore, even if you spend more money.
The Seagate Barracuda (ST4000DM004) with lowest Watts uses SMR (leading to real bad write speed and extreme write overhead and wear) by providing only 55 TB/year. This is a knock-out.
The Toshiba P300 (HDWD240UZSVA) is most quiet but they don´t provide information on warranty, and I can´t find any benchmarks for this drive. 600.000 LCCs could be an advantage, but if head parking is aggressive and not adjustable there, even 2.000.000 won´t be enough. If head parking is avoided, 50.000 would be far enough. So this parameter is worth nothing.
At least the WD Blue (WD40EZRZ) which would have made the deal instantly, but I stumbled upon that LCC-thing that made me uncertain. Maybe I get a drive that behaves ok. If not, the drive will we damaged in less than 5 years. (My cooled Samsung Spinpoints lasted around 5-10 years.)
Conclusion by now: My common sense tells me to by nothing in that situation and boycott such products. But in this special case, I am forced to buy something. That´s great luck for the monopolists, but at least I tried my best not to encourage such a product policy.
So at the moment I think I will buy the cheapest one: Toshiba (around €5,- cheaper than WD). When the new drive will be dead, then I might have the option to by none for some time, that´s my big hope.
ANY INPUT IS STILL APPRECIATED! I will make the purchase probably within the next week. (So WD can´t say they had no fair chance to keep good customers.)
Thanks in advance again. Hope I helped others in decision making!
Just ordered the Toshiba P300 due to no input here. Benchmark scores of WDs drive are known, but Toshiba will be a surprise. I will post my experience, when I received and tested it (will take up to 2 weeks, cause I build up a complete new/old system).
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Now I´ve set up a new computer system and did some first tests with the TOSHIBA P300 4TB. I checked the recording technology (CMR, SMR, etc.), did some benchmarks, checked the noise, and certainly measured the LCC timings. Now I´m able to make a final conclusion and answer my topic-question by myself. Might not be the sense of a forum, but that´s the way. Since I know that I am not the only consumer worldwide, who buys a 4 TB drive, it´s good to know not being alone with that issue. This time the monopolists have won. Future will show how long they can survive with given customer treatment. It´s an exciting time nowadays for everyone!
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