Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB SATA III 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Internal Desktop Hard Drive Bulk/OEM - WD1002FAEX for $99.99 AC w/FS

Tough choice between this and the 2TB 'green' drive at the same price...

Quote from D_X : Tough choice between this and the 2TB 'green' drive at the same price...

I use a green drive for my file server as the storage (not the OS) and it works well for that, but the 5400RPM would be undesirable for running an OS & programs. The black drives are about as fast as you get with traditional, non-server grade drives.

I wonder if these would work better than the green's in a RAID 5. I have read that WD has crippled the firmware (on these blacks) so that they won't do as well as they could when RAID'ed

Quote from D_X : Tough choice between this and the 2TB 'green' drive at the same price...

I don't feel like a 1tb drive is good for a boot drive.... maybe an SSD + a few 2TB is good.

For performance, I have to go with black. I'll keep my green 2TB drive for backups.

That 5-year warranty is sexy.

I already have a 120gb ssd for my boot drive. I could use this drive for my games and programs....

Quote from zeth006 : That 5-year warranty is sexy.

Except that it doesn't actually mean the drive is any more reliable, just that the manufacturer is willing to offer replacements on it for a greater length of time, and they have that figured into the drive's cost. The data on a drive is generally far more valuable than the drive itself, and that certainly isn't under warranty. If the drive fails in 4 or 5 years, are you really going to send it in for replacement with what will then be an outdated drive? Of course, you'll also have to trust the manufacturer and mail system with your data when sending it back, since you won't be able to delete or recover it from the drive without voiding the warranty. The manufacturers know most people won't send a several year old drive in for replacement, so the longer warranty period is really little more than a way to make a 'premium' drive look better.

Quote from Cryo : Except that it doesn't actually mean the drive is any more reliable, just that the manufacturer is willing to offer replacements on it for a greater length of time, and they have that figured into the drive's cost. The data on a drive is generally far more valuable than the drive itself, and that certainly isn't under warranty. If the drive fails in 4 or 5 years, are you really going to send it in for replacement with what will then be an outdated drive? Of course, you'll also have to trust the manufacturer and mail system with your data when sending it back, since you won't be able to delete or recover it from the drive without voiding the warranty. The manufacturers know most people won't send a several year old drive in for replacement, so the longer warranty period is really little more than a way to make a 'premium' drive look better.

Well, sure is a good thing that Western Digital will send a replacement drive to you in advance so that you can recover all your data now, isn't it? You get all of your data back and you can wipe the drive clean before sending it back to WD. And hey, if 4 years and 11 months have passed and you need to send it in, maybe they don't have your older drive anymore, so I guess that means you're getting an upgrade.

But I don't know, it's not like I've used WD drives for the past fifteen years and have gone through several RMA's with them with one being very recent. You clearly know what you're talking about.

Quote from Cryo : Except that it doesn't actually mean the drive is any more reliable, just that the manufacturer is willing to offer replacements on it for a greater length of time, and they have that figured into the drive's cost. The data on a drive is generally far more valuable than the drive itself, and that certainly isn't under warranty. If the drive fails in 4 or 5 years, are you really going to send it in for replacement with what will then be an outdated drive? Of course, you'll also have to trust the manufacturer and mail system with your data when sending it back, since you won't be able to delete or recover it from the drive without voiding the warranty. The manufacturers know most people won't send a several year old drive in for replacement, so the longer warranty period is really little more than a way to make a 'premium' drive look better.

Except I didn't make any assumptions about WD's quality. But hey, if you like hearing the sound of your own voice, I won't stop ya.

Great drives but I have a hard time believing that I paid ~$30 more ($129.99) almost 4 years ago for the slightly older version of this drive (w/32MB cache, etc).

I got a Hitachi Deskstar internal 2TB 7200rpm / 64 mb cache Sata 3 drive @ Frys last weekend for $99