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WD Red vs WD Green vs Seagate 3TB Hard Drive Speeds - Page 2

post #31 of 421
3/1/13 at 9:12am
Here is a cool expansion:

1TB = 100GB = 1048576MB

1048576 MB divided by an average Seagate speed of 155 MB/sec speed is 6765 second (112 minutes)

1048576 MB divided by an average WD GREEN speed of 95 MB/sec is 11037 second (184 minutes)

So it's well over an hour shorter time in the actual time difference for a 1TB task to complete.

That means your server is done with a 3TB parity calulation 3.5 hours sooner with a Seagate eek.gif I'm imagining the drives spinning down and remaining idle for 3.5 more hours would actually make the Seagates more energy effificent real world. Not sure, just a guess. Would be an interesting subject to explore if the higher peformance of the 7200rpm drives actually leads to an additional costs savings when your factor in the time value.

I guess that can be discussion for another day. smile.gif
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post #32 of 421
3/1/13 at 9:19am
my post #27 referring to post #25.
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post #33 of 421
3/2/13 at 9:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

Here is a cool expansion:

1TB = 100GB = 1048576MB

1048576 MB divided by an average Seagate speed of 155 MB/sec speed is 6765 second (112 minutes)

1048576 MB divided by an average WD GREEN speed of 95 MB/sec is 11037 second (184 minutes)

So it's well over an hour shorter time in the actual time difference for a 1TB task to complete.

That means your server is done with a 3TB parity calulation 3.5 hours sooner with a Seagate eek.gif I'm imagining the drives spinning down and remaining idle for 3.5 more hours would actually make the Seagates more energy effificent real world. Not sure, just a guess. Would be an interesting subject to explore if the higher peformance of the 7200rpm drives actually leads to an additional costs savings when your factor in the time value.

I guess that can be discussion for another day. smile.gif

http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Basic-Mathematics-Science/dp/0071550151 wink.gif
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post #34 of 421
3/2/13 at 11:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by vladd View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

Here is a cool expansion:

1TB = 100GB = 1048576MB

1048576 MB divided by an average Seagate speed of 155 MB/sec speed is 6765 second (112 minutes)

1048576 MB divided by an average WD GREEN speed of 95 MB/sec is 11037 second (184 minutes)

So it's well over an hour shorter time in the actual time difference for a 1TB task to complete.

That means your server is done with a 3TB parity calulation 3.5 hours sooner with a Seagate eek.gif I'm imagining the drives spinning down and remaining idle for 3.5 more hours would actually make the Seagates more energy effificent real world. Not sure, just a guess. Would be an interesting subject to explore if the higher peformance of the 7200rpm drives actually leads to an additional costs savings when your factor in the time value.

I guess that can be discussion for another day. smile.gif

http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Basic-Mathematics-Science/dp/0071550151 wink.gif

I know:) The middle part was wrong. It's 1024GB tongue.gif The math is correct; my original intention was just to simplify with 1000GB as most think 1TB =1000GB, even my HDD's are labeled that.
But.... the 1024 thing.. I know wink.gif

I missed a 0 which was a typo, making it more wrong. I meant 1000GB and in reality it's 1024GB. But the math is right biggrin.gif

At least I thought it was- haha. Is it ?
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post #35 of 421
3/2/13 at 6:43pm
I was razzing you about the 1TB = 100GB but your calculations are correct on the surface if you use 1024GB. The breakdown occurs when you start talking about parity.Parity calculations and rebuilding will not be done as a single 1TB sequential (or even random) write. You should be looking at calculations for 4K read/writes, IOPS and random access times.
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post #36 of 421
3/3/13 at 6:54am
Ok that's just to complicated for me to comprehend.

Or,

A better way to say it might be: The effort to bother figuring it out exceeds my desire to know or how much I care.
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post #37 of 421
3/4/13 at 10:31am
So how much energy is saved by a Seagate completing parity process two hours sooner ? Guesses ?
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post #38 of 421
3/4/13 at 10:50am
No guessing needed. Assuming the 2 hour quicker time is correct: 6.0W operating - 0.8W idle x 2 hrs / 1000 = .0104 KWh savings. Even at $0.34/KWh you are saving 4 cents.

Interesting read on the 2TB Seagates: http://technewspedia.com/the-confusing-2tb-seagate-barracuda-7200-14-st2000dm001/
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post #39 of 421
3/4/13 at 11:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by vladd View Post

No guessing needed. Assuming the 2 hour quicker time is correct: 6.0W operating - 0.8W idle x 2 hrs / 1000 = .0104 KWh savings. Even at $0.34/KWh you are saving 4 cents.

Interesting read on the 2TB Seagates: http://technewspedia.com/the-confusing-2tb-seagate-barracuda-7200-14-st2000dm001/

Wondering if there are two models of their 3TB drives too.
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post #40 of 421
3/4/13 at 12:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by amarshonarbangla View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by vladd View Post

No guessing needed. Assuming the 2 hour quicker time is correct: 6.0W operating - 0.8W idle x 2 hrs / 1000 = .0104 KWh savings. Even at $0.34/KWh you are saving 4 cents.

Interesting read on the 2TB Seagates: http://technewspedia.com/the-confusing-2tb-seagate-barracuda-7200-14-st2000dm001/

Wondering if there are two models of their 3TB drives too.

There are; but they have a different model numbers. The issue is Seagate switched internal parts without changing the model, basically improving the older 666GB platter model by using newer/better 1TB platters. The side effect could be as the article explained, someone looking for specifically a 1TB platter design might get stuck with the older 666GB design since no clear differentiation exists.

I've never bought a 2TB as I generally view them as a waste of a HDD bay wink.gif 3TB is a much better value, not just in performance, but in cost per TB, and energy consumption too. 2TB is noob IMO. $99 for 2TB or $120 for 3TB is a no brainer IMO.

The 3TB's come in two versions. Usually the older version is in older model external drives. New external models like GO FLEX @ Costco have the new version in them. NewEgg clearly lists both models on the web page. I only buy the 1TB platters. If you buy the right model number of the 3TB Seagate's your sure to get the better model. The older models are still around but not in production.
Edited by Mfusick - 3/4/13 at 12:45pm
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post #41 of 421
3/4/13 at 12:56pm
Since I bought most of my hdds off craigslist, I ended up with a ST33000651AS and my other 3 are ST3000DM001. Since I was ridiculously anal about which data went where when I started my media storage server, I know that all of my SD movies are on the ST33000651AS. All of my blu ray rips and tv shows are either on the HGST 7k4000 drives or the ST3000DM001 drives. My parity drive is the 7k4000. None of them are noticeably different at copy, move, or read speeds.

I don't know much about synthetic benchmarks, but FWIW http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=848&Itemid=60&limit=1&limitstart=5
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post #42 of 421
3/4/13 at 1:07pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark_Slayer View Post

None of them are noticeably different at copy, move, or read speeds.

I don't know much about synthetic benchmarks, but FWIW http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=848&Itemid=60&limit=1&limitstart=5

Benchmarks are a poor way to determine these differences, imo.
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post #43 of 421
3/4/13 at 1:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by aliaskary77 View Post

and to be clear, its more about the topic of seagate vs green, from both sides that is getting tiring.

I didn't even realize I had participated in this discussion before since it's in 3+ threads biggrin.gif

It is exhausting for someone who really only wants to know pertinent facts

Surprisingly, I think the facts are
  • Assassin doesn't care what HDD you buy
  • Mfusick doesn't care which HDD you buy

In the interest of science (seems to be the intent of this thread) I'd side with Assassin on the real world difference you're likely to see for any of these drives. I can't imagine seeing any difference for my usage, but I'm no longer comparing anything to green drives (added the last one I had to a relatives OpenELEC build)
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post #44 of 421
3/4/13 at 1:11pm
Thread Starter 
I like Seagate hard drives. Just bought two 3TB for a friend and own a few myself.
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post #45 of 421
3/4/13 at 1:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by assassin View Post

Benchmarks are a poor way to determine these differences, imo.

I've never given them any thought, it was just interesting that the 5 platter and 3 platter seagate drives benched almost the same numbers in every one

It seems logical that 3 is better than 5 for energy and wear due to decreased head travel, but I don't have any science to back it up



Also, if anyone is interested in truly learning about magnetic hard drives, then these are the best resources I've ever found

http://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_from_inside.html
http://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_Tracks_and_Zones.html
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post #46 of 421
3/4/13 at 4:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark_Slayer View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by assassin View Post

Benchmarks are a poor way to determine these differences, imo.

I've never given them any thought, it was just interesting that the 5 platter and 3 platter seagate drives benched almost the same numbers in every one

It seems logical that 3 is better than 5 for energy and wear due to decreased head travel, but I don't have any science to back it up



Also, if anyone is interested in truly learning about magnetic hard drives, then these are the best resources I've ever found

http://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_from_inside.html
http://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_Tracks_and_Zones.html

Good links. Interesting read. I knew some of that stuff but those links just broke it down and got technical into the nitty gritty.

I'd sum it up with : New empty drives are faster than old full drives because of how the data is written and read. lol. We all knew this already.

I am quite surprised that your review shows much less difference between the 3 platter and 5 platter; I've seen other reviews that had a wider performance gap. The big gap is really in energy too, as the 3 platter hold advantage too.
Faster, quiet and less energy is a good thing biggrin.gif

As far as benchmarks go- I'm much more interested in how fast a drive will read or write or copy/paste in real life. It's real wold performance is more important. I copy and paste all the time, so I appreaciate it. If a HDD rocks @ 150MB/sec I like it. If it's a slow dog at half that, I do not. I'll tolerate 75MB/sec reads and writes from some of my green drives, and they are perfectly acceptable- but given what I know now I'd choose differently if I was buying today. I do a significant amount copy paste weekly so I tend to keep an eye on the real world performance. It's right in front of my face.

I know what you guys say about benchmarks vs real life - But I honestly think your dead wrong on this one about HDD. The average seq read or write speed directly relates to real life. It's how long you'll wait for it to finish, or how long it will take.
If you don't care about that at all- then just buy any HDD and don't worry if it's slow. There is no right or wrong answer.
Edited by Mfusick - 3/4/13 at 4:15pm
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post #47 of 421
3/4/13 at 4:39pm
http://koitsu.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/wd30ezrx-and-aggressive-head-parking/

Interesting read: ^

I thought the 3TB WD30EZRX fixed some of the Caviar Green issues but that blog is claiming no.

I always knew the EARS and EARX 2TB had some issues. They constantly and incessantly clicked too, which gets annoying. I never experienced it as bad on my 3TB's (I have 3) and I am even using one as a parity drive right now.


This was the original post I read that got me looking into the subject:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Regeneration;104756 
CaviarGreen.jpg

It has come to our attention that Western Digital's Caviar Green HDDs suffer from a critical design flaw caused by an aggressive power-saving feature. Western Digital has developed a new technology called Intellipark (aka Idle 3 mode) and it is designed to reduce power consumption, in part by positioning the HDD's heads in a park position and turning off unnecessary electronics after 8 seconds of inactivity.

According to an in-house investigation and [ub]user reports'[/ub], some software and operating systems are incompatible with the Intellipark feature causing endless head parking movement as the HDD continuously goes in/out of idle mode. This abnormal behavior creates stress on the HDD and that could lead to the following issues:

• Loud clunking/clicking/buzzing noises every few seconds.
• Artificially increases the number of load-unload cycles in S.M.A.R.T.
• Possibly shortens life-time of the HDD.
• Possibly reduces performance of the HDD.

Western Digital posted a [ub]knowledge base article[/ub], where it claims that "The number of systems using such applications and utilities is limited", a statement which we believe is false and inaccurate. Sending an HDD to idle mode only after 8 seconds of activity is abnormal behavior, which much software doesn't like as they are constantly writing and reading data to/from the HDD.

According to Western Digital, the following models are affected: WD20EADS, WD20EARS, WD15EADS, WD15EARS, WD10EADS, WD10EARS, WD8000AARS, WD7500AADS, WD7500AARS, WD6400AADS, WD6400AARS, WD5000AADS, WD5000AARS, WD1000FYPS, WD7500AYPS and WD7501AYPS.

Western Digital has released a DOS-based utility to modify the behavior of the HDD to wait longer before invoking idle mode. However, since most of their latest HDDs still ship with the default setting of 8 seconds, we strongly recommend users with affected HDDs to use the utility and monitor S.M.A.R.T data immediately (we recommend using [ub]CrystalDiskInfo[/ub] for this task).

How to Adjust Intellipark's Timer
1. Download the [ub]WDIDLE3 ISO image[/ub] and burn it to a CD/DVD.
2. Ensure that your SATA controller is set to IDE mode from the BIOS.
3. Boot from the CD/DVD, it should take you into DOS.
4. In DOS prompt, type: "wdidle3 /S300" to change the default timer from 8 seconds to 300 seconds (5 minutes).
5. In DOS prompt, type: "wdidle3 /R" to verify the results.

We appreciate Western Digital's efforts to conserve energy and protect the environment, but the 8-second-overkill Intellipark feature could lead to opposite results as more HDDs will be produced to replace defective ones. We sent an email to Western Digital with a link to this article asking for a comment on this matter. We will update this story as soon when we hear back from them.

Update #1: Daniel Mauerhofer, Head of EMEA PR in Western Digital has [ub]commented on this article[/ub]. "This issue is far from critical, does not impair normal functionality or place data at risk, can be mitigated with a utility for the small percentage of systems affected, and is a well understood industry standard."

Update #2: A user on Western Digital's forum claims that his [ub]Caviar Black HDD is affected[/ub] as well. "WD2001FASS parks heads after 12.8 seconds. It will eventually kill itself doing this. I was getting around 1400 Load Cycle Count a day due it parking and waking up constantly."
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post #48 of 421
3/4/13 at 4:49pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

Good links. Interesting read. I knew some of that stuff but those links just broke it down and got technical into the nitty gritty.

I'd sum it up with : New empty drives are faster than old full drives because of how the data is written and read. lol. We all knew this already.

I am quite surprised that your review shows much less difference between the 3 platter and 5 platter; I've seen other reviews that had a wider performance gap. The big gap is really in energy too, as the 3 platter hold advantage too.
Faster, quiet and less energy is a good thing biggrin.gif

As far as benchmarks go- I'm much more interested in how fast a drive will read or write or copy/paste in real life. It's real wold performance is more important. I copy and paste all the time, so I appreaciate it. If a HDD rocks @ 150MB/sec I like it. If it's a slow dog at half that, I do not. I'll tolerate 75MB/sec reads and writes from some of my green drives, and they are perfectly acceptable- but given what I know now I'd choose differently if I was buying today. I do a significant amount copy paste weekly so I tend to keep an eye on the real world performance. It's right in front of my face.

I know what you guys say about benchmarks vs real life - But I honestly think your dead wrong on this one about HDD. The average seq read or write speed directly relates to real life. It's how long you'll wait for it to finish, or how long it will take.
If you don't care about that at all- then just buy any HDD and don't worry if it's slow. There is no right or wrong answer.

Except the problem with your blanket statement is again that benchmarks mean potentially very little when discussing real life results as I have said ad nauseam.

The hard drives handle transferring data differently with quite a bit of variation. Even a drive within a specific model has differences and variations. So the benchmark, as usual, may not necessarily translate over to real life.

Looks like the user comments from this thread posted above echo my experience in regards to benchmarks vs real life.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=848&Itemid=60&limit=1&limitstart=5
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post #49 of 421
3/4/13 at 4:59pm
small variations don't matter, but a drive that has a 60MB/sec speed advantage is probably going to outperform the slower drive regardless of any variations. That's my concern. I don't care if one of my seagates copies at 130MB/sec and another at 175MB/sec. Both is acceptable. But extremes like my 2TB green @59MB/sec and my Seagate at 190MB/sec make me raise and eye brow ... Those variations catch my attention.

No matter how you slice it up- A faster HDD is going to copy or paste, read or write in a quicker time. It's a direct real world effect.

160MB/sec vs 90MB/sec is a big difference in speed in real life.

Almost half the time to copy and paste a movie.
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post #50 of 421
3/4/13 at 5:06pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

small variations don't matter, but a drive that has a 60MB/sec speed advantage is probably going to outperform the slower drive regardless of any variations. That's my concern. I don't care if one of my seagates copies at 130MB/sec and another at 175MB/sec. Both is acceptable. But extremes like my 2TB green @59MB/sec and my Seagate at 190MB/sec make me raise and eye brow ... Those variations catch my attention.

No matter how you slice it up- A faster HDD is going to copy or paste, read or write in a quicker time. It's a direct real world effect.

160MB/sec vs 90MB/sec is a big difference in speed in real life.

Almost half the time to copy and paste a movie.

You just don't understand the whole point of what we are trying to tell you.

For the sake of not annoying everyone else I will stop posting additional information or opinion and data including those that are not my own.
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post #51 of 421
3/4/13 at 5:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

http://koitsu.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/wd30ezrx-and-aggressive-head-parking/

Interesting read: ^

I thought the 3TB WD30EZRX fixed some of the Caviar Green issues but that blog is claiming no.

I always knew the EARS and EARX 2TB had some issues. They constantly and incessantly clicked too, which gets annoying. I never experienced it as bad on my 3TB's (I have 3) and I am even using one as a parity drive right now.


This was the original post I read that got me looking into the subject:

Phew I thought it was just me having the clicking noises on my ERZX drives.
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post #52 of 421
3/4/13 at 8:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

OK-

Help me understand.

You jump into my server thread and claim that the WD green is less than 10% slower. We post back and forth for two pages arguing, where I provide tons of evidence your wrong.



Couldn't resist...
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post #53 of 421
3/5/13 at 10:05am
Lol^

Well played.
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post #54 of 421
3/6/13 at 4:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pokekevin View Post


Phew I thought it was just me having the clicking noises on my ERZX drives.

It's totally normal. They are click happy drives tongue.gif
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post #55 of 421
3/6/13 at 4:24pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

It's totally normal. They are click happy drives tongue.gif

Mine don't click at all. I have 4 in my server.
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post #56 of 421
3/10/13 at 9:35am
Do you ever sit next to them ? Or listen in a quiet room ? All of mine do, but it's acceptable and not severe.
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post #57 of 421
3/10/13 at 9:42am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

Do you ever sit next to them ? Or listen in a quiet room ? All of mine do, but it's acceptable and not severe.

Of course I have.

Btw the seagate 3tb have head parking too. Almost all drives Do.
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post #58 of 421
3/10/13 at 9:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by assassin View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

Do you ever sit next to them ? Or listen in a quiet room ? All of mine do, but it's acceptable and not severe.

Of course I have.

Btw the seagate 3tb have head parking too. Almost all drives Do.

Of coarse. But the Seagates play nice in 24/7 use, RAID use (basic hardware like from motherboard, not full blown), In Linux or Unraid or OpenELEC/XBMC machines, NAS boxes, and don't have a MFG recommendation against installing more than 5 in a machine.

Green are good for certain things, but not for all things. I appreciate the one size fits all approach of Seagate and the economies of scale that allow me to buy a better drive for cheaper per TB cost. Of coarse the critical part of it all is the cost, since if the Seagate 3TB's were 50$+ per TB I'd probably be singing a different tune. It's really the price and value take makes them good. The performance alone or the cost alone is not enough to declare them the clear winner, but together cost + performance make them a winner.

Side Note: Toshiba 3TB for $115 on NewEgg. Seems like cheap pricing on these is developing. Anyone heard feedback ?
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post #59 of 421
3/10/13 at 10:39am
So all of this is mumble jumble to me but if you were getting a synology what drives would you pair it with? Thanks.
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post #60 of 421
3/10/13 at 10:40am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by werd View Post

So all of this is mumble jumble to me but if you were getting a synology what drives would you pair it with? Thanks.

Depends on the price.
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