# Substitute for WD 640Gb 32MB Caviar Black



## Dan2312 (Feb 25, 2009)

Im after two of the above hard drives, but the place where i shop keeps running out of stock and chances of them having some in stock by thursday or friday coming is looking very bleak, As ill be building my system by friday.

so does anyone know of any HD's that are just as quick for around the same price of upto £75?

Capacity of the HD's is not really necassary, but i don't want expensive Raptors or the like, i am considering an SSD, but that will be later in the build. 

PS; ive read that the 500GB Western Digi, Caviar black is nowhere near as quick as the 640Gb, is this true?

Thanks all, dan.


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## Homeless (Feb 25, 2009)

The 640gb caviar blues have just about equal performance.  The reason the 500gb isn't as fast as the 640gb is because the 500 uses 2x250gb platters while the 640 has 2x320gb platters (not including other small enhancements)


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## erocker (Mar 2, 2009)

Seagate 7200.12 500gb.  Single platter, 500 gigs and very fast.


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## niko084 (Mar 2, 2009)

IMO- There is NO substitute for the WD Black 640! Except an RE3 640...

Worst case I would grab a SE16 640.

Seagates are SLOW as soon as you start doing multiple access, on top of their complete failure...
Up until about a month ago when I finished switching my drives from Seagate to WD again at the store, I was RMA'ing close to 65% of my 7200.11s and ES2's... Horrible horrible quality control, and that firmware issue ended it.

The WD Black 640 is I think currently the fastest 7200rpm drive available by a pretty good margin and across about any type of test you put it to. Love mine, and wont trade them for the world. *okay well maybe the world*

7200.12's I have no exp with, but I'll leave that to when seagate gets back into the chair and brings their warranty back up to 5 years vs just making worse hardware.


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## kysg (Mar 2, 2009)

niko084 said:


> IMO- There is NO substitute for the WD Black 640! Except an RE3 640...
> 
> Worst case I would grab a SE16 640.
> 
> ...



gotta be kidding me on the ES2's damn I have 2 250gbs, and 500gb WD black, And my ES2's run way cooler and seem to do better on hd tach, but I dunno could be an issue with the higher capacity drives.


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## erocker (Mar 2, 2009)

niko084 said:


> IMO- There is NO substitute for the WD Black 640! Except an RE3 640...
> 
> Worst case I would grab a SE16 640.
> 
> ...



I use both WD's and Seagates.  The single and dual platter Seagates are deffinitely faster than my WD's.  There is no fesable way that a single 640 black is close to a 7200.12 Seagate in terms of performance.


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## kenkickr (Mar 2, 2009)

I've only been able to find and play with the 7200.12's w/ 16mb cache but they are damn fast.  The only question I would ask is 140Gb and a 5yr warranty justify the cost on the 640 Caviar Black or do you want speed!?  If you want speed go for the Seagate 500Gb 7200.12 over the WD 640 Caviar Black.


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## niko084 (Mar 2, 2009)

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16472/9

My points were on multiple access, although the 7200.12 does look far superior to the 7200.11's in most cases. I still will not be recommending any seagate after their screw up and warranty drop for quite awhile.

Check the last page too--
http://techreport.com/articles.x/16472/12

PS- I'm not here to trash seagate, they have just put a real sour taste in my mouth recently, I had 2 servers raid configs go down due to faulty firmware in the 7200.11 and ES drivers, and that's before counting the numerous DVR systems that went down along with those.


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## ap4lifetn (Mar 3, 2009)

don't the samsung F1's use 333GB platters in their 640GB drives? wouldn't they be considered on par with the WD640's?


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## niko084 (Mar 3, 2009)

ap4lifetn said:


> don't the samsung F1's use 333GB platters in their 640GB drives? wouldn't they be considered on par with the WD640's?



It's not only platter size and amount that come into play.


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## ap4lifetn (Mar 3, 2009)

i didn't say that it was, but it is by far the most important is it not? this is assuming they are at the same rotational speed


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## Dan2312 (Mar 3, 2009)

Ive got the 640Gb Caviar Blue! 

Its a damn site quicker than my old 160Gb IDE drive! 

All wait til next generation HD's are out before i think about changing!


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## ckoons1 (Mar 10, 2009)

western digital raptors?


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## niko084 (Mar 10, 2009)

ckoons1 said:


> western digital raptors?



Um wow.... *READ POSTS* Western Digital Black 640gb... These run around $80 USD, even a 150gb Raptor is over $150 USD....


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## banjodido (Mar 12, 2009)

Are there any news out there if and when WD will bring out a new series of 500GB HDD with just one platter? The 1.5 and 2TB HDD are tempting but just too big for a system drive. What about Samsung, they going to offer just the 5400rpm 500GB-one-platter HDD?
I need a new System HDD and SSD are still too expensive imho.


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## ckoons1 (Mar 13, 2009)

*Ebay $95.00*



niko084 said:


> Um wow.... *READ POSTS* Western Digital Black 640gb... These run around $80 USD, even a 150gb Raptor is over $150 USD....



Picked up a new raptor 150 on ebay $95.00
might want to take a look

so the reason for the SEAGATE 7200.12 speed is the size and amount of the platters.
correct?


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