Western Digital SE16 750GB: "Quiet" a Performer
by Dave Robinet on August 9, 2007 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Drive Specifications
The 750AAKS has technical specifications similar to its competition from Seagate and Hitachi. Seagate continues to offer the most attractive warranty, though the power consumption at load of the Western Digital is by far the lowest among its peers. Other specifications (seek time, latency, etc.) are all close enough as to be virtually indistinguishable among the drives.
The current street price for the Western Digital 750AAKS is around $190, while the Hitachi drive comes in at about $235 and the Seagate 7200.10 750GB at $199.
Feature Set
The 7500AAKS drive is equipped with all of the standard features found in the SE16 line, but has had two additional features added which are not present on the smaller capacity drives: Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR), and StableTrac. PMR, which we've described in previous articles, is a means of achieving a higher data storage density (without changing the disk media). This is different than the more traditional method of longitudinal magnetic recording, which has nearly reached its limit in terms of data density. StableTrac, which is a proprietary technology by Western Digital, essentially means that the motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce the effects (and generation) of vibration in the system.
The 7500AAKS is a 3.5" form factor drive, with the standard white Western Digital sticker outlining the basic specifications (capacity, drive parameters, etc).
Western Digital has followed the lead of other manufacturers in removing the 4 pin MOLEX connector on this drive which was used in older ATX power supplies. The SATA power port is therefore the only available power option.
| Hard Drive Specifications | |||
| Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS |
Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 HDS721075KLA330 |
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3750640AS-RK |
|
| Stated Capacity | 750GB | 750GB | 750GB |
| Interface | SATA 3Gb/s | SATA 3Gb/s | SATA 3Gb/s |
| Rotational Speed | 7,200 RPM | 7,200 RPM | 7,200 RPM |
| Cache Size | 16 MB | 16 MB | 16 MB |
| Average Latency | 4.2 ms (nominal) | 4.17 ms (nominal) | 4.16 ms (nominal) |
| Read Seek Time | 8.9 ms | 8.5 ms | 8.5 ms |
| Number of Heads | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Number of Platters | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Power Draw Idle / Load | 8.6W / 10.7W | 8.1W / 12.8W | 8.6W / 12.6W |
| Command Queuing | Native Command Queuing | Native Command Queuing | Native Command Queuing |
| Warranty | 3 Year - Retail or OEM | 3 Year - Retail or OEM | 5 Year - Retail or OEM |
The 750AAKS has technical specifications similar to its competition from Seagate and Hitachi. Seagate continues to offer the most attractive warranty, though the power consumption at load of the Western Digital is by far the lowest among its peers. Other specifications (seek time, latency, etc.) are all close enough as to be virtually indistinguishable among the drives.
The current street price for the Western Digital 750AAKS is around $190, while the Hitachi drive comes in at about $235 and the Seagate 7200.10 750GB at $199.
Feature Set
The 7500AAKS drive is equipped with all of the standard features found in the SE16 line, but has had two additional features added which are not present on the smaller capacity drives: Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR), and StableTrac. PMR, which we've described in previous articles, is a means of achieving a higher data storage density (without changing the disk media). This is different than the more traditional method of longitudinal magnetic recording, which has nearly reached its limit in terms of data density. StableTrac, which is a proprietary technology by Western Digital, essentially means that the motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce the effects (and generation) of vibration in the system.
The 7500AAKS is a 3.5" form factor drive, with the standard white Western Digital sticker outlining the basic specifications (capacity, drive parameters, etc).
Western Digital has followed the lead of other manufacturers in removing the 4 pin MOLEX connector on this drive which was used in older ATX power supplies. The SATA power port is therefore the only available power option.
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bigpow - Thursday, August 9, 2007 - link
signs of times..when we no longer perceived Made in China as a bad thing, I've been hearing that it's actually preferred over the recent streams of Made in Thailand electronics.
It happened to Japan & Taiwan before, now most people are happy to see those labels when they buy something.
And of course, the cool-er things in life are still Made in USA ;)
-Not that where something is produced has anything to do with the quality.
Googer - Thursday, August 9, 2007 - link
I noticed the Western Digital Raptor 150 was missing from this chart:http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/wd750_080807108...">http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/wd750_080807108...
Gary Key - Thursday, August 9, 2007 - link
I have no idea why, but after hitting our engine update button again, it is there now. :)Googer - Thursday, August 9, 2007 - link
In your benchmarking, you did not mention the size of the swapfile you have your OS set to use. I am sure it has an effect on application throughput. A static sized file is needed for benchmarking consistency.Gary Key - Thursday, August 9, 2007 - link
Our standard swapfile is fixed at 2048MB and we clean the prefetch folder after each benchmark run.imaheadcase - Thursday, August 9, 2007 - link
You can fill a WHS with 6 1TB drives for so cheap it will be great! Acoustics and heat will be a selling point for lots of people what that comes around.yyrkoon - Monday, August 13, 2007 - link
Heh, have you ever owned a 'Deathstar' ? Many, including myself will never venture down that road again.Martimus - Wednesday, August 15, 2007 - link
I have avoided IBM drives after mine died on me after only about one year. Of course Hitachi bought them out, but I don't know if they have any better longevity than they used to.strikeback03 - Tuesday, August 14, 2007 - link
An Emachines computer I bought a few years ago had a Deskstar drive. Other than the anti-static meowing noise, no problems with it for the 3 years I owned it.mostlyprudent - Thursday, August 9, 2007 - link
I am most impressed at how well the Hitachi 1TB drive continues to sit at the top of so many of the benchmarks.Your conclusion stating how well the WD drive does against the Seagate omitted the point raised in the Samsung article recently posted here. That is, Seagate's drive is almost a year older and their new 7200.11 drives are just around the corner.
Overall, it is impressive to see how tightly grouped these drive are. There seems very little reason to even consider a Raptor anymore.