[Brian]

So we were messing around with the MyBook 3.0 external drive this weekend and went to see what was inside. It's the 1TB WD1001FAES, which is a Caviar Black with 64MB cache.

 drive.jpg (144.82K)
Number of downloads: 520

Here are a few benchmarks to compare the new model with the current WD1001FALS (32MB cache).

*Disclaimer - Benchmarking was done with one drive going through the motherboard's SATA and the other going through USB 3.0, so they are not on equal terms. We'll do more detailed work in the review.

 WD1001FAES HD Tune.png (41K)
Number of downloads: 1756
 WD1001FALS HD Tune.png (40.66K)
Number of downloads: 1624

 WD1001FAES Crystal.png (95.81K)
Number of downloads: 1471
 WD1001FALS Crystal.png (92.01K)
Number of downloads: 1297

[Brian]

Here are fresh benchmarks of the WD1001FAES when connected directly via SATA instead of USB.

 caviarblack64sata.png (57.11K)
Number of downloads: 230

 HDTune_Benchmark_WDC_WD1001FAES-00W7A0.png (24.36K)
Number of downloads: 541

[Slycer]

Hey! I like WD's a lot but don't have any comparison info.. How does this drive compare to others on the market?

[jedH]

I'm guessing WD1002FAEX would be no better...
It just has the SATA 6G connection which shouldn't make any differecne as SATA 3G is still more than enough?

This post has been edited by jedH: 06 February 2010 - 07:11 AM

[Brian]

Slycer, on 06 February 2010 - 05:16 AM, said:

Hey! I like WD's a lot but don't have any comparison info.. How does this drive compare to others on the market?

We compared it to the current comparable from WD in the first post. We're working on reviews right now.

[Charles P. Jefferies]

Those are some nice burst data transfer rates - the larger cache size helps there.

The access time is reasonably low as well (looking at the 12.1ms reading).

[Brian]

We're still working on the full review, but here's a set of benchmarks from our test computer. I just added benchmarks to the Seagate Constellation thread as well, these were both taken from the same machine.

 crystal.png (68.52K)
Number of downloads: 150
 hdtach.png (56.01K)
Number of downloads: 245
 HDTune_Benchmark_WDC_WD1001FAES-00W7A____.png (60.45K)
Number of downloads: 280
 HDTune_Benchmark_WDC_WD1001FAES-00W7A____write.png (50.57K)
Number of downloads: 229
 HDTune_Random_Access_WDC_WD1001FAES-00W7A____.png (87.41K)
Number of downloads: 157

Power Consumption
 wdc power.txt (500bytes)
Number of downloads: 62

[jedH]

So what's the story with this, is it to eventually replace the WD1001FALS?

Will it always have 500GB platters now like the WD1002FAEX (which also has two actuators)
If so is the only difference between the 1002FAEX and 1001FAES the SATA interface?

Is there going to be similar sorts of differentiation with the 2TB Blacks & 2TB RE's?

This post has been edited by jedH: 17 February 2010 - 03:39 AM

[Brian]

Jed, good questions but since WD hasn't really made the drive official yet, it's still not on their website, it's hard to know their intentions.

[jedH]

Damn, fair enough, thanks.
How's the review going?

All the best.