(This is a slightly modified version of a rough and ready review I posted at hothardware; just willing to spread the word and provide a few numbers and remarks from an end-user POV).
A brief account of my experience with WD25EZRS, the 2.5 TB drive that is not reviewed and rarely even mentioned anywhere.
Let me first state that I'm just an average Joe, not a hardcore system builder and the drive was attached to an ultracheap MSI 880GM motherboard with Athlon x3 450 (I don't use the Western Digital HBA card). Little to write home about. In this system, the drive, which I've had for about a week, isn't really stunning. It works OK, but I expected a bit more, what with the increased data density and the 'cool and quiet' PR schtick. In a nutshell, the benchmarking software gives me 110-120 MB/s for writing and a similar number for reading. 35 MB/s (random reading) and 60 (random writing) is what CrystalDiskMark indicates.
Conclusions? 750 GB platters... Didn't we expect 140 with them? Yes sirree, we did. Also, even if HD Tune can only test the first 2,19 TB, the access time shown isn't breathtaking. Random 4K in CrystalDiskMark are a tad disappointing, too. As far as SMART is concerned, the Raw Read Error Rate (attribute 01) initially grew fast but stopped at 309 and hasn't increased in a few days.
Stats can be seen in the following screenshots:
ATTO -
http://i53.tinypic.com/33u9011.png
HD Tach -
http://i56.tinypic.com/xeo1ly.jpg
HD Tune -
http://i52.tinypic.com/j16dtj.png
CrystalDiskMark -
http://i55.tinypic.com/2l8hrgp.png
As far as its operation is concerned, I'm happy with the noise (perhaps not inaudible, but inobtrusive) but not with the temperature. Granted, my case is small and crowded but this hdd is consistently 8-10 degrees Celsius warmer than the other three drives (all by Samsung). An HD154 used to lie in the exact same spot and would idle at 37-39. This little monster reaches 46-48 soon after being turned on. I tried improving the air flow, letting the heads catch some zzzs via intellipark (big mistake, it's not a feature, it's a bug; the load cycles count increased like crazy, jumping every 10 s and I almost felt like one of those people who had to use wdidle3). It still doesn't go below 40 degrees whereas my other drives are 29-31 in the morning (the system runs 24/7). Plus, it once didn't want to boot and wasn't visible in the BIOS when i moved the plug a bit. A finicky byotch, to say the least.
All in all, the WD25EZRS I bought works and isn't really a black sheep if you forget a few kinks. Still, when we think of the 2.19 TB barrier problems (MBR only uses the first 2048 GB, 32-bit Windows builds won't boot from bigger drives...) as well as the current price, the equally fast and trouble-free 2 TB hdds appear to be a much better option. But the choice is yours.
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