WD 750GB reviewed

[Asus]

It's one fast drive. It's min and anverage read and write performance is right up with the raptor drives but it actually hit a faster Max at 94mb/s vs the raptors 87mb/s. Of course the 10,000 RPM Raptors excel in the database, file server, web server and workstation tests. Wish Tom's did more real desktop benchmarks.

Actually, Tech Report has a better review. Had the best boot time and close to best game level loading (raptors ahead). And it won all of the file read/write tests with windows, programs, mp3, iso, and install.

 

[Hazar]

I'd probably get this if I needed storage atm

 

[Asus]

I think it's the first drive WD has used perpendicular recording on.

 

[VirusType2]

Is it really that much faster than the 500GB WD Caviar 16 that we've been discussing lately?


I know I said I was buying a new drive ASAP, but I've been conserving space on the drive I just mentioned above, and haven't bought another one of them yet.

If it's not really that much faster, than I still think I should just go with the 500. It's still more space for the dollar.

500 GB ~ $110
750 GB ~ $240 *

* I'm not sure if that price is right, it's sort of an educated guess of a good price on it.

Anyway, so that means it costs more than twice as much as the 500, but only 50% more space.

I probably will just use my new drive for music, movies, photos, storage and stuff, so it doesn't necessarily have to be fast.

If I were to get the 750, I'd use it for games, and use the 500 for the stuff I described above.



[EDIT] Just noticed you updated the first post, I'll have to read over that.

 

[Asus]

Newegg has the WD 750GB model for $210 but that is still another $100 for an extra 250GB.

$ .28/Gb - 750GB
$ .22/Gb - 500GB
$1.33/Gb - 150GB Raptor
$2.09/Gb - 74GB Raptor

 

[VirusType2]

Man, I just read over that whole review. That drive is awesome in every way.

I like the fact that it is designed to withstand a beating from loud music, etc.

I've knocked shit off the shelves in other rooms of the house before with my sub woofers. I have my tower and monitors sitting on foam to reduce vibration as the image on the screen was vibrating to the music.


This is basically the reason I've waited. I knew that if I waited a month or two, a better drive would come out. This drive kicks ****ing ass.


Now I just have to decide do I really need a fast drive to store Music CD's and stuff. (probably not)

The question is really, do I want to spend that much?


I think I might just get one of these a little later down the road, as my next drive. I really need to be tight with my money these days.

That will give at least little time to figure out how reliable it will be.


Besides, sounds like they are out of stock around the world.

 

[Asus]

Newegg has them in stock.

If it was just storage stuff then I would go by space and price mostly, not performance. Unless you felt like reinstalling your OS on it. hehe

 

[The Brick]

Looking good. Too bad I don't need a new drive

 

[-Psy-]

750gb? 0_0

 

[VirusType2]

750gb? 0_0

The data on the internet is massively compressed.

JPEGs, MP3's and MPEGS, whatever it is, it's compressed.


If you are working with full quality stuff, it's substantially larger data.

A lossless audio file that is a 4 MB song, might be 20MB. it's true CD quality. Some can't notice the difference, some can. it depends on your audio card and speakers and ears, etc.


Aight now, if you are working with textures, TGA images might be 3.5 MB, where the Jpg is only 3.5 KB.

an enormous difference.

Same goes for movies.

Xvid/Avi, what-have-you: 1.5 hour movie = 700 MB. DVD data is ilke 8 GB


As we go heavier into HD gaming, HD DVD, and Blu Ray, as well as Higher resolution monitors and televisions, well...


Mark my words, in 7 years time, a 750GB drive will be like a 75GB drive of today.

500 seems small if you think about it. One uncompressed HD movie will take .. I don't know, 10 - 15GB? What if you have a collection of 100 movies? A complete season of HD TV episodes could be huge.


Not sure how the internet is going to deal with HD movie sales over the internet. That could take days, but w/e, that's what the torrent protocol is for.


Hopefully the speeds of the internet can keep improving too. We started at 8K modems or something. now, it seems most people have gone with 100+MB dedicated lines. What's next? 1000MB


I like audio/video, and photo/texture editing, and that takes a bit of space.


I think it's cheaper/easier/more accessible to back up your stuff on a large hard drive.

 

[-Psy-]

Well, faster internet isn't going to happen here in the UK anytime soon unless they switch from copper lines...

 

[The Brick]

What virus said. If I actually get into some video editing, I'm going to consider getting this drive for that purpose only. Uncompressed video can get retardedly big. Like 20gb per minute or something.

 

[Gray Fox]

Whats the difference between the SE and RE drives?
From what I read at newegg, RE's are more reliable?
If that is the only thing, is it worth it, for someone like me, my pc is on at least 12 hours a day?

An I mean ordinary drives are more then reliable enough from my experience, plus if you need reliability you would buy 2 drives and run then in one of the raid configurations.

 

[Hazar]

Newegg has the WD 750GB model for $210 but that is still another $100 for an extra 250GB.

$ .28/Gb - 750GB
$ .22/Gb - 500GB
$1.33/Gb - 150GB Raptor
$2.09/Gb - 74GB Raptor

pretty good for the 750

when I got my raptor I ment to get the 150 gb one but accidentally got the 74 gig one :/

 

[dream431ca]

Good thing I didn't upgrade yet. I'll be getting this for sure.

 

[Asus]

I have 2 500GB drives I use constantly for recording TV @ 720x480 (+2GB per 1hr episode). If I stopped recording then I would have no use for at least one of those drives. Probably a good portion of the other too.

 

[X-FacToR]

Ive got a re2 500g and thats way too much for me heh =P

 

[VirusType2]

Thinking about ordering one of these tonight, even though the price will come down later.

Tough decision for me.

great 500 @ $110 or an even faster 750 @ $210

.. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I should order one tonight (this morning really)

 

[VirusType2]

Newegg has them in stock.

If it was just storage stuff then I would go by space and price mostly, not performance. Unless you felt like reinstalling your OS on it. hehe

I just tried to order one, but newegg says that url is invalid. I tried starting from the homepage and once I found that drive, it still says the url is invalid when I try to put it in the cart.

Maybe it's not really in stock.

Never mind. I ordered the 750 from ClubIT for 197.99. Free shipping.

Hopefully it gets here fast. My 500 GB is down to 10 GB free.

 

[Asus]

Anandtech just reviewed the Samsung 500GB drive. They have yet to review the WD 750GB though so it was not included for a side by side comparison.

HD Tach write speed
WD 750GB @ 77 MB/s (tech report)
Samsung 500GB @ 64 MB/s (anandtech)

There is no way to cross compare the other tests used. But you can look over all the benchmarks and get an idea of where they sit. They said "The overall performance of the drive in the 500GB category remained consistent, and while not always class leading it certainly was not the class dunce."
The WD 750GB looked a lot faster to me and consistently so. The main thing the Samsung excelled at was being quiet which is what they are always recommend for.

 

[Kyorisu]

Well, faster internet isn't going to happen here in the UK anytime soon unless they switch from copper lines...

Oh please you have unlimited internet, cry much? Come to Australia the land of crappy speeds, unavailable DSL2 ports and wait for it quotas and SHAPING.

Although we have the whole one billion dollar rural broadband project and on top of that the proposed FTTN project. Copper from your house to a node 1.5Ks away max, then fiber. The current situation has your copper lines going from anywhere from down the street to 7Ks+ to get to an exchange. Telstra need to be shot down for charging too much for local traffic, then we have the duopoly that control the major submarine cables. Luckily our local pipe network is looking at putting their own cable from Sydney to Guam.

In the end we have worse speeds than your country but probably use up a lot more bandwidth especially in Bittorrent downloads as we have to wait for shows to hit our shores.

 

[VirusType2]

Got one of them. The new WD 750 drive. w00t

It's big. Not sure if it's fast yet, but the review was excellent.

I've got 4 other hard drives that were full. Going to use the new 750 for games and media.

It's supposed to be fast for games and OS, but I like to keep my OS drive small. I just keep my OS by itself on a small drive, in case I need to re-install windows, I don't have to backup any data.

 

[Kyorisu]

Sif use 7200rpm drive for games. If your worried about windows reinstalls partition the drive. New 150GB WD Raptor here, you can notice a difference in a lot of smaller file operations i.e. load times.

 

[VirusType2]

Sif use 7200rpm drive for games. If your worried about windows reinstalls partition the drive. New 150GB WD Raptor here, you can notice a difference in a lot of smaller file operations i.e. load times.

Not sure what sif means, but if you check out the benchmarks, the 750 is an all new design and it is generally faster than every other drive tested (20 drives?), and never falls by more than a second or two, like when loading levels or something, and even then it is usually only done by a Raptor, and is nearly as fast as a Raptor, or faster in some tests. Plus it will hold 750GB worth of games, and I can't hear anything.



150 would be cool to have for some of my brand new games, but it's just not enough space. Unfortunately, I/we can't have everything. I'm going to need a couple more of these 750's or something bigger in the long run.


This will bring you to the page 1 of the scoring.
http://techreport.com/reviews/2007q2/wd-caviar-750/index.x?pg=3