Tech Review - WD Scorpio 320GB HDD's
Hello again my name is Rodney Reynolds and welcome to another video review, today I will be looking at two Western Digital Hard Drives the Scorpio 320GB 2.5 inch hard drive and the RE2-Gp 1TB 3.5 inch hard drive. The Western Digital Scorpio line up 2.5-inch hard drive is available in capacity ranking from 40GB to 320GB. I am reviewing the new Scorpio 320 GB models, before I continue let me go over what to look for when selecting a 2.5-inch hard drive. There are five main features to consider when selecting a 2.5-inch hard drive, interphase, rotation speed, buffer size, access time, and capacity.
There are two interphase types, IVE and Serial ATA, select the hard drive with Serial ATA interphase since it is in West Technology. The rotation speed should be 5,400rpms or greater preferably 7,200, the buffer size should be 2MB or greater preferably 8MB and the average sync time should be 12 milliseconds or better. Also, get a hard drive that best meets your storage needs. This drive interphase is Serial ATA 3 Giga Bits per second, has a capacity of 320GB. The rotation speed of 5,400rpms an 8MB buffer size the re-sync time is 12milliseconds, power consumption is 2.5W while being accessed and only 2W when idle.
The noise level is from 24 decibels to 26 decibels and it’s certified for Windows Vista. Now let me briefly outline the key technologies of this product, Shotgar technology protects the drive mechanisms and platter surfaces from shock coming to notebooks and external storage environments. Securepark technology parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down. And when the drive is off, this ensures the recording had never touches a disk surface resulting in a very long-term reliability due to less head wear and improved non-operational shock tolerance.
And finally, whisper drive technology in which combines the state of the art seeking algorithms to yield one of the quietest 2.5-inch hard drives on the market. Let’s have a closer look at this hard drive; here is the Serial ATA power connection, Serial ATA data connection and the jumpers. On the left side, right side as well as the bottom are screw holes for mounting the hard drives. At the top is the hard drive model number, serial number, manufacturing date and more information.
The Western Digital RE2 to line up 3.5-inch hard drive is available in capacity ranging from 400GB to 1TB. I am reviewing the new RE2- Green Power 1T model, before I continue let me go over what to look for when selecting a hard drive. The first decision is whether to go with a single hard drive or multiple hard drives in array configurations. Rate stands for 3:20 independent disk or redundant 3:23 inexpensive disk, a single hard drive is an expensive but slower than two hard drives in a Rate 0 configuration.
The disadvantage to Rate 0 set-up is if one drive is corrupted, all the data can be lost. A rate five or rate 10 set-up is much more secure but lacks the performance of Radeon 0. They are five main features to consider when selecting a hard drive, interphase, rotation speed, buffer size, access sync time and capacity. There are two interphase types, IDE and Serial ATA.
Select the hard drive with Serial ATA or Serial ATA 2 interphase since it’s the newest technology. The rotation speed should be 7,200 rpms, greater preferably 10,000 rpms, the buffer size should be 8MB, or greater preferably 16MB and the average sync time should be less than 10 milliseconds. Also, get a hard drive that best meets your storage needs. This drive interphase is a Serial ATA 3GB/sec. has a capacity of 1000GB or 1TB, the rotation speed of 7,200rpms the 16MB buffer size, the read sync time is 8.9 milliseconds, power consumption is 7.4W while being accessed and only 4W when idle.
The noise level is 24 decibels to 29 decibels and certified for Windows Vista. Now let me briefly outline the key technologies of this product. Perpendicular magnetic recording technology to achieve even greater aerial density, this drive also implements preventive wear leveling technology. This is where the drive arm frequently sweeps across the disk to reduce uneven wear on the drive surface. Stable track technology, which ensures that the motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system induced - vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking during read and write operations.
In telecy technology calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise and vibration. This illustration shows the effect of Teleseek on power and vibration when compared to a standard seeks. Something new to this drive is in telepower, which enable a fine tuned bounce of spin speed, transfer rate and trashing algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance.
Additionally GP drive consumes less current during start up, allowing more drives to spin at once resulting in faster system readiness. And finally, rate specific time limited air recovery, which is pioneered by Western Digital and prevents drive fall-out cause by the extended hard drive air recovery process common to desktop drives. The combination of Western Digitals and Teleseek and telepark and telepower technologies bring optimized performance at industry leading lower power consumption. Power is reduced as much as 40%; let’s have a closer look at this hard drive.
Here is the Serial ATA power connection, the Serial ATA data connection and jumpers. Please note that there is a four pin Molex power connection on this hard drive and that is not really a big deal because most of the power supplies have plenty of Serial ATA power leads. On the left side, right side as well as the bottom are screw holes for mounting the hard drive. At the top is the hard drive model number, serial number, manufacturing date and more information. Note that Western Digital users multi-staged forms stainless steel top covers and precision design base casters that minimize sound levels, which is excellent for quite applications.
The Scorpio 320GB 2.5 inch hard drive perform really well. Not that I expected considering it is only a 5,400 rpm hard drive, I really would like to see this particular product in a 7200 rpm version. The RE-GP 1TB hard drive performed really well and has lots of capacity. Overall, both of these products are kick ass again, my name is Rodney Reynolds this has been another video review. Be sure to check back very soon, I will have a brand new one for you then.
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