640GB Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS HD Tune Result

[Oversized Rooster]

I got ahold of 2 new WD6401AALS HDs. This is the 640GB version of Western Digital's Caviar Black series.

Both are manufactured on September 13, 2008 and they seem to post identical results. The benchmarks were done with HD Tune 2.55.

I've thrown in benchmarks for the 500GB Western Digital Caviar Blue (WD5000AAKS) and also the 300GB Western Digital VelociRaptor (WD3000GLFS).

In two words...the WD6401 is the fastest 7200rpm hard drive I've ever played with - it delivers VelociRaptor-like transfer speeds at 33% of the cost. AWESOME HDs!

WD6401AALS HD 01:


WD6401AALS HD 02:


WD3000GLFS:


WD5000AAKS:


Transferring large files from one WD6401 to the other WD6401 gets an average transfer rate of 95MB/s according to Vista's dialogs. If I transfer small files the average is anywhere between 50 and 65MB/s.

If I transfer files between my VelociRaptor WD3000GLFS and one of the WD6401 drives, then my average is about 105MB/s.

[encorp]

Yeah i love mine! I just ordered 4 more! LOL

[miggs78]

The cpu usage.. wow..

[Chilly]

Originally Posted by miggs78

The cpu usage.. wow..

I doubt it has anything to do with the HDTune bench, in any case heres my HDTune bench from my WD 1TB Black Edition

[MelodyofOblivion]

nice, cant wait till the 1tb for there price drop

so just making sure the black editions have 5 year warranty? and they cost slightly more right

[lemonlime]

Thanks for posting that. I picked up a pair of 640GB SE16's recently and have been very impressed with the performance. Seems that the black editions perform a bit better!

[encorp]

Even my 750 is fantastic, I love these drives.

[1Tanker]

Nice results Oversized Rooster. It looks like the extra 16mb buffer may have some merit...in certain situations.

Here's what i got on my 6400AAKS and 5000AAKS. As miggs78 pointed out, your CPU usage is huge.

5000AAKS:



6400AAKS:



Are you testing with ACHI on? I'd have to really give it some thought about going for the Black over the Blue though... not sure if the little extra performance is worth the extra money....although, the Black is currently $3 cheaper than the Blue @ DC . That makes it a no-brainer.

[Oversized Rooster]

During the testing I was doing stuff.

I've re-run the benchmarks now and CPU usage is normal at around 5%. Yes, I am running them in AHCI.

Now both my WD6401 drives score 11.9ms for access time!

[geokilla]

Is there a difference between with ACHI on and ACHI off? I have a WD6400AAKS and I believe ACHI is disabled in the BIOS. The AAM value is set to 254 though and my access times were around 13s. I'll check the AAM values and the ACHI when I get home.

Also, my speed spikes down a couple times during the benchmark. Is that normal?


Those are some amazing speeds that you're getting with the Black. What's the hard drive used for?