WD10EACS vs WD10EACS

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I'm in need of a 1TB drive and am deciding between these two. From what I've read, both are reliable and the specs are very close, with the biggest difference being the 32mb cache for the EADS and the 16mb cache for the EACS. As it stands, the EACS is about $5 cheaper than the EADS. I've seen some charts on Tom's Hardware that should the EADS noticeably ahead of the EACS in all categories. Any suggestions/opinions? Should I get the EADS?

I will mainly use the drive as backup and storage (movies/music) so I value efficiency (low power/noise) over speed. Thanks.
 
I'm not a fan of the Green Power series. I see it as cleaver marketing on a 5400rpm drive. HD's don't even use much power anyway. So unless you have like a huge raid setup I don't see any significant savings. But its true they are quieter and with low power comes lower heat.

Anyway its only $5 why not get the extra cache?
 
JohnleMVP said:
I'm not a fan of the Green Power series. I see it as cleaver marketing on a 5400rpm drive. HD's don't even use much power anyway. So unless you have like a huge raid setup I don't see any significant savings. But its true they are quieter and with low power comes lower heat.

Anyway its only $5 why not get the extra cache?
Click to expand...

If not the green drives, what similar performing drives (within the same price range) would you recommend?
 
Black or blue. Actually I think green is fine for non OS and software, I doubt you will notice that couple seconds difference while copying large files.
 
Green drives have their place. I use a green drive in my HTPC where it runs alot and access speed / data transfer rates are not the main thing needed. What I would really love is something like the old Quantum BigFoots where speed was second to size. It would mean 3-4TB of storage in a slow drive for either HTPC or data backups.

For a desktop PC look at the Black drives by WD as they will be the better performers of the range.
 
imho, WD10EADS is in a class by itself when it comes to a drive for real storage, primarily a drive that is written to rarely, read often, and runs often. For that role, it is easily worth $10 over the same sized drive, including the WD10EACS.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-terabyte-1tb,2077.html

My laptop Seagate 7200.3 7200rpm drives have worse (slightly) HDTune metrics than a WD10EADS drive.

JohnleMVP is correct in that hard drives do not use that much power. A typical 7200rpm 1/1.5TB drive uses about 7w at idle, but a WD10EADS uses under 3w. For one drive, this will mean maybe $5-$10 savings per year if running 24/7. Not a lot to be the only determining factor in your choice and other factors can save you as much on your power usage when it comes to a single drive.

For a single drive in an external enclosure, the lower temp of the WD10EADS makes it real attractive. It isn't too hard to run a 7200rpm drive too hot. Running a 7200rpm drive in an external enclosure for an extended period without active cooling can be problematic, but I'd have no worries with the WD10EADS in one hiding in a congested location.

Remember, a Velociraptor doesn't stream a hi-def movie any faster than the slowest 5400rpm drive out there. Do you really need great HD performance metrics to store your music or your movies? In most metrics, a WD10eads is roughly 10% slower, but in some, like access time compared to a Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB, it is barely slower.

For storage, WD10EADS... for your ePeen, choose whatever. ;)
 
Well, I know OP already purchased the drive, but for future reference, the EADS will guarantee you a 3-platter drive, while the EACS ones that are floating around might have 4 platters, might have 3. Really only an issue if you're looking for the absolute quietest drive possible, as the 4 platter should be slightly (incrementally) noisier.
 
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