WD6401AALS Really that good?

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zod96

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I've been hearing and reading the the WD6401AALS is probably one of the quietest and the fastest 7200 rpm drive out currently, any truth to this? Anyone that has one care to comment on how quiet or fast it is :)
 
yes, as it is pretty much the 640AAKS with more cache, which has been thoroughly tested and touted as one of the best drives out especially for the price,
 
It's more to that than just the extra cache ;)
It also had to deal with a new or revised architecture
EG. Dual processor, StableTrac, and NoTouch ramp load tech.
 
If you don't need the sheer space of the 1TB, then I'm guessing the 640GB is slightly better as it has one less platter, therefore less rotational inertia. In theory, spin up would be faster and power consumption lower. Would you notice a difierence in the 2 drives? Probably not anywhere but the bank account.

In short, buy what you need. I'd go for 2 WD6401AALS in RAID0 over a single WD1001FALS. Though I did just buy a WD1001FALS for the OS drive on my WHS.
 
Hate to Hijack this, but how does the AALS stack up to an original 36 GB raptor (mine is near that 5 year mark or so) and i'm thinking about a replacement.
 
k1pp3r said:
Hate to Hijack this, but how does the AALS stack up to an original 36 GB raptor (mine is near that 5 year mark or so) and i'm thinking about a replacement.
Click to expand...

I'd consider it a worthy replacement. I have a 320GB AAKS series drive that's not as fast as the 640GB AAKS and it's just a little slower than my ADFD 74GB Raptor. The 640GB versions are probably the fastest 7200RPM drives to date...

If you want to really blow the raptor away, toss two of these in RAID0 and short-stroke them for great justice!
 
-=Antimatter=- said:
I'd consider it a worthy replacement. I have a 320GB AAKS series drive that's not as fast as the 640GB AAKS and it's just a little slower than my ADFD 74GB Raptor. The 640GB versions are probably the fastest 7200RPM drives to date...

If you want to really blow the raptor away, toss two of these in RAID0 and short-stroke them for great justice!
Click to expand...

Thanks,

I'm more interested in investing in storage space (running really low) than doing RAID 0 right now. I may bite on one here, the 36GB Raptor hurts when Vista takes up 15 GB lol
 
Amazing drive... we primarily sell these and haven't had a single one come back on RMA. Not only are they fast, but they run cool and are whisper quiet.
 
HDTune.jpg


3 WD6400AAKS in RAID0 on P5Q-E (ICH10R) - Short-Stroked OS Partition w/ Volume Write Back Cache Enabled
 
I just grabbed 2x WD6401AALS for a Raid 0 setup! They absolutely rock! I'm coming from an old 150GB Raptor.
 
I bought six of them for a RAID array on an Areca controller. I am running Raid 5 ATM but will drop another one on for Raid 6 when I get the money. They are pretty darned fast in a RAID 5, I can tell you that.

BTW, the speed of an array is related to the number of drives in the array as well as the kind of disk. I have an array of (4) 500G seagates and it runs about 250 MB / sec streaming read rate. I have another array of (6) 640g WDs which runs at ~350 mb/sec. streaming read rate.
 
60 mb / sec is about average for the older drives. The new "vertical" drives store a LOT more data in the same physical area of the disk, which means that data streams off the drive much faster. IIRC I was getting about 120 gb / sec off of a single drive with the new vertical recording. Of course this does nothing for access times, but once the read area is under the heads, the reads (and writes) can occur way faster.
 
Who wants a velociraptor when you can get the WD6401AALS for a mere fraction of the price!
 
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