Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”
arstechnica.com
Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”
1–10 of 140 posts
Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”
#2Fuck Western Digital!
Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”
#3I think the TLDR is that Western Digital are selling faster drives marketed as being slower than they actually are, presumably due to lack of supply for the demand of the slower drives part of the market or something like that.
You'd think nobody would mind until you remember some people want lower power and noise.
Ideally these people would be buying based on those actual metrics, rather than the RPM as a proxy for them, if that's what they really wanted, but I don’t know if that’s on the data sheets.
Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”
#4Maybe I should apply to WD and fill my resume with things like “25-years-class experience as distinguished-class engineer-class for HGST-class employer”.
Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”
#5I think the TLDR is that Western Digital are selling faster drives marketed as being slower than they actually are, presumably due to lack of supply for the demand of the slower drives part of the market or something like that. You'd think nobody would mind until you remember some people want lower power and noise. Ideally these people would be buying based on those actual metrics, rather than the RPM as a proxy for…
Couldn’t they just software limit the speed? I’m sure they thought of it but it seems on the surface like an easy problem to solve for.
Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”
#6Maybe I should apply to WD and fill my resume with things like “25-years-class experience as distinguished-class engineer-class for HGST-class employer”.
Do you realise in that on the context of this story that would mean you had more then 25 years of experience, so they’d be happy.
Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”
#7That's what happens when you have little competition.
Right now the high capacity, non-SSD hard drive market is a duopoly between WD and Seagate. Customers have little choice.
Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”
#8The German-language forum that the article mentions has been doing some great detective work: https://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/threads/crystaldiskinf...
The conclusion on page 4 of the above thread:
> Non-Pro RED = 5400rpm according to data sheet
> Pro Red = 7200rpm according to data sheet
> Internal both 7200rpm and 120Hz.
> Apparently all WD / HGST helium plates have real 7200rpm, no matter what it says.
Simply absurd, if true. Here, for example, is a screenshot of WD's WD100EFAX store page: https://imgur.com/HseW9Pa
No mention of an RPM "class". The spec sheet does refer to it as "5400 RPM Class", but with no further description of what the term means: https://media.flixcar.com/f360cdn/Western_Digital-3805661149...
What a world when you can't even trust the spec sheet. What's next, 10 watt class drives that pull 20 watts? 3-year class warranties?
Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”
#9Maybe I should apply to WD and fill my resume with things like “25-years-class experience as distinguished-class engineer-class for HGST-class employer”.
Do you realise in that on the context of this story that would mean you had more then 25 years of experience, so they’d be happy.
Maybe salary negotiations is a better time to bring it up. "100K Class" salary request, with the actual figure being 33%~ higher.
Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”
#10That's what happens when you have little competition. Right now the high capacity, non-SSD hard drive market is a duopoly between WD and Seagate. Customers have little choice.
SSD volumetric capacity already exceeds spinning disk, and we're just waiting for the price to come down. The horse's dealer's competition wasn't more stables, it was the car.