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Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”

arstechnica.com

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Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”

#61

Post by toast0 »

akhosravian wrote: post #40
orbital-decay wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a solid technical reason for that though, as ISPs have no control over the performance of your connection's remote part. Sure, it leaves plenty of room for abuse, but this is a necessary disclaimer, not some slippery marketing.

Does anyone in the US actually get the “up to” even plugging directly into the ISP provided modem at off peak times?

I've had pretty good luck with DSL providers in three locations in the bay area and one in washington state. Sync speeds have always been at the top of the range, and usually upload/download speed to real destinations is consistent with the sync speed. Depends on the destination of course. And a lot of people on DSL have poor outside wiring (or it's just a long distance) and don't get great sync speeds or the lose sync when it rains and the lines get wet, etc. Mostly though, outside of exceptional circumstances the DSL data rates are slow enough that the bottleneck is either the individual subscriber's line (outdoor and indoor), their equipment, or wifi problems.

When I was on ATT gigabit fiber in San Jose, it was hard to confirm the speeds, but they would vary a lot more. I think most of the time at peak I would only see 400 Mbps down, but closer to the line speed off-peak. Upstream was more consistent.

Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”

#62

Post by causality0 »

Did Western Digital have some kind of management shakeup in the last few years? Back in the day my general impression was that they were a quality brand that engaged in less bullshit than the likes of Seagate and Hitachi. It seems the tables have turned.

Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”

#63

Post by causality0 »

throw0101a wrote: post #38
readams wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also includes the fact that their network may be oversubscribed.

There's no "may" about it: they are oversubscribed for consumers so as to get the price points down. If anyone wants to have an unfettered pipe then call up a Tier 1/2/3 ISP and ask for a commercial connection via a single-mode fibre, and be ready to pay quite a bit for it.

This varies wildly by location and company. Approximately half my family is subscribed to Cox, and the other half mostly to Spectrum. The Cox connections never drop below 80% of their advertised speeds and the Spectrum ones rarely rise above 50%. Huge swaths of Spectrum's service area are so resource-starved they don't rise above 10% of their advertised speeds during daylight hours.

Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”

#64

Post by causality0 »

akhosravian wrote: post #40
orbital-decay wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a solid technical reason for that though, as ISPs have no control over the performance of your connection's remote part. Sure, it leaves plenty of room for abuse, but this is a necessary disclaimer, not some slippery marketing.

Does anyone in the US actually get the “up to” even plugging directly into the ISP provided modem at off peak times?

Cox Communications doesn't have the best availability record with me (1-2 hour complete connection failures in the middle of the night every month or two) but as far as speeds go they're almost always exactly as advertised.

Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”

#66

Post by as-j »

akhosravian wrote: post #40
orbital-decay wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a solid technical reason for that though, as ISPs have no control over the performance of your connection's remote part. Sure, it leaves plenty of room for abuse, but this is a necessary disclaimer, not some slippery marketing.

Does anyone in the US actually get the “up to” even plugging directly into the ISP provided modem at off peak times?

Just did a Speedtest, 880mbps down and 780Mbps up at 19:30, so peak.

Sonic gigabit in SF. I’d say that’s within margin of error. I see 900s on the early AM. Plus my WiFi can’t go that fast so I’m ok with it.

Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”

#67

Post by jasonhansel »

This reminds me of how, to make a whole lineup of Intel chips, they just make the highest-price model, and then disable features to create the lower-price ones. Or how shorter-range Teslas have the same battery capacity as longer-range ones--they just disable using the extra capacity in software.

In this case, the "5400 RPM" drive runs at 7200 RPM, but WD presumably makes it (either via software or hardware) perform worse in other ways to compensate, so that its performance is really only competitive with actual 5400 RPM drives.

That way, they can justify the lower price point without actually needing two separate manufacturing processes for each kind of drive (like how Intel saves on having to redesign each chip in a lineup).

Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”

#68

Post by yumraj »

gruez wrote: post #53
bleepblorp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't touch a Barracuda with a WD SMR drive duct taped to a 50' pole. The only way to get good hard drives these days is to buy from the enterprise lines e.g. WD Gold or Seagate Exos. They're extremely expensive, but this is the only way to get the kind of quality that used to be standard a few years ago.

Why not get an external hard drive and shuck it? You end up paying half the price, but the drive is still the same (although you have to pay attention to reviews on /r/DataHoarder). The only disadvantage is the lack of warranty and having to shuck it.

After a lot of deliberation I finally decided to shuck and got 2 8tb WD elements from Amazon and 2 8tb WD easystore from Best Buy. Shucking was extremely easy. They all had the same WD white drive inside.

However, the difference was not in just branding which to me was surprising. In Elements the drive is held by rubber brackets which won’t fit in non-WD drives, but Easystore is using rubberized screws, which allowed me to use the case with older Seagates.

They do run hot in the external case. I was trying to run badblocks and when the temp became about 60C, I decided to run an external fan. I wonder how long do these drives last in these external cases.. In my NAS with fans, the highest it got was 49C

Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”

#69

Post by ars »

pmiller2 wrote: post #54
strombofulous wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that based on the amount of lumens it produces

It is, and that's the point: you can screw a 60W equivalent LED into any socket where you previously had a 60W incandescent and have about the same amount of light for a much lower energy cost.

You'd think so. But I've seen LEDs that are kind of like spotlights and they market them as the wattage based on the brightness under the spotlight not the total lumens it produces.

Only in the fine print do they disclose how many actual lumens.

Re: Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”

#70

Post by ars »

MaulingMonkey wrote: post #20
Havoc wrote: post #18

>That increase in noise and power is what got many users on the trail of Western Digital's fake 5,400rpm spindle speed in the first place I'm amazed that there are people that would pick this up. I genuinely wouldn't notice a drive being a tiny bit louder/hotter

You might not notice a drive being a tiny bit louder/hotter, but you might notice if you've got an entire NAS rack full of 'em. Don't shout at your JBODs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDacjrSCeq4

I've always been told that drives in the same enclosure should all spin at the same RPM.

Exactly because of the issue in that video: if there are different RPMs they shake each other and cause problems.

I've never actually tested if this is true, but I've always made sure to honor it.

If in fact it is true, that this lie by Western digital is even worse.

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