Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM” • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by PeterStuer » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 12:26 PM UTC

smnrchrds wrote: post #13

ha5u wrote: post #8

The 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. Simpl…

> 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? Just like how internet speeds are advertised ("Up to 300 Mb/s").

The worst case ever:

Long ago an ISP sold me on VDSL for the office as "up to 55/3 Mbit/s". After install I notice they had deployed ADSL equipment with a theoretical maximum throughput of 12/1.3 Mbit/s. They claimed that this was ok and tried to hide behind the "up to" clause.

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

#112

Post by sgerenser » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

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?

Every time I've tested it my AT&T Fiber 300Mbit symmetrical connection gave me pretty close (if not more) than 300mb upload and download. Speed is also high enough that I have to test on LAN for it to be reliable, as just one wall can cause my WiFi to drop below the maximum speed of the service (of course, I'm using my own AP not the terrible one built into the provided modem).

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

#113

Post by ashtonkem » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 2:27 PM UTC

m463 wrote: post #108

ashtonkem wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I bought a Prius and they gave me a V8 I sure as heck would.

That's an interesting take on my analogy. I don't know if they advertised it as a low power drive, but if they did it would be surprising in a negative sense.

That is exactly why you’d want 5400 RPM in a non-budget drive; lower power, lower noise, longer drive lifespan.

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

#114

Post by throw0101a » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 2:38 PM UTC

ComputerGuru wrote: post #60

throw0101a wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. You might be surprised to find it surprisingly affordable. Cheaper than colocation, even.

> You might be surprised to find it surprisingly affordable.

Assuming you can easily get hooked up at a residential address. Perhaps if you live in an apartment/condo tower, then fibre may have already been run:

* https://www.fibrestream.ca/locations

Some random house, on some random street? Unlikely.

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

#115

Post by throw0101a » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 2:44 PM UTC

ATsch wrote: post #103

throw0101a wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is already what they did with "KB/MB/GB/TB." The 'confusion' as to whether the "K" prefix meant a factor of 10^3 or 2^10 goes back decades. In 1961 a book says "it is more usual to express the speed in bits or kilobits (1,000 bits) per second"; an IBM 1410 manual says ""The 40K core array requires 40,000 valid five-position addresses from 0,000 to 39,999." In 1962 an ACM paper referred to a "4K IBM 1401" which…

It just randomly so happened that drive manufacturers used the meaning that benefitted them and is not really used by anyone else

It just randomly so happened that drive manufacturers used the meaning of what the SI folks said the meaning actually was.

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

#116

Post by throw0101a » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 2:45 PM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #59

throw0101a wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is already what they did with "KB/MB/GB/TB." The 'confusion' as to whether the "K" prefix meant a factor of 10^3 or 2^10 goes back decades. In 1961 a book says "it is more usual to express the speed in bits or kilobits (1,000 bits) per second"; an IBM 1410 manual says ""The 40K core array requires 40,000 valid five-position addresses from 0,000 to 39,999." In 1962 an ACM paper referred to a "4K IBM 1401" which…

In 1962 an ACM paper referred to a "4K IBM 1401" which had 4000 characters of storage, but in 1964 Amdahl wrote a paper that had 1K meaning 1024. That's easy to explain, as a 1401 is actually a decimal computer.

Further up:

> In the 1950s, "1 kilobit" meant 1000 bits:[9][10]

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

#117

Post by ric2b » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 3:45 PM UTC

acidbaseextract wrote: post #76

swiley wrote: post #41

This kind of crap is why I hate shopping for computer hardware.

In general it's an amazing time to be a computer hardware consumer. There's real competition in pretty much every primary component hardware vertical. The spinning rust data storage market has been uniquely crappy of late. The sketchy stuff shows up in cheap components with slim margins (budget AIO watercoolers, budget hard drives, budget PSUs budget/no-name ebay video cards).

There isn't a lot of competition on GPU's, which happen to be one of the most expensive components.

That market is basically just Nvidia (80%+ market share and still dominating in performance/features).

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

#118

Post by ComputerGuru » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #114

ComputerGuru wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. You might be surprised to find it surprisingly affordable. Cheaper than colocation, even.

> You might be surprised to find it surprisingly affordable. Assuming you can easily get hooked up at a residential address. Perhaps if you live in an apartment/condo tower, then fibre may have already been run: * https://www.fibrestream.ca/locations Some random house, on some random street? Unlikely.

If you get in touch with the right department, you would typically have to sign a multi year contract with the net value due upfront in case of termination to get them to run the fiber to you. Or else cover the cost of the run as an installation fee.

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

#119

Post by ComputerGuru » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 4:03 PM UTC

erinnh wrote: post #97

ComputerGuru wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. You might be surprised to find it surprisingly affordable. Cheaper than colocation, even.

Only if you want a complete rack or more at a colo facility. If you get half a rack or less, that tends to be (quite a bit) cheaper.

I have both, and I think the break even point is probably paying for around 7 or 8U.

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

#120

Post by throw0101a » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

ComputerGuru wrote: post #118

throw0101a wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You might be surprised to find it surprisingly affordable. Assuming you can easily get hooked up at a residential address. Perhaps if you live in an apartment/condo tower, then fibre may have already been run: * https://www.fibrestream.ca/locations Some random house, on some random street? Unlikely.

If you get in touch with the right department, you would typically have to sign a multi year contract with the net value due upfront in case of termination to get them to run the fiber to you. Or else cover the cost of the run as an installation fee.

> Or else cover the cost of the run as an installation fee.

The community of Ammon, ID, built their own municipal fibre network because of this:

> It all began about seven years ago when the city government, suffering from horrible upload speeds, wanted a dedicated 100Mbps circuit between City Hall and the Public Works building, less than a mile apart. Qwest (now CenturyLink) didn't want the project, while Cable One offered to do it for a start-up fee of $80,000 plus $1,000 a month, Patterson said.

* https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/what-...

* https://www.ammonfiber.com

At this year's (virtual) NLNOG there was presentation from a fellow who was fed up with slow Internet options in his rural Michigan county and so setup his own ISP by having fibre optic pulled to his house and then redistributing service to his neighbours:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASXJgvy3mEg