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Also see this post.

There are also plenty of not DivX Plus certified devices that can play H.264/AAC/MKV perfectly. The WD TV and other cheap media players like Popcornhour and Xstreamer support it.

No but the WD TV player http://www.wdc.com/en/products/WDTV/ can play h.264 mkv etc in 1080p. I consider it to be cheap, just make sure to get the version with networking.

I am not sure if it can do different framerate directly to the tv properly(if the TV supports them).

Hm....a few things in your comment caught my eye...

...disks ~10% bigger just by switching to the larger sector size...1TB drive...they can fit 1.1TB of data onto the same size platter...the consumer will win.

Anybody remember when WDC settled that class-action lawsuit for the whole "1GB = 1 Billion Bytes", causing people to pop out and buy a "80GB" disk, only to discover it was really a "72GB" disk? (Yes, yes, the whole "how many bytes in a Kilobyte" thing)

When I put on my Business Hat, this makes sense. They can keep marketing "1TB" disks, they're just "1.1TB" with 4k blocks, rather than "0.97TB".

Wonder what happens when I don my tin foil hat...

At a glance, at least Windows XP, Vista, 7... I assume that every enterprise with enough money to be in the kind of business to worry about sector size has at least one non-OEM licence of Windows lying about.

Otherwise, you could just boot into Linux and make sure to create your partition on appropriate boundaries using your preferred partitioning tool.

Remember, we're worrying about one-time setup here.

Most of the drive manufactures are releasing tools to align the drives to 4k clusters so they can be used under XP. WDC already has theirs out here: WDC Adv Format Plus instructions on all of their new 1TB and higher drives on how to set them up properly. You do have to jumper them, then format them specially but the drives work fine with 4k clusters. I put one in my work machine on Saturday, works flawlessly.

*I only used WDC because that's the brand I picked up recently. I do know other companies have similar tools and jumper settings on their newer drives as well.

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/whitepapers/en/2579-771430.pdf

Where is that indicated in any of the specs? How would someone determine if a drive has a 4K sector size?

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-701229.pdf

From the WD website:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=763

Capacity 1 TB
User Sectors Per Drive 1,953,525,169

That would be 1 TB / 1,953,525,169 = 512. I tried to verify with the spec sheet but the model's pdf is password protected.

There are certain models of the Western Digital Caviar Green drives that are already shipping with a 4K sector size, such as this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136490 Where do you get the 4K sector size from? From here: User Sectors Per Drive 1,953,525,169 1.9 billion * 4K sectors = 7.6 GB 1.9 billion * 512 byte sectors = 972 MB Or am I missing something?

I'm just amazed that more hard drives

HDs are sealed, you dumb piece of dogshit -- smoke doesn't get in.

No, they're not, and never have been. Take a look at the label on one of them - "Warranty void if this hole is blocked" - it's for air to get in or out - every time the drive cools down, air is sucked in. Blocking the hole voids your warranty.

http://support.wdc.com/warranty/policy.asp

Additional Limitations on Warranty

Western Digital's warranty does not cover Products which have been received improperly packaged, altered, or physically damaged. Products will be inspected upon receipt. You can view additional examples of the warranty limitations below by clicking on the available links.

Alterations

• * Counterfeit label(s)
• * Customer added jumper wires
• * Incorrect PCBA/HDA pair
• * Labels have been switched:
  1. True Western Digital label on non-Western Digital drive
  2. True Western Digital label on different capacity Western Digital Drive
• * Labels exhibit tampering
• * Label missing standard printing such as UL or capacity
• * Missing barcode or top cover label
• * No tape seal - (non-authorized data recovery sticker)
• * Serial number on top cover does not match barcode on end
• * Western Digital labels or breather filter holes obscured by customer applied stickers

Either you've never held a hard drive in your hands, you can't read, or you're dumb as dogshit. Your call.

WD LIVE blows this away, and has better playback....

A much better bang for the buck.

http://wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=735

Since most modern commercial-grade HDs come with a 3-5 year or better warranty these days [1], it's easier just to cash those in when the drives go bad and build a new box around the newer-model drives they ship you in return.

A word of caution: I had an external Seagate enclosure fail on me earlier this year. Because I've seen plenty of enclosures fail (as opposed to the drives inside of them), I opened it up, and installed the drive internally. Alas, the drive was as dead as a doornail.

Return the drive to Seagate, wait two months, and finally receive the same exact drive back in the mail, because I'd voided my warranty by attempting to recover my data.

Since most modern commercial-grade HDs come with a 3-5 year or better warranty these days [1], it's easier just to cash those in when the drives go bad and build a new box around the newer-model drives they ship you in return.

This is truly RAID, as Google, etc. have realized and developed. When the drives die, you don't cry over having the exact same drive stocked. You don't cry at all. At $8k a machine, you could actually afford to flat-out replace the entire box every 4 years and not affect your bottom line (since, you know, you're saving better than three times that by not going with one of the 'cloud vendors').

I ended up buying this guy for a cool $99 shipped. Pop some third party firmware and your options are aplenty.

With a little bit of effort and a lot of fun (and linux, too!) you get some great functionality for under $100.

I look at the My Passport Essential SE specs and see length of 3.1 inches. I look at the WD Scorpio Blue and see 2.75 inches. Nowhere on their site do I see 2.5 inches. Unless they're doing some horrible rounding.

I think that is platter diameter inside the drive.
-Taylor

I look at the My Passport Essential SE specs and see length of 3.1 inches. I look at the WD Scorpio Blue and see 2.75 inches. Nowhere on their site do I see 2.5 inches. Unless they're doing some horrible rounding.

I think that is platter diameter inside the drive.
-Taylor

I look at the My Passport Essential SE specs and see length of 3.1 inches. I look at the WD Scorpio Blue and see 2.75 inches. Nowhere on their site do I see 2.5 inches. Unless they're doing some horrible rounding.

I look at the My Passport Essential SE specs and see length of 3.1 inches. I look at the WD Scorpio Blue and see 2.75 inches. Nowhere on their site do I see 2.5 inches. Unless they're doing some horrible rounding.

Finally: Done.

Actually, today we have 2TB drives. http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=576

Can you give a few examples of popular hardware devices that'll play MKV?

The WD TV from Western Digital. I have no idea if it sells well or not, but it's from a well-known company.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=572

When I tried it (also in Safari) the first link was the Western Digital page on the HD...

Magic is rather unnecessary. A multi-terabyte Caviar already exists.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=576

Well, you could click twice more, once on this (in the linked PR) http://wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=576 and then on the "Specifications" tab (I hate web 2.0 shit like this where you can't properly link to content).

Power Dissipation
        Read/Write 7.4 Watts
        Idle 4.0 Watts
        Standby 0.97 Watts
        Sleep 0.97 Watts

For comparison, here are the number for the 1TB (32MB cache)
Current Requirements
        Power Dissipation
        Read/Write 5.4 Watts
        Idle 2.8 Watts
        Standby 0.40 Watts
        Sleep 0.40 Watts

I don't understand why Standby/Sleep power use more than doubled... As for the Active, I assume that's due to spinning 2x the platters and added processing power to be able to process the data coming off those platters 2x the speed.

I read both TFA and Western Digital's press release. There is not one actual number behind any of the claims of "low power". Guys, we do have ways of quantifying power consumption, you know.

This sounds pretty much like WD's packaging rules, except they only make you pay for shipping one way.

WD also have a nice page with pictures of how not do do it.

This sounds pretty much like WD's packaging rules, except they only make you pay for shipping one way.

WD also have a nice page with pictures of how not do do it.

Or just purchase this thing...

(Sorry to look like an lobbying bastard but if more hackers get into this little gem... amazing things could be done in the future...)

Western Digital WDTV is the closest thing to a perfect player for 100 bucks... and with the latest firmware update, is nearing perfection... if only had ethernet... :(

WD ShareSpace(TM) Network Storage System - 4 TB, Gigabit Ethernet http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=501 I found it for a little over $800. I went back and forth with several options the Drobo and MS Home Server included. I came to conclusion that, Home Server does not provide the level of fault-tolerance I wanted in a solution so that was out. The Drobo is cool and all, but I don't like the extra $200 for the networking. Since I was going to go buy WD drives anyway, why not get the whole thing from them ;)

Too bad all major HD manufactures claim 10,000 power cycles, and many power saving settings will turn off a HD w/o doing anything else.

That number sounded wrong, so I checked some typical 3.5" desktop hard drives. These are the first three I looked at.

Seagate 7200.10 : 50 000 start/stop cycles.
WD Caviar Blue : 50 000 start/stop cycles.
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 : 50 000 start/stop cycles.

Since Seagate bought Maxtor and Hitachi bought IBM's storage division, those three are all the major manufacturers of desktop hard drives.

Head wear is the limitation with stopping and starting typical desktop hard drives. Desktop drives typically park their heads on a laser-etched landing zone at the centre of the platters. Spinning up the drive causes wear as the heads drag on the surface until the air cushion is developed - the laser etching roughens the surface, allowing the heads to slide more easily. Most laptop drives park their heads on a ramp, so the platters can spin up with no head contact and can take an order of magnitude more cycles (specified as load/unload).

I keep reading about people going Seagate over Western Digital "for the 5 year warranty".

If you think that WD doesn't offer a 5 year warranty on any drives you are wrong. If you think there is only "the" 5 year warranty instead of "those" 5 year warranties then maybe I'm going to be a grammar nazi too.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=488 will get you started on 5 year warranty drives from WD.

WD1001FALS = 1TB
WD7501AALS = 750GB
WD6401AALS = 640GB (I'd recommend this drive)
WD5001AALS = 500GB

People are so quick to look to the top end but there is a reliability/speed/power/noise benefit to buying the sweet spot drive. Cost is in the eye of the beholder as the 640GB drive is lower in purchase price but won't be the best price per GB. Myself I'm willing to use the smaller drives, but then I'm the type that can still make out on a 250GB drive without being low on disk space.

As a single drive or in an array as long as you don't run out of space you gain performance using smaller drives so long as you buy carefully. In RAID more spindles equal more speed. As a single drive you can pick and choose the highest density platters (320/333/334 as the desired platters currently vs the 250GB platters that are still floating around the supply chain in so many drives)

Bring on the velociraptors!

Per your request.

You think Seagate is the only company to offer consumer hard drives with a 5 year warranty?

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=488&language=en

It's not that hard to find 5 year warranty mentioned on the WDC website.

Black = WD6401AALS 5 year warranty
Blue = WD6400AAKS 3 year warranty
Green = WD6400AACS 3 year warranty

And to add to the fun the Black has twice the cache and is only about $10 more than the Blue at 640GB.

Seagate is by no means a bad company but they aren't the only game in town.

Sounds like you're purchasing your drives from a dodgy OEM, especially since all of their laptop drives ship with 3-year warranty.

I suppose this might have been different in the past, though judging a hard drive manufacturer purely based upon anecdotal evidence is a bit flimsy. There are people who say the same thing about every single other hard drive manufacturer out there.

I'll wholeheartedly agree that there can be bad batches of drives (which is most likely what you encountered), though any faults are usually rectified quickly enough that there doesn't seem to be all that huge of a difference across manufacturers when you look at the entire population.

If you've ever managed a computer lab (eg. large number of identical machines), you'll occasionally run into a batch of machines with particularly dodgy power supplies, hard drives, etc..... More interestingly, if you've got a large sample of "identical" machines that were ordered in separate batches, you'll also likely find that the patterns of failure differ somewhat between the two batches.

The only exception to this is that server/enterprise-grade drives tend to be more reliable then their counsumer-grade counterparts. This is why they cost (a lot) more.

Your transfer limit is either:

1) Lack of GigE switch between the machines, or a really really poor GigE switch (80 mbps - that sounds like Fast Ethernet)
2) Poor GigE chipset(s) on the mobo.
3) Poor CPU - rsync and scp encrypt the transfer which uses alot of cpu at each end. Also, GigE generates a fantastic number of interrupts/sec. Intel's Pro/1000 GT has an "Interrupt Moderation" feature to help with that.
4) Your hard drive speed. GigE is faster than most single hard drives. Seagate's Savvio 15k could maybe push it, with a STR of 117-97 MBps. A 10k Raptor is only 84 MB/s STR.

Run iPerf between two machines and see what your hardware can really do. (Quick tutorial, run `iperf -s` on one machine and `iperf -c {ip of other machine}` on the other. Then reverse the roles. FYI for a Lan, no IP Stack tuning is necessary)

Yes, trying to get what Gig-E promises has pissed me off too.

The data sheet on a brand new 750GB WD SATA drive says that it's rated for at least 50,000 power cycles. What's your idea of "multiple times per day"? In a low-duty fileserver where you transfer a file, then spin down; transfer then spin down; transfer then spin down 50 times a day, you're going to get about 3 years out of it. Laptop drives are far better, but you probably weren't planning to put those in your fileserver.

The data sheet on a brand new 750GB WD SATA drive says that it's rated for at least 50,000 power cycles. What's your idea of "multiple times per day"? In a low-duty fileserver where you transfer a file, then spin down; transfer then spin down; transfer then spin down 50 times a day, you're going to get about 3 years out of it. Laptop drives are far better, but you probably weren't planning to put those in your fileserver.

Partial restrictions some people can get around are no less odious. The intent is the same and they are designed to get you used to a restricted world.

It's clear that WD was advertising the device people want but delivering something else. This WD page promisses:

WD Anywhere Access - This storage system and all the files on it are always accessible when you need them, even when your local computer is turned off.

It even has pictures of music on the beach and images flowing to multiple houses, but this page lets you know that you can't share anything with "unverifiable media license authentication" and lists every media type but text and still images. Copyright warriors want to know why WD hates poets, the press and photographers. Normal people are feel ripped off because getting around this dissapointment is beyond the average user. Other people have voiced their anger at the restrictions as described and described in detail how they suck beyond the description.

Anyone who thinks restrictions like this are OK needs to take a step back and ask themselves why a hard disk should not give you back your media on demand. If it does less than that, it's defective. Media propaganda continues to market restrictions as necessary and enabling. They are nothing of the sort. Digital media and networks are enabling. Restrictions just suck.

For one thing, it seems as if though the system only works with Windoze. The easiest way to make it do what you want is to take the drives out and put them into a free computer. It is better and possible to unlock it (this reference) but it's a pain in the neck and clearly against the intentions of the maker.

More importantly, ESR's prediction of M$ behavior is something you should generalize to the entire non free software ecosystem. He predicted collusion with the MAFIAA to force hardware based restrictions and he predicted attacks on freedom based on freedom being a "terrorist" asset. That they are doing it with free software is a double ding. Having free software won't do any good if WD, M$ and friends push bad laws that require all files to have "verifiable media license authentication" or other digital restrictions controlled by others. That's the direction ESR predicted we would be heading and the World Book is both physical and ideological proof that he was right.

In a sarcastic sort of way. Here's a comment that someone left:

According to the WD site one of the benefits of the drive is that you can:

"Listen to the music on your My Book World Edition drive while you're on vacation."

and it can hold:
Up to 571,000 digital photos
Up to 500,000 songs (MP3)
Up to 50,000 songs (uncompressed CD quality)
Up to 100 hours of Digital Video (DV)
Up to 800 hours of DVD quality video
Up to 200 hours of HD video



See for yourself at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=340

My Book(TM) World Edition(TM)

What it holds:
Up to 285,000 digital photos
Up to 250,000 songs (MP3)
Up to 25,000 songs (uncompressed CD quality)
Up to 76 hours of Digital Video (DV)
Up to 400 hours of DVD quality video
Up to 100 hours of HD video

Please excuse me for being a bit unnice, but (assuming WD provides correct specs) you sir are one huge moron.
According to the official product sheet (some javascript magic, click the "Specifications" tab to get to the interesting bits), one of those drives eats up 7.5W during reads/writes and 4.0W when idle. According to a (I think it was the first) law of thermodynamics, it cannot "use" -42.5W since then it'd suck up energy which is impossible to accomplish without increasing it's mass which typically only black holes do (or something to that amount, anyways).

Interesting - WD don't tell you the rotational speed! Must be the first drive that doesn't. In the rotational speed row it just says "IntelliPower" and below "A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate, and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance."
I guess I'd need to see some independent benchmarking before I would believe that performance is not hurt. Also is the power saving dependent on the drive not being used flat out?

I'm using a My Book(TM) World Edition(TM) II - 1TB from Western Digital URL: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=340 It was only $ 400 at Best Buy. Works fine, a little nosy and a little slow on it's 10/100/1000 interface. WD now has 2TB of NAS available. Later, Bruce ;-)

and my PS3 has a $500 Blu-ray player, $249 media server, $109 wireless adaptor, $67 Upscaling DVD player, a $65 60GB 2.5" harddrive, a $30 bluetooth adapter, a $23 multi flash card reader, a $5 web browser, and a game console for free. It's amazing everyone doesn't have one. That's well over $1000 in value for only $600... no, $400!

Question, if I sit on it, can I claim an another $25 value as a butt warmer?

Look here: My Raptor 10kRPM SATA drive has a buffer-to-disk sustained theoretical transfer rate of 84 MB/s. Furthermore, this embedded OS is not in true ROM, it's flashable.

Its more than noise, however. We don't need a more efficient cooling system, we need a hard drive that uses less power and generates less heat.

Hey, guess what: the kind of drive you want exists too! (Not to mention, of course, that 2.5" drives also meet your criteria and have been around since forever.)

I have no doubt that something like this will be released within a decade.

Just look at how storage capacity has been increasing. Just 6 years ago the first 100GB HDDs reached the desktop. This year we've hit 1,000GB. In 2013 10,000GB will be enough to store 6,000 hours of 480p A/V which is about every waking moment for an entire year.

Here is a recent lengthy story about 'lifelogging' from The Chronicle of Higher Education:

http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i23/23a03001.htm