WD Cavier Black 2TB or WD Elements 2TB as EXT HDD

Discussion in 'hardware' started by LunarWolf, Apr 30, 2014.

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  1. LunarWolf

    LunarWolf Registered Member

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    Hi,

    I was looking at WD Cavier Black 2TB and WD Elements 2TB. If I buy WD Cavier Black 2TB + sata to usb enclosure , the difference in price between just WD Elements 2TB will be about ~US$31.


    These are the criteria :
    1. I am looking for a HDD with at least 3 years warranty.
    2. I want the full space that I paid for. I understand that WD drive with WD Smartware pre-installed consume space that is non-reclaimable even after formatting. I could be wrong.

    So which should I get?

    WD Cavier Black 2TB + sata to usb enclosure or WD Elements 2TB


    Thank You
     
  2. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    The blacks are 7200 RPM, it might need an enclosure with 2 USB connectors to power it. It would probably be the faster drive if you did though. If you go that way be sure not to go cheap on the enclosure. Neither is a bad option. I guess it depends on what you plan to do with it.
     
  3. Robin A.

    Robin A. Registered Member

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    I prefer enclosures, they are more flexible. An enclosure for 3.5 in disks should have its own power supply. I have used USB 3.0 Vantec enclosures for several years, no problems at all.
     
  4. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    Ok, so it looks like you are looking for something external, but not necessarily portable. Yes, that type of enclosure will have its own power supply, and the Black will be a better drive than the Elements. So I personally recommend the Black with a good enclosure. If you were looking for portability I would recommend the reverse.
     
  5. LunarWolf

    LunarWolf Registered Member

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    If I am looking for portability, should I go with WD Scorpio Black Instead? The sad thing is they only have max 750GB.
     
  6. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    They are much lighter and use less power. I had a pair of them in my laptop (the 320 GB ones) and they were fairly decent drives. It would be better than hauling around a 3.5 inch drive in an enclosure that required a power brick.

    An SSD would be the perfect thing to use here but then your expense goes up. They have come way down but still much more expensive than mechanical drives. I did drop an WD Scorpio drive once and that was the end of it.
     
  7. LunarWolf

    LunarWolf Registered Member

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    I am not interested in SSD. I am looking for a DIY external HDD or a ready external HDD with minimum 3 years warranty.
     
  8. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    I bought a 2TB WD USB3 portable external HD. It's as fast as my powered eSATA HD. It contained WD software which I deleted.
     
  9. jwcca

    jwcca Registered Member

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    An off the shelf external enclosure should have a cooling fan and good contact between the drive and the housing rails to avoid the drive getting too hot which will happen with 7200rpm drives.
    A better way, although slightly less portable, is a docking station with a power brick. The drive is open to the air for cooling and you can have several drives (some docking stations have 2 bays and aren't much bigger than single bays). If you go this route, also buy plastic boxes to house drives that aren't being used in the docking station.

    J
     
  10. LunarWolf

    LunarWolf Registered Member

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    Any other opinions?
     
  11. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    You specified your criteria above but not really a use case. You asked "If I am looking for portability" but did not confirm that you were. Will this sit on a desk all of the time? Do you intend to carry it with you everywhere you go? Are you using USB2 or USB3? Knowing what you intend to do with it will probably give everyone more info for what would be more practical.
     
  12. LunarWolf

    LunarWolf Registered Member

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    Ok. Sorry. Let me write down but I want again.

    1. It must be portable like a a external 2.5' drive.
    2. It must have at least 3 years warranty
    3. I am using USB 2but since USB 3 is reversible with USB 2, I am sure it doesn't matter
    4. Using it to store all my pictures, movies, books, documents, program installer.


    Anything else?
     
  13. jwcca

    jwcca Registered Member

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    Yes,
    - size? (2TB? - you won't find a 2.5" drive that big, max on NewEgg is 1.5TB)
    - with or without a power brick? (if 3.5" you'll need a power brick)
    - budget? you can buy a 4TB USB3 external without a power brick for about $270.
     
  14. LunarWolf

    LunarWolf Registered Member

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    I am from Malaysia. So I got to make with what is in my country. Obviously without a powerbrick as it must function like a portable HDD. I was thinking of getting a 3.5" hard disk, buy an enclosure for it, use a Y USB 2.0 cable to power it. Does a Y USB 2.0 cable provide sufficient power to a 3.5" HDD?

    No 4TB. I don't trust 4TB drive as I don't think the technology is stable for it to be reliable.

    This is what I am planning

    INT 3.5 HDD + enclosure > WD Cavier Black 2TB (5 years warranty :thumb: :D:cool:)
    INT 2.5 HDD + enclosure > WD Scorpio Black 750GB (5 years warranty :thumb::D:cool:)
    EXT 2.5 HDD > WD Elements 2TB (not sure about warranty for this drive :cautious:)

    Not sure which one is better. Like I said. I want a drive with at least 3 years warranty.
     
    Last edited: May 4, 2014
  15. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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  16. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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  17. LunarWolf

    LunarWolf Registered Member

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    If I were to go with the Scorpio, should I use the Y adapter or just a single USB adapter is enough to power the 2.5" Scorpio drive?



    What about the WD Smartware? I heard you cannot reclaim the space use by that WD program even if you were to format your drive. Or it can be relaim by running the WD tool to fill up the drive with zeroes?
     
  18. jwcca

    jwcca Registered Member

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    I formatted my 1TB Passport and created 3 partitions such that I 'used' all the available MB. The result was that the 3 partitions add up to 999,653,625,856 bytes which is 346,374,144 less than 1,000,000,000,000. So I "lost" 330MB or 0.03%, but I don't know how large the space is for the WD software (which I don't use) so I can't explain exactly why the difference.
     
  19. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    I deleted the WD software.
    The partition size on my 2 TB "My Passport" is 1907696 MiB
    The partition size of an internal 2 TB HD is 1907728 MiB

    A difference of only 32 MiB.
     
  20. LunarWolf

    LunarWolf Registered Member

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    I can live with a 32MB differences
    How did you delete them? select them > Delete or you format them using special tools?
     
  21. jwcca

    jwcca Registered Member

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    I just used Windows to Quick Format my partitions because I wanted 3 partitions. I didn't bother to try to delete the files. I don't remember but Windows likely warned me that all existing data on the drive would be 'lost' which = 'deleted'.
     
  22. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    You would need the Y adapter. In return you get faster speeds and a 5 year warranty vs. the Passport. It's up to you which is better.
     
  23. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Yes, just a standard delete to the Recycle Bin.

    Does anyone know about the quality difference between the Passport and the Elements portable HD? The 2 TB Elements is $20 cheaper.

    I often make my external HDs bootable. Then you can boot from the external HD, open your image/restore program and restore the OS partition. You don't need to use a separate flash drive.
     
    Last edited: May 5, 2014
  24. LunarWolf

    LunarWolf Registered Member

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    My own personal experience with the smartware, got myself a 500GB My Passport few years back, do a quick format. Didn't get back my space. It should be close to 500GB but what I got is just ~460GB. :thumbd::mad::( Don't know where the other 40Gb went to.
     
  25. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Decimal to binary conversion. A 500 GB HD will show as 466 GiB in Windows. Manufacturers of HDs, SSDs and flash drives advertise their drives in Decimal. Windows shows GiB, not GB.

    1 GB = 10^9 bytes (1,000,000,000)

    1 GiB = 2^30 bytes (1,073,741,824)
     
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