The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Western Digital Black^2 Dual Drive Review

    Discussion in 'Notebook News and Reviews' started by Administrator, Nov 25, 2013.

  1. Administrator

    Administrator Administrator Super Moderator

    Reputations:
    157
    Messages:
    352
    Likes Received:
    18
    Trophy Points:
    31
    Administrator, Nov 25, 2013
    #1
  2. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

    Reputations:
    7,197
    Messages:
    28,841
    Likes Received:
    2,166
    Trophy Points:
    581
    At last! I've been wondering why it took so long for the drive manufacturers to produce something like this although I would have set up the unit to have the whole capacity visible to the user and provided a script to make the SSD a separate partition.

    The next challenge is to combine one of the new 5mm HDDs with the SSD board to get this unit into the 7mm form factor used by a significant proportion of the thinner notebooks..

    John
     
    John Ratsey, Nov 25, 2013
    #2
    J.R. Nelson likes this.
  3. J.R. Nelson

    J.R. Nelson Minister of Awesome

    Reputations:
    338
    Messages:
    549
    Likes Received:
    11
    Trophy Points:
    31
    Well, they can't take it too much thinner right now - they're already using a single platter for the hard drive. I'm sure they're working on it, though. :)
     
    J.R. Nelson, Nov 25, 2013
    #3
  4. Colpolite

    Colpolite Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    32
    Messages:
    990
    Likes Received:
    11
    Trophy Points:
    31
    Isn't the point of having SSD besides the snappiness and speed is to prevent moving parts right? So by putting another HDD in there means there will be moving parts?
     
    Colpolite, Nov 27, 2013
    #4
  5. J.R. Nelson

    J.R. Nelson Minister of Awesome

    Reputations:
    338
    Messages:
    549
    Likes Received:
    11
    Trophy Points:
    31
    Sure. I'd argue, however, that for the vast majority of people, the point of an SSD is the speed increases. For a much smaller number, the lack of mechanical issues is a motivating factor, but I think most people simply don't care.
     
    J.R. Nelson, Nov 27, 2013
    #5
  6. Charles P. Jefferies

    Charles P. Jefferies Lead Moderator Super Moderator

    Reputations:
    22,339
    Messages:
    36,639
    Likes Received:
    5,080
    Trophy Points:
    931
    I'd definitely buy this product if I were upgrading a drive ...best of both worlds. As John said, about time. Nice review JR.
     
    Charles P. Jefferies, Dec 1, 2013
    #6
  7. ickibar1234

    ickibar1234 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    4
    Messages:
    165
    Likes Received:
    14
    Trophy Points:
    31
    It actually uses two 500GB platters to make the 5400RPM 1TB mechanical portion. 7mm thick 1TB blue slim.
    Hope the next generation of this drive is 3x the flash cache. As you can see on the black side of the drive, the circuit board for the SSD only take up about 1/3 the space on it. Also hope the next gen is 7200RPM, provided the Scorpio Black gets 'thin' technology as well to have 2 platters in 7mm thickness. On that note, hope the Scorpio Black get a 3 platter 9.5mm design to get towards the 2TB of the Samsung M9T 5400RPM drive.


    Has anybody updated the firmware for this dual drive? It's supposed to keep the mechanical portion of the drive spun up more of the time? Does it still spin down after some period of inactivity, despite if windows power management is set to never sleep the hard drives?
     
    ickibar1234, Jan 25, 2015
    #7