Storage Solutions WD Blue - Performance Query

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mumble33

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I bought a WD Blue 1 TB 5400 rpm (model WD10EZRZ) hard drive today. My requirement is gaming and not planning to have an SSD.

I actually ordered WD Caviar Blue 1 TB 7200 rpm (model WD10EZEZ).

The dealer is telling Caviar Blue is obsolete and not available. Dealer is ready to replace with Seagate 7200 rpm or pay back the cash.

Does WD Caviar Blue 7200 rpm vs WD Blue 5400 rpm contribute much difference in gaming and normal read/write functioning.

Both have 64mb cache.

Is it ok to settle with WD Blue 5400 rpm?
 
Get it replaced with 7200rpm hdd or get a refund and buy from somewhere else. 5400rpm hdd sucks, they're not meant for gaming coz they're slow as hell.
 
I read somewhere that wd is selling green drives as blue, that's why we see 5400 rpm in recent blue drives.
So yes..if you can get 7200rpm drive ..then go for it.

Because of this same reason I opted for Seagate 7200 hdd when I was in market for internal 2tb drive.
 
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Yes, get it replaced. Compared to a 7200 rpm drive, a 5400 rpm drive will exhibit slightly laggy times which will increase if the disk is doing anything disk intensive while gaming.

You should be able to get Seagate and HGST 7200 rpm drives.
 
I use a WD Green 5400rpm as my one and only drive (for both OS and games), and I can safely tell you that the speed difference (if any) is not even noticeable. There are absolutely no issues while gaming.
Maybe I load maps a couple seconds slower but I don't mind that. Actually sometimes I load the map faster than my friend using a 7200rpm Blue.

Also as an added advantage 5200rpm drives run 4-5C cooler.

The reason people might be noticing lag is because of the Head Parking feature.
WD sets it too aggressively at 8 seconds, which causes it to park the read/write head after just 8 idle seconds resulting in read/write lag.
It's highly recommended to change the setting to 5 minutes.


Make sure the drive you want to change the timer on is the only drive attached to your system and that it's set to IDE mode and not AHCI (you can revert back to AHCI after changing the timer).

 
mumble33 said:
I bought a WD Blue 1 TB 5400 rpm (model WD10EZRZ) hard drive today. My requirement is gaming and not planning to have an SSD.

I actually ordered WD Caviar Blue 1 TB 7200 rpm (model WD10EZEZ).

The dealer is telling Caviar Blue is obsolete and not available. Dealer is ready to replace with Seagate 7200 rpm or pay back the cash.

Does WD Caviar Blue 7200 rpm vs WD Blue 5400 rpm contribute much difference in gaming and normal read/write functioning.

Both have 64mb cache.

Is it ok to settle with WD Blue 5400 rpm?
Click to expand...

Hi mumble33,
Here are few things I'd like to notify:

First - the Caviar series are really discontinued for some time now.

Second - gaming relies on the storage's performance solely for the loading times and FPS and graphics are not affected in any way (unless you play MMO/Open World games where the surrounding textures may load faster/smoother but again that won't affect their quality nor the FPS.

Third- the performance difference between the 5,400 and the 7,200 rpm drives should hardly be noticed in gaming as it may result as two - three seconds difference in loading times.
You can check the spec sheets and see the performance differences here:

http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=ANRin5

I'd suggest that try the drive and see how it goes and if you are not happy with it's performance then they can return it and check out the EZEZ model from another vendor.
Hope it helps. Keep me posted.
 
Hi! I also use a WD Green 5400rpm drive as my primary and sole hdd in my gaming pc ( fx8320 and gtx 960) and i dont notice any lags due to the hdd. Perhaps my loading times are a few seconds more but apart from that every thing runs smooth.

Now thats concerning 7200rpm vs 5400rpm drives. As for the matter with the dealer, it is totally upto you whether you want to get the seagate or keep the existing. But it wont affect your gaming performance.
 
What will it be used for?
Unless you are gonna be doing heavy video editing, it won't make any perceivable difference whether you have a 5400rpm drive or a 7200rpm one.

Only the Head Parking 'power saving feature' in Green drives might cause read/write lag.

But a 5400rpm Blue is as good as a 7200rpm Blue for all intents and purposes.
 
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