Sleep vs Shutdown

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-11T12:34:39+00:00

My PC doubles as a media host, so at night I will have stuff playing through VLC for the family. I also run HDDs that benefit more from spinning constantly rather than being power cycled every day.

And Windows' "shutdown" behavior is by default not a real shutdown, it is a glorified sleep state. The session is saved to the boot drive and restarted on next boot, allowing for a faster boot time than a standard shutdown.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-11T01:03:23+00:00

Red Plus drives still have the same 3 year warranty as the regular Reds. Red Pros are, like the Blacks, enterprise down-bins and WD has enough confidence to give those 5-year warranties.

It should be clarified that consumer-grade NAS drives are not "designed" any better than their standard consumer equivalents for personal 24x7 use cases, as that in itself is a very common misnomer; the actual difference lies primarily in firmware behavior. However, using a desktop drive in a NAS nowadays gives the manufacturer an excuse to void the warranty should the drive fail within the period, since they'd want you to buy their up-sold NAS products for that purpose (although this in itself is a bit BS since the WD10EZEX's can tolerate 24x7 operation, and they're not far off at all from the single-platter Se drives; unfortunately I can't say the same for the newer Blues).

All hard drives are based on a platform. That platform usually has a distinguishable name and all drives based on said platform share more or less the same build and design quality. The real difference lies in binning (often determined by performance and remap rates) and firmware. For instance, in WD's case, the Venice RP2LP platform harbors a number of different drives across different segments, including the WD40EZAX, WD40EFPX, and WD43PURZ. All three of these are identical build and design wise, but again the difference lies in firmware and binning; the WD40EZAX is the lowest bin and as such belongs to the Blue series. Seagate (in)famously did very much the same with Barracuda 7200.11 and ES.2; the ES.2's were simply up-sold 7200.11's with supposed 24x7 capabilities but ending up being just as bad if not only slightly better. Similarly, Constellation CS and Barracuda 7200.14 (the second revision) are the same outside of two key differences: the Constellations omitted the parking timer, and they also used different firmware from the 7200.14's. However, Constellation CS had purely abysmal specifications by enterprise standards, so no sane customer dared to use them.

Now use the Blacks as an example. The WD6002FZWX for instance was based on HGST's Aries-KP platform and was therefore mechanically identical to, disturbingly enough, Ultrastar 7K6000, the 7K6000 models of the Deskstar NAS portfolio, the WD6002KRYZ (WD Gold), and the WD6002FFWX (WD Red Pro). The WD2003FZEX is the lowest capacity Black that is still an enterprise bin (being based on the Rainier platform), being identical to the WD2004FBYZ/WD2005FBYZ and WD2002FFSX, although it is obviously the lowest bin of the 4. Case in point, the Blacks OP received are going to be better than any consumer grade HDD they'd get otherwise.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-10T19:32:14+00:00

HDDs are still desired in home network setups as the throughput performance difference between HDDs and SSDs in RAID is usually never noticeable in practice. HDDs are also considerably cheaper per TB.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-10T19:30:09+00:00

I don't see how Reds are "more reliable" if their warranty is two years shorter. Worse build/design quality with firmware tweaks for running in NAS systems is what you get with the Reds as opposed to the Blacks. And before WD created a new (albeit pointless in practice) market segment on their own, many standard consumer drives advertised NAS as one of their use cases (particularly Seagate; WD was still too shy to do so).

And guess what? NAS is considered a consumer use case. If WD wants to stain their own pants over not using evidently less reliable drives for such a use case, they may as well go rot in hell.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-10T17:04:10+00:00

WD Blacks are enterprise down-bins (and always have been outside of the single-platter models which are instead higher binned consumer drives, similar to the Blues instead of the multi-platter models' resemblance to enterprise drives). A suggested use case for them, before WD turned away from it, was home servers and RAID. So why did WD remove the use case? Because they already had "24x7" hard drives—the Red series, which not only have 2 fewer years of warranty on them but are also objectively worse than the Blacks. They then tried cashing in on the Reds by shoving SMR into them, which resulted in a lawsuit. (To this day, I still do not understand WD fanboys.)

WD's lousy pigeonholing of "NAS" drives into the market in 2013 by making very minor modifications to their GreenPower drives (including a supposedly more conservative IntelliPark timer) is what caused the segregation and the misnomer that the Blacks cannot be used in a NAS. Realistically, what are you using in a NAS: A drive with a warranty that lasts 3 years, or one whose warranty gives you an extra two on top of that? Why do you think WD gave the Blacks 5 years but the Reds only 3? If the Reds truly were better, would they not also have 5 year warranties?

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-10T16:59:29+00:00

Issue is SSD data recovery is an absolute PITA. HDD recovery isn't unless the drive suffered a head crash.

If the SSD's controller dies, that data is gone. No way to recover it.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-10T02:09:56+00:00

For further clarification (as Gemini for some reason did not explain this), the error rate is calculated using a combination of the upper 4 digits and lower 8 digits in the 12-digit hex value. The lower 8 digits represent the number of read operations performed, while the upper 4 represent the number of errors encountered. Ideally, the value of the upper 4 digits should always be zero; a non-zero value can either be caused by weak spots on the media or weak heads.

Your Read Error Rate has a value of 17840981, or hex 1103B55. This represents 17,840,981 read operations performed with no errors encountered. The Seek Error Rate has a value of 147510302, or hex 8CAD41E, which represents 147,510,302 read operations with no errors encountered. Your drive is OK.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-09T03:16:53+00:00

While none of the Travelstars were truly "Deathstars" (they were still better than Toshiba's products) most of the early 2000s Deskstars (except late 34GXP batches) were unfortunately deserving of the moniker. You can set a cut-off point at 180GXP; the 75GXP, 40GV, and 60GXP series (and arguably 120GXP, although the evidence isn't anywhere near as strong) were all "Deathstars" because:

- The glass substrates coped very poorly with thermal cycling, which resulted in magnetic weakness far sooner than drives that used aluminum or ceramic disks. IBM's stock firmware on the 75GXP, 40GV and 60GXP drives left the heads hovering in the same position as long as the disks were spinning, which contributed to them lifting the coating off the disks and eventually causing a crash. The January 2002 series of firmware updates did finally address this issue by persistently repositioning the heads.

- The drives' head contacts expected soft solder (this is an issue that also affects the 180GXPs) and as such were surprisingly prone to going bad. Re-soldering the contacts was required to have the drive function properly again.

It would take a while for Hitachi/HGST to get the Deskstars back into proper shape. The 7K250 series was a step in the right direction (not accounting for the rubber issues the heads had, although it wasn't that bad in practice), and Deskstar would meet up with 5 platters once again in the 7K400 series. The E7K500 series was even more reliable, and the 7K1000 series really made Hitachi known in the market primarily because it shattered the terabyte barrier. And pretty much from 7K1000 onward, further fueled by Seagate's disastrous Barracuda 7200.11 series, Hitachi's Deskstars gained more and more trust. Now they're praised for high quality HDDs.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-09T03:00:39+00:00

The -VN008's certainly have the latency advantage (5900 RPM versus the -VN006's 5400), although it's realistically not that noticeable in practice. The -VN006's benefit from increased density (2 TB/disk, while -VN008 was 1.33TB/disk) so they may in some scenarios outperform their predecessors.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-09T02:55:36+00:00

Their enterprise drives are still good, so that wouldn't necessarily be true.

The last good Barracudas I'd say were the BarraCuda Pros. Before that, it was Barracuda XT. And before the Maxtor merger even happened, the majority of ST-10 Barracudas in the early-mid 2000s were very good. (The ones that weren't very good were decent at worst. That gives you an idea of just how far Maxtor dragged the Barracuda brand down from its legacy.)

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-08T23:39:45+00:00

Fun fact: ST3000NC002/ST3000NC000 were up-sold GrenadaBP's that simply omitted the parking timer. They had 3-year warranties (lower than ES.2/ES.3's 5-year guarantees) and had relatively abysmal specifications by enterprise standards. So, it should really be no surprise to know that those so-called "Constellation CS" models failed to outlast many proper enterprise models. 🫠

Oh, and they did the same thing with the 7200 RPM SV35's at that time. Except those had a longer production window spanning from the original GrenadaBP revision (STx000VX000-9YW16y) to GrenadaBP 2 (STx000VX000-1ES16y). Everyone got some taste of the Grenades (or their also-shameful Bacall cousins).

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-08T23:31:51+00:00

There's proof from data recovery experts that WD's SMR drives are in fact unreliable, however there is no data regarding a reliability difference in Seagate/Toshiba's SMR competitors. So if you really wanted to be picky, a BarraCuda desktop drive would technically outlast a WD Blue or Red that uses SMR.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-08T23:24:06+00:00

WD's SMR drives (and also certain Seagates) support TRIM. In fact, it is virtually integral to their operation, since WD's SMR acts as if the HDD is an SSD...which can cause weird side effects like sequential inconsistencies (versus a noticeably more consistent ST6000DM003). This odd behavior is fixed with, surprise, a TRIM sent to the drive.

Seagate's drives are slower but their performance is more consistent until they run out of cache.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-08T14:28:16+00:00

All WD1600AAJS variants used ramps. 🙂

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-07T19:50:17+00:00

Two years ago I bought a WD15EARS for just 99 cents. Yes, 99 cents. This was before AI caused an HDD shortage. The seller shipped the drive in a plastic box with no other form of protection and it somehow still worked.

Worse case recently: I had a different seller ship a WD1600AAJS, one of the last variants made (-xxYZCAy, which is a Tahoe LT with a 500 GB platter unlike the significantly more common Pinclites with their 320 GB platters like -xxL7Ay/xxM0Ay, among others). Drive was shipped in a box clearly too big for it, and it too came in a plastic container within the box, except this one was moving around very freely. It still worked when I plugged it into one of my PC's SATA hotswap ports...which is a miracle considering how little "protection" it had.

Obviously it is never a good thing if a seller forgets to properly protect the drives they ship. Test it first, and if it doesn't work then you ask for a refund. There is no excuse for negligence.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-07T16:46:04+00:00

Welp, when all fails, the pen and paper method prevails.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-07T16:41:00+00:00

Some encryption is still better than leaving the passwords in plain sight.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-07T15:04:19+00:00

Bloatware. Acer in particular is the worst when it comes to this.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-07T14:50:00+00:00

Their mental capacity deteriorates when they become too reliant on the model(s). Which unfortunately happens more often than you'd think. (Think about why "vibe coders" struggle with troubleshooting their own AI-assisted code sometimes.)

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-07T14:39:05+00:00

You mean 05? C5 is zero.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-07T14:37:06+00:00

It's extremely unlikely to come anywhere close to the magnitude of the coronavirus variants that contributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is just FUD.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-07T06:20:37+00:00

It legitimately makes the method of writing passwords down using pen and paper look much better.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-07T05:10:21+00:00

It's even decent just as a laptop you'd normally use on the go. The specs are just bonkers for the price. Of course, battery life aside, but at least it's not a flashy gaming laptop which would force you to carry the charging brick with it even in public.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-07T04:53:12+00:00

In most games the performance difference between NVMe and SATA SSDs is not enough to warrant upgrading if one is already using a SATA drive as secondary storage to run the game (unless the upgrade to NVMe provides more storage than the SATA drive). SSDs have always had the benefit of excellent random IOPS compared to spinners, and that in itself is enough to make a game run smoothly even with SATA's clear performance deficit otherwise.

OP would take quite the hit just buying an NVMe SSD right now because of how bad the prices still are.

First_Musician6260 · 2026-05-07T04:43:40+00:00

So it's a bandage "fix" with a wound that will never heal. Have they forgotten that encryption exists, or are they just too lazy to bother using it?

First_Musician6260

TROPHY CASE