This is the latest version of Western Digital's mid-range Blue drive. At only one year of age this drive is relatively new and the performance figures reflect this. With maximum sequential speeds of 180 MB/s (both read and write) the Blue is amongst the faster drives currently available and in terms of real world performance it beats its predecessor the 2010 Blue (WD10EALS) by around 18%. The 2012 Blue has a single 1TB platter which combined with its 7200 rotation speed allows for above average performance across the board. In terms of value for money a larger capacity drive will nearly always be a better choice but within the 1TB category as a system drive, the 2012 Blue is a very reasonable, if not the best, option. [Jan '14HDrivePro]
This is the current version (2013) of Western Digital's best performing, Black, consumer storage drive. A comparison between the 2013 and 2010 versions shows that core real world performance has improved by around 15%. The 38 month old 2010 FAEX Black is also slightly more expensive at the moment, probably because retailers are slowly running out of stock. With average sequential read/write speeds of 150 MB/s and read/write 4k speeds of 0.8/2.9 MB/s the 2013 2TB WD Black has a solid performance profile but it's slightly overpriced. There is better value available amongst other drives in the group test. [Jan '14HDrivePro]
We calculate effective speed which measures performance for typical consumers. Effective speed is adjusted by current cost per GB to yield value for money. Our calculated values are checked against thousands of individual user ratings. The customizable table below combines these factors to bring you the definitive list of top HDDs. [HDrivePro]
Welcome to our freeware PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best upgrades.