Surface Temperature

We monitored the surface temperature of four hard disk drives during their benchmarks. The following chart shows their operating temperature range, from idle to maximum load. Please note that instead of giving you the absolute numbers, we are showing the temperature delta, which is the difference between the actual temperature and the ambient room temperature.

The WD AV-GP may be based on the WD Caviar Green, but it certainly runs much hotter. We recorded a maximum surface temperature of almost 15 °C higher than the ambient temperature. The Caviar Green, on the other hand, only peaked at just over 6 °C above ambient temperature. In fact, the WD AV-GP drive is hotter than the 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint F1 which spins at 7,200 RPM.

WinBench 99 Version 2.0

Platter Data Transfer Profile

The maximum platter transfer rate appeared to be about 110 MB/s which progressively dropped across the platter to about 50 MB/s at the last track. This drive has 20 density zones. The platter quality seems to be very good in this sample, with only a few small dips which suggests a very limited use of replacement tracks.

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