On the Inside--Are Enterprise and Desktop Drives Different?

[Samir]

I'm sure this is a question that has been asked a thousand times, but I couldn't find any answers or discussions here.

Because you guys actually see the innards of drives, have you noticed actual differences in enterprise and desktop class drives? Is there more than quality binning going on to differentiate between the drive types?

Personally, I see the longer warranty of an enterprise drive as a sign that the drive is made better, but a lot of times it could also be a marketing ploy (like Seagate's recent inclusion of 2yrs of data recovery with the Ironwolf Pro series--I doubt the pro and non-pro drives are actually different).

I'd love to hear your thoughts! Thank you!

[fzabkar]

See this thread:

https://community.wd.com/t/questions-about-the-wd1003fbyz-i-just-received/17519

A Personal/SOHO NAS HDD (5400 RPM) gets "3D Active Balance Plus" while enterprise class NAS HDDs (7200 RPM) get a "StableTrac" screw.

It makes no sense to me.

[digisupport]

In opinion, differences between enterprise, NAS, desktop or "whatever marketing comes up with kind of drives" are up to the manufacturer to decide. Some are 100% same hardware / firmware but different warranty, sometimes different hardware or firmware. More like, "what are we gonna sell today"

[Dananjaya]

I'm sure this is a question that has been asked a thousand times, but I couldn't find any answers or discussions here.

i checked in hddguru. but i found only 1 previous post from you. even that post is not relevant this.

LOL.


enterprice hard uses top quality materials to build their hard drives. enterprice drives have more warranties than consumer. bec. they can gurant their materials. comparing consumer and enterprice, enterprice hard have more Weight than consumer. check,enterprice harddrives have very thick and strong body for reducing heat. also this strong and heavy body supports for minimize vibration.
also this use quality seal for lid and head contact , and using quality hepa filter for minimizing dust problems.
i think enterprice hard drives are not using normal consumer platters. eg. seagate.
(i think they offer recovery plan. if platters are degrading, like normal hard, they will not offer this rescue plan)

this is average. sometimes can be vary, according to manufacture marketing system and cost.

performance and other features you can check on internet.

[Samir]

See this thread:

https://community.wd.com/t/questions-about-the-wd1003fbyz-i-just-received/17519

A Personal/SOHO NAS HDD (5400 RPM) gets "3D Active Balance Plus" while enterprise class NAS HDDs (7200 RPM) get a "StableTrac" screw.

It makes no sense to me.

Thank you. Great read. Lots of fakes out there--even in hard drives. This is the second article I've read this week about a fake wd drive. As if fake NICs, GPUs, and CPUs weren't enough.

The Black and RE series seem to be close enough in design that both have durability in the design, but I was thinking more about the cheap lines like a WD Blue or Seagate Barracuda vs an HGST Enterprise drive.

In opinion, differences between enterprise, NAS, desktop or "whatever marketing comes up with kind of drives" are up to the manufacturer to decide. Some are 100% same hardware / firmware but different warranty, sometimes different hardware or firmware. More like, "what are we gonna sell today"

Yeah, I see that as well as a consumer, but as a someone who works on drives, do you regularly see differences in enterprise drives that indicate more attention to quality or durability in manufacture than a desktop drive of the same size/application?