# HD DVD Hard Drive Selection Criteria



## RhoXS (Mar 27, 2006)

I am going to replace the hard drive in our new HD DVD with a 500 or 750 Mb drive. Newegg carries four series of Western digital hard drives:

AACS Caviar GP
AAKS Caviar SE16
AYYS Caviar RE2
AALS Caviar Black

I have not been able to find anything that clearly and comprehensively describes the differences between these drives although I did notice the AACS is variable speed (I assume for noise & heat control) and the Black has a 32MB cache.

Is there a reference that briefly describes what the major differences are?

My primary criteria is very high long term reliability but I also want to factor in noise, heat production, speed (if important), etc.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Do you mean HD DVR? Otherwise, your post makes no sense.


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## RhoXS (Mar 27, 2006)

Yes, DVD is an obvious typo, meant DVR.

I found the answer to my question by calling Western Digital. My first call ended up in their offshore support center. This, as usual with offshore support, was a waste of time. The person that fielded my call spoke very fluent English but was unable to effectively communicate in English as it was not his native language. I finally found a telephone number for pre-sales support. This call was very useful as I ended up with someone who was not only knowledgeable but spoke English as his native language.

For anyone else who is interested this is what i found:

AACS Caviar GP - Green Power - Optimized for minimum energy usage/heat dissipation/etc.
AAKS Caviar SE16 - General use
AYYS Caviar RE2 - Optimized for Raid arrays - also longest MTBF
AALS Caviar Black - Highest performance

For high reliability and low relative energy use, they also have available the RE2-GP (WD1000FYPS, WD750FYPS, etc.). This drive is not cheap. Newegg has the 1000GB version at $240 vs. $140 for the GP only version. I am thinking high reliability is no longer so important to me.

I hope this proves useful to someone.


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## jpvalois (Nov 2, 2008)

Thanks for the info. The AAKS is apparently also very quiet, as read here :

Slashdot | Silencing a Hard Drive Using Household Items

"...Or you could just buy some newer hard drives out there with high ariel density. *WD 640GB AAKS model & 1TB drives are practically dead silent*. ..."​


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## lafos (Nov 8, 2004)

I put a 750GB AAKS in my S3, and can't hear it unless I get within a couple of feet. It's been there about a year.

There is a thread or two about issues with the GP WD drives in TiVo not working. Never tried it, but I did try a GP as the system drive in my Dell E510, and it refused to boot, but it worked fine as the secondary drive. Didn't spend much time fighting it.


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## stamasd (Jun 26, 2002)

jpvalois said:


> Thanks for the info. The AAKS is apparently also very quiet, as read here :
> 
> Slashdot | Silencing a Hard Drive Using Household Items
> 
> "...Or you could just buy some newer hard drives out there with high ariel density. *WD 640GB AAKS model & 1TB drives are practically dead silent*. ..."​


I wouldn't recommend doing the DIY noise stuff. It will degrade heat dissipation capabilities - and especially with WD drives, heat can be a problem. You may end up considerably diminishing the drive's life.


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