Review on Western Digital HC550 512MB Ultra by Adam Kulesza ᠌

Name: Western Digital HC550 512MB Ultra
Item: Western Digital HC550 512MB Ultra
Rating: 4

July 04, 2023

I have not regretted the purchase, everything is fine.

I took the UltraStar WUH718181ALE6L4 disk with Toshiba MG08ACA16TE. I have known Hitachi UltraStar for a long time, 2 and 3 terabytes are still threshing (approximately 8 years), there are no failures, the smart status is ok.
I took Toshiba for a test, because I don’t know what kind of animal it is and there is no trust in it yet . we will look at the oil painting.
To business. There was a panic about the noise - this is not so. If, of course, we compare it with the bedroom - yes, of course it will be heard :)) If we compare it with the normal household "white" noise of any thread of the workplace at home, then I don't hear it. And I hear Noctua fans in the desktop. "Terrible sounds of head parking" - I didn’t hear it either, although this is what I immediately began to listen to.
Upset the temperature WD.
Toshiba wins here. Most likely, there are just more "pancakes" inside the disk. I did not consider the chips on the controllers, I did not remove the thermal card.
Right now, out of my 20+ disks on monitoring, this one is the hottest along with HItachi HDE (but this one is working).

Pros

normal disk. I showed through USB-C (ORICO NS500RC3) on CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4 the speed is 226MB. Sec (here it is necessary to make an amendment that on the laptop USB3.0, and on ORICO's JMicron - USB 3.1). It should be noted that Toshiba MG08ACA16TE showed approximately the same speed under the same conditions. NOT NOISY!

Cons

Warming up. Therefore 4 out of 5. I've been watching it through Sentinel inside ORICO NS500RC3 in the mirror for a week now. Compared to Toshiba MG08ACA16TE, the temperature of WDC WUH718181ALE6L4 is consistently higher by 4-5(! ) degrees(! ). At the same time, you need to understand that they are placed through a slot for better heat transfer, and now there is no load on them. For example, at this second WUH718181ALE6L4 = 43 degrees, MG08ACA16TE = 39 degrees. During tests, and even put in some corner, WUH718181ALE6L4 easily goes beyond (! ) 50 degrees inside ORICO (I saw 52, I immediately took action). ! The screw needs additional cooling by a _separate_ fan inside the case (for example, to blow the disk cage), especially under load or in a raid! If you keep it on passive cooling under a constant or discrete load, it will heat up to the red zone.