My concerns now are a little bit of uncertainty about the Advanced Format but from what I've read (thanks, Archeon, for the Wikipedia link) it looks like that will be transparent to Vista; and a concern about the number of Newegg reviewers who were not enchanted with the WD20EARS. (See picture) About 25% of them experienced DOAs or failures within the first week or so, and the percentage is actually higher because a fair portion of the reviews reported multiple failures in the same review. Balancing that is the thought that the a pissed-off person whose drive arrives DOA or fails after a week with loss of data is much more likely to write a review than is someone who buys the disk, pops it into his computer and it works with no problems. (Both of my WD1001FALS Caviar Black 1-TB disks fell into that latter category, and I didn't write a review.)

So, as a result of this thread, I have learned a lot about large capacity drives, TLER, RAID, Desktop, Advance Format, maximum addressable space, sector size, etc. Mark, any time you want me to explain disk drives to you, let me know. (J u u s s t kidding!)

So now the decision. Do I want to go with the WD20EARS "Green" drives, or the WD2001FASS "Black" drives. The Blacks are 50% more expensive but have a 66% longer warranty and are higher performance, 7200 RPM with 64MB cache. With present systems, there seems to be no advantage to the 4096K sectoring, and in random writes a significant disadvantage. Additionally, the Blacks are not bleeding-edge technology with Advanced Format, variable speed, and automatic head parking every 8 seconds as are the Greens. The Blacks are considered to be the very top of the WD desktop lineup. Yet, the Greens run quieter and cooler, use less power, and cost less. With the Advance Format sectoring, the Greens get by with three platters, the Blacks take (I think) four. Less complexity is a good thing.

So is it worth it to spend the extra $120 for two Blacks? Gaaah! Look at me, dithering over this as if it were really important and would make a big difference in my life a year from now. I just have to keep in mind the way SWMBO and I keep things running smoothly: I make all the important decisions, she makes the small ones. So she'll decide things like should we retire and move to Mexico, what house will we buy, things like that. I decide things like what should be our policy in Afghanistan and Iraq, how will we fix the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, things like that. Works out well.

So, Mark, tell me: EARS or FASS? The money isn't that big a factor...

tanstaafl.