Can I know external HDD's RPM without disassemblying it?

Phazoner · Aug 16, 2017

I've bought a WD MyBook refurbished but they never say the HDD in the inside, I've seen disassemblys in Youtube and found Caviar Blacks, Blues and Greens. I've read in this forum by a WD staff member that they stopped WD Green production to just reduce the variety to blue for cheap HDDs.

I want to know RPMs because greens are between 5400-5900 rpm and sometimes problematic but 3.5 blues are 7200rpm and probably I'll prefer to remove the HDD from the case and use it as my new internal slave drive.

SkyNetRising · Aug 16, 2017

WD blues also can be 5400rpm (depending on model).
If you want to use the drive as internal, then you'll have to remove it from enclosure anyway.
Just don't break anything in the process.

Mortem420 · Aug 16, 2017

looking up the P/N or S/N online will probably tell you the statistics of the HDD

Phazoner · Aug 16, 2017

SkyNetRising :

Uh, didn't know about 5400 3.5 Blue drives

The point is that I don't want to open if I don't want to void warranty, if HDD is 5400rpm I'll just use it as a external drive and if it is 7200rpm then I'll make it internal. That's why I'm trying to know what kind of HDD it is without opening it.

SkyNetRising · Aug 16, 2017

By what name is your WD Mybook listed in Device Manager?

Phazoner · Aug 16, 2017

SkyNetRising :

It's still on it's way home :lol: just bought it. What will can I do with that info?

SkyNetRising · Aug 16, 2017

If it shows internal drive model name, then you can google it and find info about it.
If it just says "WD MyBook", then nothing.

Phazoner · Aug 16, 2017

SkyNetRising :

Sounds nice, thanks!

Solandri · Aug 16, 2017

You can try looking up the drive's official specs. But WD has been rather obtuse about RPM ever since they put out the green drives and claimed they were 5400-5900 RPM (they were all 5400 RPM except a few which were 5900 RPM).

For a non-invasive way to determine RPM, there are two ways:

1) Get HD Tune and run it on your drive.

http://www.hdtune.com/

The yellow dots in the graph correspond to how long it takes to read a random sector from the drive. This is the time to move the read/write heads from one track to another, plus the time for the correct sector to rotate underneath the head. Left-to-right is the time to move the read/write heads (left is smallest movement, right is furthest movement and thus greatest delay). The minimum wait time (bottom of the swath of yellow dots) is when the correct sector rotates under just as the heads arrive on that track. The maximum time (top of the swath of yellow dots) is when the platter has to complete a full rotation before it arrives under the heads.

Consequently, the vertical spread between a column of the yellow dots corresponds to the time it takes for the platters to complete one rotation.

A 7200 RPM drive takes (60 sec/min) / (7200 rev/min) = 0.0083 sec/rev = 8.3 milliseconds
A 5400 RPM drive takes (60 sec/min) / (5400 rev/min) = 0.0111 sec/rev = 11.1 milliseconds

2) Run a Fourier transform on the sound coming from the drive to generate a frequency spectrum graph. (You don't need to know how to program a Fourier transform. Lots of audio software can do it for you and generate a frequency spectrum.)

A 7200 RPM drive will have a sound spike at (7200 cycles) / (60 seconds) = 120 Hz.
A 5400 RPM drive will have it at (5400 cycles) / (60 seconds) = 90 Hz.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article786-page2.html

Phazoner · Aug 16, 2017

Solandri :

You can try looking up the drive's official specs. But WD has been rather obtuse about RPM ever since they put out the green drives and claimed they were 5400-5900 RPM (they were all 5400 RPM except a few which were 5900 RPM).

For a non-invasive way to determine RPM, there are two ways:

1) Get HD Tune and run it on your drive.

http://www.hdtune.com/

The yellow dots in the graph correspond to how long it takes to read a random sector from the drive. This is the time to move the read/write heads from one track to another, plus the time for the correct sector to rotate underneath the head. Left-to-right is the time to move the read/write heads (left is smallest movement, right is furthest movement). The minimum wait time (bottom of the swath of yellow dots) is when the correct sector rotates under just as the heads arrive on that track. The maximum time (top of the swath of yellow dots) is when the platter has to complete a full rotation before it arrives under the heads.

Consequently, the vertical spread between a column of the yellow dots corresponds to the time it takes for the platters to complete one rotation.

A 7200 RPM drive takes (60 sec/min) / (7200 rev/min) = 0.0083 sec/rev = 8.3 milliseconds
A 5400 RPM drive takes (60 sec/min) / (5400 rev/min) = 0.0111 sec/rev = 11.1 milliseconds

2) Run a Fourier transform on the sound coming from the drive to generate a frequency spectrum graph.

A 7200 RPM drive will have a sound spike at (7200 cycles) / (60 seconds) = 120 Hz.
A 5400 RPM drive will have it at (5400 cycles) / (60 seconds) = 90 Hz.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article786-page2.html

Holy fucking shit man, you rock. Even if model number gives me the RPM, I think I'll try this just for curiosity.

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Can I know external HDD's RPM without disassemblying it?

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