3 ms·

Who cares about the label? The internals of the drive makes the quality or lack thereof.

derefr 6y ago
"UltraStar" wasn't a renaming of "HGST"; it was an existing WD brand with many other drives in it, that the HGST drives were going to become aggregated under. This would have erased the distinction between the drives made at the HGST factories, vs. the drives made at other factories, since both would have just been "UltraStar." It would have been a big detective job with every new WD UltraStar model to figure out whether it was "one of the good ones." Whereas, if some WD drives explicitly say HGST and some don't, you can just buy the HGST ones. (Very closely analogous to smartphones that have the same exact model name, but which vary between Snapdragon and Exynos SoCs depending on the precise model number that only appears in fine print in a few places. When buying one of these phones used, you often have to google the precise model number to figure out whether you're getting a fast phone or a slow one!)
- chasil 6y ago
  I'd much prefer an unlockable Exynos to a bootlocked Snapdragon (thank heavens for OnePlus). I started with MicroG 3 years ago, and there is no way that I'm going back.
- mjevans 6y ago
  Correlating my memory to actual events, anyone else remember the "Deathstar" issue back when the IBM Deskstar drives had that head-drop failure? I'm fairly sure that the Ultrastar line is a successor of that lineage (in marketing terms at least). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deskstar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deskstar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hard_disk_drives#Manufacturing_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hard_disk_drives#Ma...
  - ksec 6y ago
    I do. I remember it fairly well. And due to the whole Death Star fiasco, IBM absolutely over engineer it for their successive Hard Drives. Which is what ultimately lead to today's UltraStar.

"UltraStar" wasn't a renaming of "HGST"; it was an existing WD brand with many other drives in it, that the HGST drives were going to become aggregated under. This would have erased the distinction between the drives made at the HGST factories, vs. the drives made at other factories, since both would have just been "UltraStar." It would have been a big detective job with every new WD UltraStar model to figure out whether it was "one of the good ones." Whereas, if some WD drives explicitly say HGST and some don't, you can just buy the HGST ones. (Very closely analogous to smartphones that have the same exact model name, but which vary between Snapdragon and Exynos SoCs depending on the precise model number that only appears in fine print in a few places. When buying one of these phones used, you often have to google the precise model number to figure out whether you're getting a fast phone or a slow one!)

chasil 6y ago
I'd much prefer an unlockable Exynos to a bootlocked Snapdragon (thank heavens for OnePlus). I started with MicroG 3 years ago, and there is no way that I'm going back.
mjevans 6y ago
Correlating my memory to actual events, anyone else remember the "Deathstar" issue back when the IBM Deskstar drives had that head-drop failure? I'm fairly sure that the Ultrastar line is a successor of that lineage (in marketing terms at least). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deskstar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deskstar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hard_disk_drives#Manufacturing_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hard_disk_drives#Ma...
- ksec 6y ago
  I do. I remember it fairly well. And due to the whole Death Star fiasco, IBM absolutely over engineer it for their successive Hard Drives. Which is what ultimately lead to today's UltraStar.