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WD Black2 How is this Drive
- Thread starter Wicked1
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If you don't need the optical drive replace it with the HDD and have the best of both worlds...
Yeah I thought of getting the bracket to replace my SuperDrive with an HDD and I already have a 240 GB SSD for boot and apps and files, but I would prefer one drive, but if no one has any review on the Black2 then I may wait, no need to spend $239 on a drive that I am unsure of, most reviews on Newegg are for Windows users.
venom600
macrumors 65816
The drive can work... you just need to set it up in Windows. The driver they use formats and partitions the SSD and HDD separately... OS X would see it all as one drive. $239 is insane for that though. For that price you can get a 500GB SSD or another $100 or so you can get a 1 terabyte SSD.
drummingcraig
macrumors 6502a
I am in the process of installing one of these in my MBP right now (just waiting for Yosemite to download).
To be clear, it is most definitely compatible with OSX/MAC thanks to a linux firmware patch which can be downloaded from WD's support site and loaded onto a bootable thumb drive (no Windows machine needed). The documentation provided on the support page is excellent.
It can be configured (via second downloadable utility from WD) to run as either Fusion drive or split into 120GB SSD/1TB HDD. I am going with the former.
I will post back and let you know how everything pans out. Also worth nothing that the drive can be found for much cheaper than $239 (I picked it up from NewEgg for $120 after a $20 instant rebate)…much cheaper than the route of installing a second drive in my case as I would have needed both a new HDD and an SSD plus the mounting hardware. The going price on NewEgg is currently $139.
To be clear, it is most definitely compatible with OSX/MAC thanks to a linux firmware patch which can be downloaded from WD's support site and loaded onto a bootable thumb drive (no Windows machine needed). The documentation provided on the support page is excellent.
It can be configured (via second downloadable utility from WD) to run as either Fusion drive or split into 120GB SSD/1TB HDD. I am going with the former.
I will post back and let you know how everything pans out. Also worth nothing that the drive can be found for much cheaper than $239 (I picked it up from NewEgg for $120 after a $20 instant rebate)…much cheaper than the route of installing a second drive in my case as I would have needed both a new HDD and an SSD plus the mounting hardware. The going price on NewEgg is currently $139.
Works in mac
Hey everyone. This drive works in Mac now. No need to setup in Windows. They released firmware earlier this year. You can find it on their website, along with a Mac installation guide. You'll need a USB thumbdrive handy, because it'll give you a utility to create a Linux bootable drive to update the WD Black2 firmware. Hope that helps! I'm cloning right now, can't wait to use it!
Hey everyone. This drive works in Mac now. No need to setup in Windows. They released firmware earlier this year. You can find it on their website, along with a Mac installation guide. You'll need a USB thumbdrive handy, because it'll give you a utility to create a Linux bootable drive to update the WD Black2 firmware. Hope that helps! I'm cloning right now, can't wait to use it!
drummingcraig
macrumors 6502a
I am running into a problem getting this drive setup properly unfortunately, so that is why I haven't been back here to report on it. I can say that it is very fast when I did boot off of it. Just having configuration issues. 😡
Did you do the firmware update and create the fusion BEFORE cloning? After that, clone it. After cloning, you'll likely have to reinstall yosemite. Not a clean install, but just a recovery install. And make sure your do a disk repair and permissions repair too. After doing all those, mine is working amazingly as a fusion drive.
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Hey. I did use blackmagic but it's not giving realistic results. It's showing like 20x slower than the HDD but I can attest that this drive is probably 4-5x faster than the HDD, based on my experience with it so far. I think I have to let the OS get used to the drive and "learn my habits" before I run the tests. I'll try in a couple of weeks.
RoastingPig
macrumors 68000
So, the WD Black2 Dual Drive alone isn't going to get you a great result. What I've decided to do, instead, is do away with my optical drive and throw in a 500GB Samsung Evo 850 SSD drive. Here are the benchmark tests after that.
Now, I will also advise that you ONLY use the OWC Data Doubler caddy. I had tried some of the generic ones and they were always crappy, causing some CRC Errors and preventing me from restoring, because the wiring is so ******. The OWC Data Doubler works perfectly and I wish I'd have spent the money on this one the first time around. Don't listen to the stupidity on other threads saying "the generic ones work just as well, for much cheaper." You get what you pay for and if you're buying the generic $12-20 caddy, you'll definitely regret it (especially if you use the new space in a Fusion drive CoreStorage setup).
