Need some storage with speed? Then the Western Digital 100GB EIDE Ultra ATA/100 with 8MB of Cache may be just right for you. You get 100GB (gigabyte) of storage space rotating at 7200 RPM (Revolutions Per Minute) with an average seek time of 8.9 ms.

Performance
This EIDE Ultra ATA has 8MB of Buffer Memory to Deliver Data Faster than most drives having only 2MB of Buffer Memory.

Then you have the 7200 RPM over a 5400 RPM drive giving it a 33 percent faster disk transfer rate.

Finally the Ultra ATA/100 gives you a data transfer rates of up to 100MB per second, this is almost 50% faster than the Ultra ATA/66.

Note: To get the ATA/100 use, your motherboard must support it, ATA/100 is Mode 5 Ultra ATA. This drive also supports all other modes from Ultra ATA/66 (Mode 4 Ultra ATA) and Ultra ATA/33 (Mode 2 Ultra ATA) to Mode 2 multi-word DMA & Mode 4 PIO at 16.6MB per second.

Technical Stuff
Read Seek Time = 8.9 ms
Write Seek Time = 10.9 ms (average)
Cylinders = 16,383
Number of Heads (Logical) = 16
Number of Heads (Physical) = 6
Sectors Per Track = 63
Formatted Capacity = 100030MB
Interface = EIDE

Cost
The drive retails for $349 and now can be found in the $200 range with everything needed to get started, including manuals, software and EIDE cable.

Now if you know about installation and don’t mind downloading the Data Lifeguard Tools you can purchase the bare drive for only $166.

Check out my review below by copying and pasting the link below to your browser. Here they have it for $166.
http://www.epinions.com/content_64211684996

Installation
Installation is easy, first decide if you are replacing your old drive or adding this drive as a second drive. If you are adding this drive as a second drive, I recommend making it your main drive since it is probably faster and more efficient.

Once you decide on what you are going to do then you need to look on the back of the hard drive and possibly make some jumper settings. This drive has ten pin settings in the back, if you are replacing your old hard drive just make sure that there are no jumper settings at all if this will be the only hard drive on the system.

If this drive is going to be the second drive on your system you will need a jumper from pin numbers 3 to 4 to make it a Slave drive. No settings needed for your old drive.

Now if this is going to be your main drive you will need to jump pins 5 to 6 to make it a Master drive. Now you will have to make a jumper setting on your old drive so that it will be a Slave drive.

The drive kit comes with a 40-pin 80-conductor cable ribbon, the bare drive does not. You can use the same 40-pin 80-conductor cable ribbon cable that is used for a Ultra ATA/66 or Ultra ATA/33.

More than likely a CD or DVD-ROM is also using your other hard drive cable so you will have to add a new one for the second drive. The cables are marked and cannot be plugged in backwards. The only other thing you have to do is add some power to it by looking for a free plug in your computer or by adding a Y-connector to split off from another power source.

Use the software and it is ready to run!

Data Lifeguard Tools
Data Lifeguard is a utility to test EIDE hard drives from any manufacture. This powerful utility will help to set up your hard drive for your specific needs and for the best results for the hard drive. Below is a listing of what the utilities are.

The Diagnostics Utility lets you test the drive and repair any errors found.

EZ-Install lets you create a bootable diskette.

BIOS Check checks for all drives on the system with information about each one.

Ultra ATA Manager is for making the Ultra ATA 33/66/100 capability with supported Western Digital EIDE drives.

A User’s Guide is included in the Adobe PDF format.

This is a utility that you need to run for the first time on a new Western Digital 100GB EIDE Ultra ATA/100.

I Recommend
If this is the only drive that you will be using, with 100GB of storage I recommend when you format the drive to partition it into two separate drives. I always like to split a drive into about a 30/70 ratio, 30% for storage and 70% for normal use. I like using part of it for storage for saving things like my digital photos, my MP3 files, my Epinion reviews and more. When you use part of a drive as a second drive for storage, you won’t have to worry about saving all your stuff when you need to reformat the main part of the drive. We all know, you do have to redo your system every once in awhile to make it run better.

Now if you are using two drives then you can use one as your storage drive and one as a main drive.

Overall
I have always preferred Western Digital Hard Drives over other brands because they are very dependable and easy to install. I have used Western Digital Hard Drives and other makes for years and I always like the Western Digital Hard Drives the best.

This is a very quiet drive I really have to listen for it to hear it at all.

Finally I have never had a Western Digital Hard Drive crash, they are very dependable.


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Recommended: Yes