Worth the Price
Written: Dec 12 '05
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Fast as any I've used-Biggest one so far that I've used
Cons: none I've found yet
The Bottom Line: Very nice cost-size-performance ratio
|
|
|
| dragon1's Full Review: Western Digital Caviar® Special Edition WD120... |
I have used Western Digital drives since I started building/upgrading my own computers back in 1987. I have good luck on all of them except for the 40gig harddrive WD400BB series. I believe there is a design flaw in this series of harddrive. The first one I bought lasted a week, I sent it in and received a reconditioned one in return which lasted 3 days. The next one has lasted so far the past 1 1/2 and the other one I bought at the same time has still worked with no problems.
I have heard people say that they think the harddrives we can get now are so expensive. In 1997 I can remember buying a 640 meg harddrive, at that time I thought it was huge and a great bargain but I paid $200 for this harddrive. For that price I can now buy 2 160 gig harddrives.
Specifications for this Harddrive
Capacity 120 GB
Interface IDE/EIDE
Enclosure Internal
Drive Dimensions 3.5" x 1/3H (Low Profile)
Spindle Speed 7,200 RPM
Technical Features
Special Features S.M.A.R.T Technology
Internal Data Transfer Rate 602 Mbit/s
External Data Transfer Rate 100 MBps
Seek Time 8.9 ms
Buffer Size 8 MB
Average Latency 4.17 ms
Interface (Detailed) DMA/ATA-100 (Ultra)
Sound Emission 39 dB
Other Features
Platform PC, Mac
OK for those who want more. I ran HDtach benchmark on this harddrive and on one that is smaller but turns at same speed (7200rpm) but only has a 2meg buffer.
Western Digital WD400BB
40 GB ATA100
7200rpm 2meg buffer
Burst speed 91.7 MB/s
Random access 14 ms
Average Read 42.9 MB/s
Western Digital WD1200JB
120GB ATA100
7200 rpm 8meg buffer
Burst speed 94.6MB/s
Random access 13.4ms
Average Read 52.6MB/s
Western Digital WD800JB
80GB ATA100
7200 rpm 8meg buffer
Burst speed 93.3 MB/s
Random access 13.9 ms
Average read 49.5 MB/s
Now I bought this harddrive back in July of 2005, it has run in my computer since then with no problems. Now I see no differance in performance between the 2 meg buffer or the 8 meg buffer,the only time you will see a differance in performance is a program that would move very large amount from and to the harddrive.I have used a varity of harddrives with Windows and the performance is as fast as any I have used. About the only way I will be able to get better performance is by going with SATA drives.
Since I was looking for a reliable and fast harddrive to beta test Vista with. I have had very good luck with Western Digital. Having only 2 harddrives out of all the hundreds I have used in the last 18 years, means that less than 1% of my drives have been bad. By the way that 640 meg harddrive stopped working last year so that's not bad.
Now I have this harddrive divided into 4 partitions. One for Windows XP Pro with SP2-one for Vista X32-Vista X64 and one for data or programs I get off the internet. They are all about 30 gig big.
I bought this harddrive from TigerDirect for $83 and at this time, am well satisfied with the cost/space/performance of this harddrive. Since it is a OEM harddrive the warrenty is only for 3 years but I can live with that.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
dragon1
|
 in Computer Hardware, Software |
|
Member: Michael L Hereid Sr
Location: Clinton, Iowa
Reviews written: 71
Trusted by: 70 members
About Me:
I'm back-was without for 2 1/2 weeks -will catch up rating asap
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.