Thought on Western Digital HD

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Thought on Western Digital HD
--

Future Shop has a sale on : WD Caviar 120 GB Special Edition 8 MB buffer
hard drive for $89.99 CDN
How good is this drive and the price?


Cheers _ Hunibal _

 

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> Future Shop has a sale on : WD Caviar 120 GB Special Edition 8 MB buffer
> hard drive for $89.99 CDN
> How good is this drive and the price?

If it's a 1200JB, that's still one of the fastest ATA drives available even
though it is a couple of years old now. See storagereviw.com for more info.

 

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Hunibal <hunibal_@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:JiYKd.12136$Yg6.1964806@news20.bellglobal.com...

> Thought on Western Digital HD

I prefer Samsungs myself.

 

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"Chuck U. Farley" <chuckufarley@dyslexia.com> wrote in message news:_Z8Ld.7697$gS5.3497@bignews3.bellsouth.net
> > Future Shop has a sale on : WD Caviar 120 GB Special Edition 8 MB
> > buffer hard drive for $89.99 CDN
> > How good is this drive and the price?
>
> If it's a 1200JB,

Which one?

> that's still one of the fastest ATA drives available even
> though it is a couple of years old now.

But it may not be a couple of years old.
Not if it is "still one of the fastest ATA drives".
Then it is the latest incarnation of the WD 1200.

> See storagereview.com for more info.

 

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"Folkert Rienstra" <see_reply-to@myweb.nl> wrote in message
news:367boeF4uj857U1@individual.net...
> "Chuck U. Farley" <chuckufarley@dyslexia.com> wrote in message
> news:_Z8Ld.7697$gS5.3497@bignews3.bellsouth.net
>> > Future Shop has a sale on : WD Caviar 120 GB Special Edition 8 MB
>> > buffer hard drive for $89.99 CDN
>> > How good is this drive and the price?
>>
>> If it's a 1200JB,
>
> Which one?
>
>> that's still one of the fastest ATA drives available even
>> though it is a couple of years old now.
>
> But it may not be a couple of years old.
> Not if it is "still one of the fastest ATA drives".
> Then it is the latest incarnation of the WD 1200.
>
>> See storagereview.com for more info.

I've got one (one of the 2MB models, not the 8MB) and I recently added on a
couple of Seagate 7200.8 300GB drives (SATA). The new Seagates run complete
circles around the WD1200, and they're even configured into a RAID-1. I was
shocked to find out how slow the WD was and I didn't even realize it. The
WD is still *somewhat* decent with large contiguous files (video, etc.), but
it's seeking when reading through tons of small files or reading directories
of tons of files/folders is pretty lame.

 

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> >> See storagereview.com for more info.
>
> I've got one (one of the 2MB models, not the 8MB) and I recently added on
a

The 2 meg model is not a 1200JB so we're talking different drives.

> couple of Seagate 7200.8 300GB drives (SATA). The new Seagates run
complete
> circles around the WD1200, and they're even configured into a RAID-1. I
was
> shocked to find out how slow the WD was and I didn't even realize it. The
> WD is still *somewhat* decent with large contiguous files (video, etc.),
but
> it's seeking when reading through tons of small files or reading
directories
> of tons of files/folders is pretty lame.

From storagereview.com, using the Highend Drivemark, the ATA 1200JB rates at
392 io/sec. They have not rated your 7200.8 yet so there's no direct
comparison. And while I don't want to make the same mistake as you and
compare a dissimilar drive, they did rate the Seagate 7200.7 200 gig SATA
drive. It rated at 412 io/sec, a whopping 5% increase. But wait, you are
more concerned with small files and reading lots of directories so lets use
the File Server benchmark instead. Well this is interesting, it seems the
ATA 1200JB is _faster_ than the SATA 7200.7 using this benchmark! See here:

http://www.storagereview.com/php/benchmark/compare_rtg_2001.php?typeID=10&testbedID=3&osID=4&raidconfigID=1&numDrives=1&devID_0=204&devID_1=261&devCnt=2

Like I said, I don't want to make the same mistake you made and compare
dissimilar drives, but there must have been a truly quantum leap in
performance between the 7200.7 and the 7200.8 if you can notice that much of
a difference because it's well known the average user cannot even _perceive_
a difference unless it's at least a 10% increase in overall _system_
performance, not just the hard drive component of the benchmark.

And remember the 1200JB is over _three_ years old now. So like I said to the
OP, if it's a 1200JB, it's _still_ one of the fastest ATA drives available.
When you bought your WD, you should have spent the extra $20 USD and got the
8 meg cache model instead of the 2. It does make a difference.