The WinBench 99 by eTesting Labs (formerly Ziff Davis) is still one of the best application benchmarks today. Here you can see the real-world impact of 8 MB cache memory: particularly in the HighEnd Disk WinBench, the huge-cached drives are ahead.

Conclusion: Best Buy!

People who continue to demand IDE drives with 10,000 rpm should consider that higher noise levels and higher temperature levels are the price for the performance benefits of faster access time and higher transfer rates.

The WD1200JB is indeed an excellent choice that combines several benefits: high capacity, quick access times, high transfer rates, acceptable noise level, acceptable temperature level and fast application performance. The only disadvantage may be the price: at approx. $250, this is not necessarily affordable for everybody, though the value is still pretty good.

Those who rally for UltraATA/133 are certain to remain unheard, since even the next drive generation will be unable to reach either the theoretical (100 MB/s) or the practical (~ 85 MB/s) limit of UltraATA/100. In addition, 120 GB is a capacity that is still below the critical size of 127 GB and certainly won't cause trouble with popular IDE adapters.

Once again, Western Digital confirmed its status as a dominant player in the high performance IDE arena. Let's see what comes next!