Western Digital WD2500JB
With the WD2500, Western Digital continues to follow the path tread in recent months: to appeal to demanding users in the home and multimedia segments. In particular, the Special Edition models with 8 MB cache were able to win a respectable share of the market. Starting with the first Special Edition drive with 100 GB (and with models before), it's been standard at Western Digital to offer a three-year warranty.
With the WD2500, there is even an extra goodie thrown in: the retail version is bundled with the corresponding Ultra ATA/100 controller from Promise (Ultra100 TX2). This allows those who own older systems to use these large drives as well, because the Promise controller has its own BIOS with support for 48 bit addressing, as well as drivers for all versions of Windows.
Compared to the MaXLine Plus II, the positioning of the WD2500 is much broader and more general, and this becomes all the more clear when you consider the second new product from Western Digital. This new creation is called "Raptor" and is the first IDE with 10,000 rpm and a Serial ATA interface. We'll bring you a detailed test of this drive soon.
What's clear is that Western Digital does not see any further demand for areas below the professional segment (where Raptor stakes its share), and it covers all application areas through its Caviar series. With its three-year warranty, the WD2500 lands on the same level as the Maxtor 7Y250PO, but the variety of models at Western Digital (starting from 40 GB) is much more extensive than with Maxtor.
The WD25000JB retail kit contains an exemplary bundle of accessories: Ultra ATA/100 controller, connecting cable, driver diskettes with disk manager, also for older IDE controllers.
