Western Digital SUCKS

the 8mb cache doesn't do anything... it won't give you more space or speed.. it's really sitting there and they only look attractive... if you use any test program comparing a WD 80 gig with 2 mb and WD 80 gig with 8mb ... you will not find any difference..
 
What? I notice so many small differences. Loading from the HD when looking in picture files, mp3, game loads and speeds, etc... it does help, anyone else got one?
 
well.. compare two exact same size WD drives with different size of ram on it... you won't see any difference.. and if they contains same file.. coz different file takes different amount time to load... the easiest thing is to use nero to test drive speed.. if you have two drive with same file on them.. I am sure you will get same speed or close enough to make no difference... and of coz setting on the drive would make difference as well... like master or slave and UDMA .. etc...
 
No difference? This test disagrees (see attachment, don't remember where it's from). I also belive Tom's Hardware did a test showing that the 8MB's are faster.
 
paul_43... makes you so 100% sure that the cache doesn't do anything? have you seen tests anywhere that i/we haven't? can you enlighten us please?

just wondering, cuz i've seen more than a couple showing a significant performance increase from the 8mb cache.
 
yes yes, where did you get that info from? I have noticed a big improvement... tell me where it says i shouldent.
 
Zedric ... from the test you posted here .... first Hard Drive Physical showing that Two 2 mb and 8mb drive have exactly SAME seek time... right... then are 8.9ms for both... from the second bench mark using NTFS file system... there is the conclusion :

Seek time: (ms)
WD 2mb: 13.4ms
WD 8mb: 13.5ms

Disk/Read Transfer rate: (KB/sec)
Begining:
WD 2mb: 43733
WD 8mb: 43800

End:
WD 2mb: 27900
WD 8mb: 27800

From these most important test... then look identical to me.. and some of them they have the 2mb on even faster... is that clear?? ok... they have some tests with some applications as well... looks like the 8mb one is slightly fast by a few KB per second... but that's NOT true!!!!! You should also look at the disk utillization as well... the 8mb one is using 60% while the 2mb one is using 53%.. ..... Utillization can show how hard the hard disk is using... in an other words, how many % the potential of the drive is being used... so.. that shows that 8mb was working harder during the tests... and that doesn't neccessarily means better performance of the drive.. coz Max you can only get 100% Utillization... if one application is using 60%... you can't run many applz at the same time... that's call Multi Accessing... so if you run one program on a 8mb drive then I might appears to be faster... but if you are serious computer user... you won't be working with one application at a time... then 2mb and 8mb are the same..... from that... we can tell WD is again trying to put the Utillization up to fool us all... think about it..
 
In simple, WD special edition gives you performance on large files
IBM 120gxp gives you performance on games, OS, small files, etc.

why? WD have the benefit of 8mb huge buffer size to hold large files. But why large files will be faster with WD? becoz the HD don't need to seek as many times as many small files. In the other hand, IBM have the ability to "seek" the file in a faster time than WD only able to hold 2mb data.

p.s. almost anythings you do with your computer require R/W data to/from the HD. every bit it R/W needed to be physically seek on the hard "disk" surface before it can actually R/W. Therefore, seek time will be extremely important for a fast harddisk operation.

just think what is your needs before buy a harddrive. if you really do a lot of video edition or other large files, get a SCSI harddisk.... EIDE is too slow for these files

not only I think like this, also........

By Jon L. Jacobi

(05/07/02)
IBM's Deskstar 120GXP is currently one of the best choices for a hard-drive upgrade, offering excellent sustained throughput and a spacious, 120GB capacity. While the equally fast Western Digital WD1200JB is the slightly better drive for audio and video storage, the Deskstar 120GXP is just as good a choice for other computing uses. (Note: In spite of the product's name, there are different 120GXP models, which vary in capacity from 40GB to 120GB.)
 
Maximum PC used it in their dream machine stating "next best thing to scsi." I think it does make a large diff in certian areas. if the seek was faster, it would be better. but since the data is so compressed, that would be hard.
 
It really doesn't matter you are transfering a big file or small file... you will not always transfer files that are less the 8mb right?? it's gonna be buffered in the buffer when the rest of the file is waiting to be written on the disk.. some thing will happend with 2mb buffer... so I the buffer is big enought to provide data continuously.. then 2mb 8mb 16mb or even 1gig buffer wouldn't make slightly difference..
 
paul_43: Did you read the test? Really? Let me tell you something. The performance of a disk is not only based on seek time and transfer rate. Bigger cache will not give you lower seek time, that is true. Bigger cache won't give you better top transfer rate, that is true. BUT, it WILL give you a better overall performance when using the disk for normal applications. Look at the figures above. The 8MB WD has signifficantly better numbers than the 2MB WD. Sometimes even better than the SCSI. These tests are made to reflect the normal usage of a computer. Normal usage is not to read random byte-by-byte (seek-time dependant) or read long sequencial files (transfer rate dependant). Look at the score summaries below. Are you still prepared to sit here and say that a larger cache won't make any difference?

I also found the Tom's Hardware test:
http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/02q1/020305/wd1200-06.html
 
From the article you provided:
Summary:
Thanks to a huge buffer memory (8 MB instead of the typical 2 MB), the WD1200JB performs similarly to high-performance SCSI drives, thereby leaving its rivals in the dust. Though the access time and the CPU utilization are still a ways away from SCSI levels, this drive offers superior performance and tremendous capacity at attractive prices.

Doesn't it sound like an Advertisment?? and Please tell me why the hell CPU utilization would be involved in the Drive test?? does that mean if you have a faster CPU then you can Access your Drive faster?? I don't think so.. Maybe you are reading those articles too much.. I believe there are a lot of them are actually be paid by the company to write something good about them.. Sometimes you should use Professional Knowledge to Prove something and to find out the fact.
 
Now you are being paranoid. Stop it.

Do you mean that they would alter the test results in order to make a bigger cache look better? I think not.

By the way, how good is it if the CPU utilization is bigger than the SCSI drives? Not at all from the WD perspective. And yes, CPU utilization IS a factor. If it is low, that means that your computer can do other things while reading/writing from/to the disk (since the CPU and memory are much faster than any mechanical disk will ever be). If you can do that, your computer will be faster overall. Therefor low CPU utilization is better. And SCSI has lower CPU utilization than IDE since it uses a separate processor on the controller.
 
Yeah.. that's right.. but CPU utilization will never be controlled by the Disk... and yes, SCSI uses a separate processor on the controller that can reduce the CPU utilization... but that wouldn't affect the performance of the drive while we are just concentrated looking at the performance of the drive... Ok.. I found something useful to share with you... CNET had a test months ago and that result can show that there is no real world difference between those two drives...

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2526

The above link will take you to the board where other people disscused it.. and I will try to find a link in CNET and show you that test..

:)
 
from an individual on that board, paul_43:

"Clearly the CNet 'business' tests did not ask the hard drive to reuse more than 2MB of the same information during the test. If repetatively-requested data during the test is less than 2MB in size, then of course they won't see any speed difference between a 2MB and an 8MB cache. But run a large database application that pulls a large amount (>2MB) of the same information from the disk over and over and it simply must make a difference."

i agree with him exactly. it's like running 3dmark2001 with a 32mb and 64mb video card... it won't make a difference. but run jedi knight 2 or something similar which will use up to 64mb of video memory, then you'll definitely see a noticeable difference.
 
Well... If you believe it's faster then good one you.. but there are some details from CNET.

Cache size: Every hard drive has a chunk of memory to hold frequently accessed data--usually 2MB worth. To determine the effects of a larger cache, we couldn't resist testing the new Western Digital Caviar 120GB Special Edition, which comes with an 8MB buffer. The conclusion? You guessed it: no discernible boost over similar 2MB drives in desktop applications. (Fortunately, there's little difference in price, either.)
 
can you not accecpt the fact that the drive is a good preformer? we have shown you many benchmarks and you come back with some half @$$ed come back. don't ment to be rude and annoying, just saying :)
 
please bare one thing in mind.

Why they don't offer 8mb buffer model earlier? In fact, the technologies and cost allow them to launch the 8mb buffer harddisk couple years ago, buy why they didn't?

This is a "product life cycle". If you launch the 8mb buffer 2 years ago, all your competitors has no choice but have to do some action such as launch 10mb buffer...etc.

Just think want will happend today if they really launch a 8 mb buffer harddisk 2 years ago. They will skipped a stage in the product life cycle. It means they wasted the chance to earn profit in the previous harddisks.

This is a very common strategies in the PC market.

Do you think spending millions of dollar in advertising on the web will has a better sales result on a existing harddisk model,
Or
Do you think spending $5 cost (extra 6mb memory) on each harddisk to makes it looks $50 more value in the consumers' eyes is more efficient?

Just try to see the whole pictures instead focusing in one thing.

8mb not bad for sure, but neither something impressive.
 
WD's 1200JB 8mb buffer HD truely not so impressive compare to IBM's 120GXP 2mb buffer HD!

You'll understand with the test from CNET Labs see attachment

and they comment
"The IBM Deskstar 120GXP tied with the Western Digital drive on many tests, but the IBM's 12.2ms seek time--faster than the Maxtor's or the Western Digital's--makes it especially well suited for dealing with large groups of small files or concurrent playback of multiple audio and video files. The Maxtor outperformed the IBM only when it came to read burst speed."


this is either:
may be WD was was slower and the extra 6mb buffer helps it catch up the speed IBM's 2mb buffer harddisk.

or

may be WD1200JB was fast as IBM's 120GXP even if it with 2mb buffer and the extra 6mb sit there purely for promotion purpose!

If 8mb does help a lot, I definately want to see how fast will the IBM's 8mb buffer harddisk if they make any!
 

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Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
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Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
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