Customer Reviews

Western Digital 200GB EIDE Internal Hard Drive with 8MB Cache

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

200GB is the unformatted size. You'll get 186Gb of usable space after formatting and partitioning, and I withheld the final star for that reason alone (I'd rate any hard drive with unformatted sizing the same way). By the way, this is a Western Digital 200Gb SE (Special Edition) drive, meaning it has the 8Mb cache instead of the usual 2Mb. It makes a real difference, as you'll shortly see.

After losing 14GB of space, I looked at its performance and I must conclude that this drive is an overall success.

The 8Mb cache is essential for moving data between the drive and your system, and in truth it makes for a hard drive with exceptional performance. Short read/write operations are greatly assisted by the larger cache, and subsequent reads of data less than 8Mb means you hit the cache, not the drive. In reality, this means you get a nice performance boost.

The 7200 RPM drive speed means it can transfer your data in bulk very quickly, so while short read/writes are assisted by the cache, the rotational speed makes for sustained read/writes that are very fast as well.

The Ultra-ATA/100 connection means you have a wide transfer path, so more data can come across the wires at one time.

It has a tiny (industry-leading) effect on your CPU, too, and low CPU utilization means that you see little slowdown in read/writes. In fact, this drive regularly competes with SCSI hard drive costing twice as much for CPU-utilization and performance.

The sum of all these specifications leads to one fast, cavernous drive. Even the new SATA drives can't match it for sustained read/writes as yet, so you can future-proof your system today with a Western Digital 200GB SE, and save some serious bucks in the process.

I needed to replace a failing Seagate hard drive and was unsure of how to duplicate the contents of the old drive on to the new, higher capacity Western Digital drive. I was extremely impressed with the included data lifeguard software. It could not have been easier to use. It even created customized instructions that detailed how to set the jumpers on the old drive to use it as a secondary unit. Since it was factory installed I would otherwise not have known the correct configuration. A fast and easy upgrade. Highly recommended.

I bought this drive in 2003 year, and it failed after 2 years. I sent it in and got a new drive, since it was under warranty, and it's giving me trouble after 3 months! If this is like the last time, it will be dead within a month.

This is in contrast to my Maxtor 6Y160P0 which has been running for two years

and my dual Seagate ST3200822A which have been running for a few months with no hiccups.

Linux reports the full drive name as WD2000JB-00GVA0, avoid it.

Unreliable. Go with Seagate or Maxtor.

I'm getting a new maxtor diamondmax 10 sata, IDE is getting obsolete.

I used this for a few months before parts of the disk started to become "bad". The bad sectors started as 10MB and progressive grew to 60GB. I had to return it before the end of one year, and they sent me a new "refurbished" one. Don't know how long this one will last...

I'm very happy with this drive. I'm using it in an Adaptec ACS-100 USB HDD Enclosure and it's darn near silent and very fast. In my case, I didn't need to use any of the included items (screws, IDE cable, Data Lifeguard Tools). But, for most people, I'd say those are great additions. The hardest thing to do in getting the drive up and running was getting into the box: it's one of those plastic things that takes darn near a chain saw to get into. Other than that, great. I rate it at 5 stars out of 5.

Drive went bad in less than two years and their warranty is only good for one year. The kind of company that makes hard drives they expect to fail after one year is not the kind of company I want to trust with my data.

The subject line says it all. I had this drive installed and formatted in no time.

I got this one from amazon 2 months ago for $89 dollar. Work excellent with Windows XP Service Pack 1 or 2.

Be very wary of various reviews stating a card comes with 160, 200 or 250 gig Western Digital drives. Unless your computer is high end and made after mid 2003 you will need to purchase a $30 card.

Western digital stopped including cards in units manufactuered after early October 2003, and did not change product numbers. So you will see reviews stating..."worked perfect with included card" etc. Problem is you get no card now.

Good drive but you will probably have to put your machine back together, order a card and spend $35 with shipping and wait or hike down to circuit city etc and buy a card.

just be wary of this.

This drive was great for the three months it worked before it crashed. I will not trust WD with my data in the future.