Western Digital 250GB EIDE Internal Hard Drive with 8MB Cache

by Western Digital

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 4.2 x 8 inches ; 2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000093S2G
• Item model number: WD2500JBRTL
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 12, 2007

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Western Digital Caviar Special Edition hard drives are designed for maximum performance in applications such as computer gaming, digital video editing, and file servers. They deliver data faster than any hard drive in their class. This hard drive features a 250 GB capacity, 8 MB buffer, 7200 RPM, up to 100 MB/s burst transfer rates, state-of-the-art areal density, and Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) technology, which improves hard drive reliability, and reduces heat, vibration, and noise.

Data Protection Enhancements

• Data Lifeguard is an expanded set of data protection features that include shock protection, an environmental protection system, and embedded error detection and repair features that automatically find, isolate, and repair problem areas that may develop over the extended use of the hard drive. With these enhanced data reliability features, the drive can perform more accurate monitoring and error repair and deliver exceptional data security.
• Data Lifeguard Tools is a set of software utilities that work in conjunction with the embedded Data Lifeguard features to make hard drive installation, drive management diagnostics, and repair simple and worry-free.
• Shock Guard provides outstanding improvements in shock and vibration protection for WD Caviar Special Edition drives. Shock Guard allows instantaneous data protection at high shock values to achieve leading shock specifications.

Product Description

Western Digital hard drives with 8MB cache are designed to maximize desktop computer performance for activities requiring high-performance storage such as computer gaming, digital video editing, and file server applications. If you are a digital camera or MP3 enthusiast, this drive can deliver the storage capacity and performance you need to organize and preserve your digital life.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Solid performance and reliability, December 17, 2003

By 

Rick Van Hazel (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Western Digital 250GB EIDE Internal Hard Drive with 8MB Cache (Personal Computers)

The 7200rpm 8mb cache Western Digital JB line of hard drives are the best that money can buy. Though they run at ATA100 and not ATA133 like the Maxtor Diamondmax Plus series, the benchmarks for the Western Digitals are quite impressive in read time and transfer rate. Many of its competitors use a smaller 2mb cache (the buffer between your drive controller and the physical drive heads), WD's 8mb cache makes a big difference which can be proven by just comparing the 2mb version from the same manufacturer.

Reliability is a factor that is very crucial when hard drives are concerned. Even if you have a 3 or a 5 year warranty on your drive, if it fails generally all data is lost and it must be sent back to be replaced. In that unfortunate situation you are without the use of your computer for as much as 2 to 3 weeks waiting on an RMA. In the industry I work, we use many flavors of drives from 15k rpm U320 SCSI drives to all sizes of IDE. I have in depth experience with every brand available on the market. We have hundereds of each unit from Maxtor, Western Digital, Seagate, Fujitsu, etc, and the best competitor on this market to Western Digital is the Maxtor Diamondmax Plus. We unfortunately have seen a very high failure rate among the DiamondMax Line, upwards of 10%. I have 3 large 2 terrabyte arrays built with these Western Digitals that come under heavy strain (approximately 16 hours a day of maximum reading and writing), I have only seen one failure that was fixed with firmware update. Firmware being an update pushed out to the drive to fix on board controller issues.

For more information about benchmark comparisons, check storagereview.com

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Dazzling performance but questionable reliability, January 18, 2005

By 

S. Srivastava - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Western Digital 250GB EIDE Internal Hard Drive with 8MB Cache (Personal Computers)

I purchased my WD 250G 8mb ATA drive (WD2500-JB which is identical to the retail kit) about 2.5 years ago. It had dazzling performance and was relatively quite. Not unexpectedly, it would get quite hot so I mounted it in a temperature controlled fan based hard disk cooler. The HD worked flawlessly for about 2 years until the SMART warning went off. XP's built in scandisk indeed found one corrupted file on the disk.

I contacted WD for a replacement and it promptly arrived 3 days later. I installed the replacement drive and copied over my files from the original problem disk. However after one day of use the new disk suddenly, and without warning, made a series of loud clunking sounds and crashed hard. The computer would not even recognise the disk after reboot.

I contacted WD again and they promptly shipped me a new disk. It was a VERY good thing I had not yet shipped back the original hard disk as I was planning to wait for 20 days to see how the replacement held up. I installed the new "replacement for the replacement" hard disk and copied all the files over to it. I then ran scandisk on the first-original hard disk. It successfully fixed that one file that was corrupted so, in the end, I was able to save ALL my files.

In conclusion I am at least happy that didn't loose any of my important data. The new disk has, so far after 3 months, been running flawlessly and I can only hope, that "third times a charm," the new disk proves to be as reliable as western digital's past products (Knock on wood).

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Drive failed within three months; warranty support was poor, December 14, 2004

By 

Bob in NYC "bob-in-nyc" (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Western Digital 250GB EIDE Internal Hard Drive with 8MB Cache (Personal Computers)

This high-capacity, high on-drive memory drive died catastrophically without warning after only three months of use. I had backed up the most critical data, but discovered that using any data recovery service completely voids the Western Digital warranty.

Usually, hard drives have on-board diagnostics which give you at least a little warning of a physical problem, but this drive's diagnostics did not warn me. Also, frequently you have some phsical warning of impending failure--odd performance, or lost files. However, sudden crashes like mine are not unheard of, just not right away in newer drives.

WD is a premier manufacturer, but my experience has been poor.