9 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
Fast! Excellent Value!
Date of Review: Dec 25, 2006
The Bottom Line: Even at $120, its a good drive!
I purchased this hard drive(HD) from CompUsa for $59 after rebate, which is an EXCELLENT price for an internal SATA2 250 Gig hard drive with 16 mb cache.
I purchased it to use as a 2nd drive for video editing.
My primary drive is a Seagate Baracuda 80 gig (the major competitor to this Western Digital Cavier unit).
I considered another Seagate Baracuda drive, but for the money, the WD was a much better deal at half the cost. So I was excited to see the difference between the two.
Install:
I have a year old Dell Dimension 8400. As already noted, I installed the unit as a second hard drive. Hardware Installation to the computer was a breeze. I would have had it installed in a matter of 20 minutes, but it took me just over an hour do to one minor issue that I experienced.
My secondary SATA port on the motherboard was disabled. As a result, the new drive wasn't being recognized by Windows. I initially thought I had power problems with the drive. Check the bios on your computer (hit F2 at windows startup), and see if your secondary sata drives are enabled. One I enabled it, the drive was instantly recognized.
(BIG NOTE!!!: Nowhere in the drives install manual, or Dell's install manual does it state to check the BIOS for SATA drive enablement)!
I used the enclosed Western Digital software to format the drive. It completed the format in a matter of a few minutes.
Speed:
The drive is EXTREMELY fast. Abit faster than the Seagate I think. Being a SATA drive with 16mb cache really moves things along!!!
Sound:
Sound you ask? A harddrive has sound? Yes - some put up quite a racket! Luckily, this drive is very very quiet - As it should be. :) It is considerably more quiet than the Seagate Baracuda.
Heat:
Heat is a hard disks worst enemy. The hotter it runs, the shorter life expectancy you will have. This drive seems to run quite cool. I do seem to have any heat issues with it.
Reliability:
Western Digitals are known to be built well. Though the unit only comes with a one year warranty, I am not overly concerned. Being its not my boot drive, and the cost was only $59, it was too hard to simply pass up.
Seagate Baracuda drive does come with a 5 year warranty, but cost twice as much.
Cost:
For $59 (after rebate), it is an EXCELLENT buy. But honestly, even at $100 it still a good buy.
