13 out of 13 people found this review helpful.
Fast SATA II drive is a very good value
Date of Review: Dec 5, 2006
The Bottom Line: Fast and quiet drive with good performance. A good value if you get one on sale. Not the best drive available but a good balance of price and quality
I bought this 250 GB Western Digital Caviar drive for a scant $49 a CompUSA when they had a $90 rebate on it. Watch out for their weekend deals which start on Sunday mornings, they often feature a good price on a hard drive.
A more typical "good" price for this drive is $69-79 so if you see it in this price range I would buy one. Just make sure you are getting the 16 MB cache model not the 8 MB model.
[Update 12/21/2006 CompUSA now has the same drive for $59 after rebate which puts it into the "very good deal" category again]
After having built PC's since the earliest days and I am talking the early 1980's, I have long favored the Seagate brand over all other brands including Western Digital. However for the price I paid it is really worth it. This WD Caviar drive features a 16 MB cache and supports the new SATA II transfer rate. Of coure being a 7,200 RPM drive it doesn't "really" support SATA II since the drive cannot transfer close the the 3.0 Gb/second except for short bursts. However, having said that, this is a pretty fast drive for a 7,2000 RPM drive. I have no complaints.
This retail box comes with an SATA II cable, a power cable and the Western Digital Data Lifeguard utilites disk. I recommend buying the retail package for most people even though you can sometimes purchase OEM drives a little cheaper than that. However the OEM drive really is a bare drive and will not have all the cables you need.
The Data Lifeguard software can format this drive in about 15 seconds so don't use the Windows drive manager to format it because that takes over 15 minutes. Use the WD Data Lifeguard software that comes with the drive. Word to the wise.
The drive is rated 250 gigabytes but that means its formatted capacity is a litle over 232 GB. Still a good sized drive.
The WD Caviar that I bought has an interesting power arrangement. The SATA standard replaces the familar 4-pin MOLEX connector with a newer, slimmed down SATA power connector. Most SATA drives that you buy have this new style connector. However, this WD drive comes with the older style 4-pin MOLEX connector so if you have an older power supply you can still use this drive no problem.
The drive is nice and quiet. I have an older 160 GB drive by Western Digital Caviar EIDE drive that I bought in January, 2004 2 years ago, and that one is quite a bit noisier than this new one that I am reviewing. So that is a plus for WD. After it powers up it is silent and vibration free. When you power it down you hear one click as it parks the drive heads. I rate this drive very quiet. It is also much, much faster than any EIDE (also known as PATA) drive.
My only concern is these drives only come with a 1 year warranty whereas the Seagate drives have a full 5 year warranty. That is a big difference. If you are using the drive in a RAID 1 (mirroring) configuration then you do not really have to worry about the lifetime of the drive so much. If the drive fails it's RAID partner will take over. I am not trying to be a killjoy here because I think these are good quality drives. I just do not think they stand up to the Seagate product in terms of longevity.
I highly suggest you go onto the Western Digital web site and register your drive right away. It is pretty simple you just type in the serial number of the drive and when you bought it. They keep track of the warranty expiration. I keep all my receipts in a portable file called a Case File that I bought at Staples for about ten bucks. Keep track of those receipts in the off chance you need warranty work.
