Fastest Hard Drive Ever?

[Bozo Galora]

(thats what the page says)

525Mb/s = 65.6 MB/s internal

link

 

[John]

Someone needs to post some Winbench99 or HDTach 2.61 numbers.

 

[nightowl]

It is not quite that fast but the 120JB is on par with the 120BB (around 48MB/s). Check the review at StorageReview for more information.

 

[John]

SR needs to test the IBM 120GXP.

 

[LongCoolMother]

fastest hard drive ever? whats a hard drive...? OHHH!!! THe fastest hard drive is definately the Geforce 3!! I think...? Or was it the Geforce 8500?

 

[Bozo Galora]

rather co-incidentally, they have a review of the WD on todays Storage Review.
as noted by nightowl, doesnt seem to be as fast as claimed.

 

[Apex]

Actually, the seagate X15-36lp beats it out quite easily.

http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/enterprise/family/0,1086,379,00.html

 

[Pabster]

Of course, no IDE drive holds a candle to the X15-36LP.

And the premium for the 120JB over the BB (right now) makes it a cold, cold deal. Oh, that, and the inherent disadvantages of the IDE subsystem.

 

[Bozo Galora]

guess i'll keep my money in my pocket

 

[LXi]

<<SR needs to test the IBM 120GXP.>>

I dont think anyone at SR is too motivated to do reviews when you're on the brink of shutting down.

 

[Pariah]

Unless there is another quote somewhere else, this is what it says:

"WD Caviar (Special Edition) 7200 Hard Drives deliver data to users faster than any desktop hard drive has before."

Desktop being synonymous with IDE, the quote is correct, it is the fastest IDE drive to date, both in STR and overall performance.

 

[Bovinicus]

Even with the low seek times of SCSI drives like the 15K RPM Cheetah, I would never get one. For average usage IDE drives aren't noticeably slower. Sure, SCSI is nice. It's just that the extra costs involved for very little performance isn't nice. =(

 

[John]

<< <<SR needs to test the IBM 120GXP.>>

I dont think anyone at SR is too motivated to do reviews when you're on the brink of shutting down. >>




When you have readers throwing contributions your way to keep the business up and running, you better find some motivation.

 

[Lucky]

<<

<< <<SR needs to test the IBM 120GXP.>>

I dont think anyone at SR is too motivated to do reviews when you're on the brink of shutting down. >>




When you have readers throwing contributions your way to keep the business up and running, you better find some motivation. >>




Yeah, they posted a notice saying they have enough to go at least another month.




In any case, I think my quantam bigfoot is the fastest drive ever. muhahahaha!!!

 

[thorin]

nightowl
"It is not quite that fast but the 120JB is on par with the 120BB (around 48MB/s). Check the review at StorageReview for more information. "

Actually the BB, BB-SE, and BB-JB series max at 48 or 49MB/Sec on the outter edge. Average Sustained Transfer Rate is more like 38 or 39MB/Sec. (Min is ~29mb/Sec on the inner tracks).

Thorin

 

[Pariah]

"max at 48 or 49MB/Sec on the outter edge."

The outter edge in this case being about the first 25GB. The drive doesn't drop below 45MB/s until past 45GB worth of disc space, well beyond what most people would need for OS and applications. Hard drive transfer rates do not mirror CAV cdrom drives. They resemble P-CAV or Z-CAV CDRW drives in that there are zones of transfers rates, not a smooth line across the drive. Average STR is a useless stat, either you care about how fast a drive can transfer data, or you care what the minimum STR is in case your applications, like video capture, require a minimum transfer rate to achieve their task.

 

[thorin]

"The outter edge in this case being about the first 25GB. The drive doesn't drop below 45MB/s until past 45GB worth of disc space, well beyond what most people would need for OS and applications. "

That's a pretty big assumption to make. How many people would bother with a 120GB drive if they weren't going to put the space to use? (Not many that I can think of).

"They resemble P-CAV or Z-CAV CDRW drives in that there are zones of transfers rates, not a smooth line across the drive."

Hmmm well if you read a few reviews etc at SR.com you'll see that there is actually a very steady line representing transfer rate which starts high on the outter tracks (at 48/49) and drops steadily as it progresses toward the inner tracks (at 28/29).

For example the graph (black background) on this page:
WD1200BB Low Level Results

Note that it's only steady or "in the zone" for the first <15GB. Now I agree there are some "steps" or "zones" whatever you may like to call them on the graph. But it drops roughly 1.5MB/Sec every 10GB of space in a pretty steady fashion if you look.

Thorin

 

[nightowl]

thorin: I know that the transfer rate that I posted is the max transfer rate on the outer ares of the drive platters. I used the max transfer rate because that is what WD was obviously referring to on their site.

 

[MisterDuck]

The WD1200JB was about $265.00 on googlegear.com last week - I already picked one up.

As to the actual thread, I wouldn't hesitate to say that the WD1200JB is the fastest *IDE* drive ever, but there's no way I'd ever consider it the fastest hard drive ever. Hands down, it schools any other IDE drive - but there's no way it can compete with a high end SCSI drive. Either way, those high end SCSI drive setups are going to set you back probably a minimum of five to six hundred dollars (and have a fraction of the storage space), so I guess you have to ask what you really need.

That, and SCSI only really shines in a server environment where you're getting geographically erratic movement of the heads on the hard drive and the low seek times come into play. In terms of sheer transfer rate, SCIS is fater, but not by much anymore.


Either way, my logic goes as such:
WD1200JB = 275.00 total
Seagate 36.5 gb HD 15,000RPM = $550.00 + $150.00 for SCSI controller = $700.00