is the WD1200JB really the fastest drive under $200?

[sniperruff]

well i just ordered a WD1200JB that everyone is talking about and got curious whether it is really that fast (i've never used a 1200JB)
so i looked at the spec sheet of the WD and my maxtor 6L080J4 (maxtor 80 gig 7200rpm 2 mb cache)

WD1200JB
Average Read Seek 8.9 ms (average)
Track to Track Seek 2.0 ms (average)
Full Stroke Seek (Read) 21 ms (average)

maxtor 6L080J4
Average Read Seek 8.5 ms (average)
Track to Track Seek 0.8 ms (average)
Full Stroke Seek (Read) 17.8 ms (average)

not that some milliseconds would matter much... but how does the 8mb cache make the drive faster?

 

[MrGrim]

The WD1200JB is currently the fastest IDE hard drive out there. The additional cache helps the drive keep a very consistant throughput, around 40MB/s average.

 

[JHeiderman]

I got the 80gig model and the speed increase over my 40gig Maxtor 7200rpm was incredible. Definately worth it! The biggest improvement I've noticed has been when loading games. Things like Serious Sam 2 and NOLF2 load much much faster than on my old drive. I am extremely pleased. I think you will be too!

So to answer your question... Yes I believe the WD1200JB really is the fastest drive under $200.

- J

 

[Mikki]

I'll second (or..third) that...

 

[warrenpeace]

I also have the WD 80 gig 8mb version and a Maxtor 80 gig 7200 rpm ATA133 drive. I bought the WD 2 weeks ago when compusa had them for $89 after rebates... walked by the end stand, started doing math in my head and bought one without a second thought (they have the 120 on similar sale this week !).

Anyways, my MB supports the ATA133, and i thought "yea, how much faster can it really be", but in SiSoft Sandra 2002 file systems benchmark, the WD pulled a 31% higher score !!!

I wish i would have had the scratch in my pocket to buy two of them for a raid array.

 

[Pariah]

The fastest drive available for under $200, is undoubtedly the Fujitsu MAM3184MP. That said, the all around fastest available ATA drive at any price point is the WD JB series. Though to be honest, I think you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between any of the current generation ATA drives regardless of cache size in a closed box test.

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: Pariah
The fastest drive available for under $200, is undoubtedly the Fujitsu MAM3184MP. That said, the all around fastest available ATA drive at any price point is the WD JB series. Though to be honest, I think you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between any of the current generation ATA drives regardless of cache size in a closed box test.

I would agree. Unless you had a first generation 7200 rpm drive, you would be really hardpressed to tell the difference between any current generation 7200 rpm ATA100/133 drive unless given a concise benchmark.

 

[alkemyst]

That WD is a great deal right now.

 

[obeseotron]

You can check out Storage Review's database to see the speed differences in drives. The 1200JB is $161 shipped on pricewatch, its still the fastest drive out there, but the 2000JB will surely be faster.

 

[thomsbrain]

I run two in a RAID array and they are pretty fast. It's noticibly faster than the old Maxtor 7200 RPM doing things like opening Photoshop, and when it comes time to create final Divx movies in Nandub and add in audio or whatever, it's about 4 times faster, with about 8-10 MB/s write sustained (it's reading from several places at the same time) versus ~2MB/s with the Maxtor. So there's some real world differences.