WD: Special Addition vs. No

[Xenon14]

Need a new Harddrive...

newegg has Westeren Digital 80 gig for $85 (2mb cache) and same drive $96 special addition (8mb) cache.
extra 6mb of cache worth the money? Any real perfromance gains? or should i get a diff drive period for similar price? Thanks ahead of time.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

I'm not too sure but I hear it helps out. Check prices on the Maxtor 8mb cache drives, maybe those will come cheaper, not sure though.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Yeah although the 8MB versions are faster the diff isn;t that huge by any means and not truly worth that 13 higher price tag. However you do also get a 3 year warranty with WD's 7200-8 while all other manu's (AFAIK) and WD's non 7200-8 come with only 1 year. I would also advise you to look at Maxtor's 7200 & 7200-8 as they're as fast as the WD equivilents but are quieter and use the superior FDB technology and often seem cheaper to boot. Seagate are the other company worth a good look as the drives though a little slower are reportedly VERY quiet ... they use FDB too.

 

[xSauronx]

i had a 8mb drive once, 100gb and 7200rpm

holy sh!t was it fast, i could tell when loading a couple large games that it was faster than the 2mb drive i have now

but not enough to make a fuss over, i mean, yeah it was fast, but unless you REALLY REALLY REALLY need it i wouldnt bother

 

[cockeyed]

Just built a new system yesterday using the WD 80gb special edition HDD from newegg. If you buy it, make sure to get the DataLife tools 10.0 from the WD site to set it up. Installed it with a Abit BH7 and P4-2.4b. All I can say is, that this thing flies. It is also super quiet. I would spend the few extra $ to get the special edition drive. I think you would be happy with it''s performance.

 

[John]

The extra 2yr warranty is enough to warrant the $11 price difference.

 

[Jeff7181]

Go for the 8 MB cache and extended warranty. (I have a WD800JB)

I don't know what you people do with your computers, or where they're located in your home... but I don't notice any noise from my computer... I mean, if I listen I can obviously hear it, but it's a computer, it's going to make some noise cause it has moving parts... but I guess I've become unaware of computer noise. My keyboard makes more noise than the computer does when I type.

I also currently have an 80 GB D740X Maxtor drive in my computer, and when I have the side panel off, they both sound the same... to me, the WD isn't louder like so many people say.

Maybe I'm going deaf, or maybe my ears just aren't as delicate as some people's =)

(I bet the peopel who complain about computer noise are the same ones who complain about noise with the top down on their convertable)

 

[snidy1]

It's definatly faster with the 8 MB cache, I could tell right away.

 

[wetcat007]

My experience with the JB drives is that overtime they get very very loud, to the point where it's impossible to be able to stand it (yes I RMA'ed it and got other ones sent to me, same problem), i ebayed it, and got myself a silent seagate, as for the 8mb cache, it should not make any difference in loading times like someone said, the only notable performance difference is in pcmark tests which heavily involve the cache, however those are not real world.

About the noise, it bothered me, it doesnt bother some of my friends though, but i prefer quiet.

A bit of advice to you would be to get a Seagate Barracuda V, bout the same performance, plus u can get a SATA 8mb cache version if u want. Maxtors are also supposed to be quiet now, but I havn't tried a new one yet.

-Mark