WD Special Edition drives

[xynder]

I have a question relating to the WD "Special Edition" Series of drives


What's the 8mb cache for?

And, are all the Special Edition models the same (performance wise) exept for capacity (i.e. the 1200JB, the 1000JB, and the 800JB)

Thanks guys!

 

[SteelCityFan]

These drives have been talked about quite a bit on the forums... you can do a search.

As far as the 8MB cache, it allows more data from the drive to be stored in the faster cache meaning it has to go to the slower drive platters less often.

The only difference in the 3 (besides capacity) is the density and number of platters.

The 80GB has 2 - 40GB platters
The 120GB has 3 - 40GB platters

These two drives are the same performance.

The 100GB drive has been debated. Some say this drive has 3 40GB platters but they only use 1 side of one of them... giving the 100GB. Others say it has 3 -33GB platters ... smaller platters will give slightly less speed. Some people say that they used to be 33GB platters and now are being made with 40GB platters. I think the only way to know for sure would be to email WD on it. Based on their website the 100GB has 6 heads or enough heads for front and back of 3 platters. Based on that info, I lean towards the 33GB platters.

The good news is that the price difference roughly breaks down to this...

80GB - $130
100GB - $180
120GB - $200

So, if you are thinking about the 100GB, the 120 is only $20 more.. easy choice.

I have the 80.

 

[Instagib]

SCSI for me please!

 

[hudster]

Q: so, do you think these drives are the best option for an IDE drive to be used for digital video editing?

 

[CQuinn]

A. Not really, (in my experience) you get some benefit in playing back video files from one of the special edition drives
because it can take advantage of the buffer to prestage the file as it is loading, but for video capture the WD drives
will (should) perform on the same level as equivalent Maxtor and IBM 7200 RPM drives.

For video editing it is better to have more than one drive on separate channels, to use one as the source (read) drive
and the other as the destination for your edits/encoding.

 

[xynder]

so when all is said and done, the 800JB is far superior to Maxtor, IBM, and Seagate's 80gb offerings?

 

[Mavrick007]

so when all is said and done, the 800JB is far superior to Maxtor, IBM, and Seagate's 80gb offerings?

Superior in speed right now for ide, but as far as reliability goes, that will be discovered soon enough.. so far it's not been giving too many RMA's that I have heard about.

 

[Mrburns2007]

They tested the 120 Gig hard drive with 8 meg cache over at storage review and it bested several scsi hard drives so it does perform.

Check out the review...