120GB WD good?

[rob24]

Will a 120GB 7200 RPM 8mb cache Western Digital hard drive be good for my computer? It is advertised for $49.99 after a $50 mail in rebate from Best Buy. My current specs are.. (not sure if you even need them) ....

MSI K8N
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice
Corsair XMS (2 x 512mb)
FSP Group PSU 500w
BFG 6800gt oc

 

[magoo]

yes. I have three of those in three different comps.never have I had any problems. transfer data without a problem. My oldest one is just over two years has been reformatted a number of times. Not the fastest but real reliable workhorses, and not loud either. I assume these are EIDE and not SATA if that really makes a difference for that price DO IT.

 

[hokatichenci]

I've got 3 120gbs and a 200gb in a single system, theyve been running basically 24/7 for about 2-3 years, I had one die due to heating issues early on (thank you 3 year warranty) and another one seems like its on the way out. They are solid drives, but make sure to keep plenty of cooling on them. I havn't really had problems ever since I threw in 3 80mm and a 92mm fan (though 24/7 through California summers sure does abuse these suckers hard)

 

[mikeblas]

What does "good for your computer" mean? Like, is it a good drive? A better drive than the one you already have? Will it work by just plugging it in? Are there better drives available?

 

[rob24]

Meaning a good drive for my price range in the 50's-65's dollars. Also a good drive for what I do, listen to music, make video's, play alot of video games. I want something either 100GB or higher.

 

[Drucifer]

They're okay... I have had issues with WD drives before, but, YMMV. Good price, though.

 

[mikeblas]

$0.40 per gigabyte sounds great to me. For your casual use, the performance and reliability of this drive should be quite adequate.

 

[SirKenin]

I've got 3 120gbs and a 200gb in a single system, theyve been running basically 24/7 for about 2-3 years, I had one die due to heating issues early on (thank you 3 year warranty) and another one seems like its on the way out. They are solid drives, but make sure to keep plenty of cooling on them.

So solid that they keep dying on you? Wonderful.

WD drives are crap, that's all there is to it. The only good drive they make is the Raptor (I wonder how many times I'll have to keep repeating that?) I also have an SE drive in my server and it sucks, but it's left over from an RMA so I might as well use it for something besides the doorstop it was destined to become.

 

[DougLite]

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1027716869&postcount=9

That's a pretty darn good record. WD also has quite a few consumer system design wins. It's true that I wouldn't pick a WD consumer drive for my system - but there is a whole legion of people here on the [H] that have run WD Caviar based SLED setups for years with no problems, and they continue to win polls as the best HDD maker among enthusiasts. If you choose not to use WD Caviar drives for you and your customers, that's fine. However, it is a blatant untruth to say that all of WD's consumer drives are destined to become door stops. How many times do I have to say that?

 

[Drucifer]

As I said in my above post, I've had issues with WD drives in the past. However, as with all things, bad stuff tends to run in lots... ie, the "old car built on a Friday or Monday" theory.

That being said, I agree with DougLite's comment about choice... it ultimately comes down to the individual. Lots of people here in the forums swear by WD, and, as hard as we are here with our equipment, that says something in and of itself.

Personally, I prefer Seagate. I have had better reliability and luck out of those drives, and I do think they run quieter. Now, if you are one of those guys who run a lot of noisy fans... hell, you won't notice the HDD noise anyway!

As always, opinions are like assholes... everyone's got one. YMMV. Good luck.

 

[Devnull]

I have two of those drives and they are good. I did experience data loss on one of them but I am confident that it was due to my bad PSU since another drive in that system crashed 2 days later.

 

[dandragonrage]

I've had one die and a couple of my friends have too. They also make a high pitched whine that drove my roommate and I crazy. I'm avoiding them from now own.

 

[Vapor1000]

i highly reccomend WD's Caviar line of drives....
i have had countless numbers of them and never had 1 die on me...
just look at my sig... you will see im running 7 WD drives in just my primary computer right now... 3 caviar & 4 raptor...
all of my machines run WD drives...
7 WD's in my primary
2 WD's in my Secondary
and 1 WD in each of my mini's...

altho i dont own them anymore (sold both a while back) i had 2 WD 120's that i had for at least 2 years each.. same make/model as the drive you are looking into... i have nothing buy a high recommendation for you to get this drive (especially at this advertized price)

do it... you wont regret it...

 

[mikeblas]

How many drives do you think Western Digital has sold? Forever? In the last, say, three years?

 

[dandragonrage]

Vapor, show us a pic of the inside of your comp

 

[SirKenin]

Personally, I prefer Seagate. I have had better reliability and luck out of those drives, and I do think they run quieter. Now, if you are one of those guys who run a lot of noisy fans... hell, you won't notice the HDD noise anyway!

I would take the Seagate myself any day of the week over a WD. As a retailer (and an authorized one at that) of WD I was experiencing heavy losses with the Caviar. I don't care what any enthusiast has to say, they don't have the perspective I have. Just because they haven't lost one of a handful of drives means absolutely nothing when you talk about the numbers that I have turned over, the RMAs I had to do and the amount of money I have lost selling their crap. That's why I ditched the line of Caviars. Anything but their enterprise drives have a bad reputation for quality control. I'm all about making money, not losing it. If you can afford to take a chance in losing your data, then by all means WD makes a fine choice. However, when your harddrive starts to click like a bugger or the data gets so badly buggered up on the drive that you can't even low level format it, don't come crying to me because I'll just say "I told you so".

Who gives a damn about warranty experiences? If a survey shows more satisfaction in WD RMAs over any other manufacturer, that could just as easily show that they have more RMAs than any other manufacturer. I believe they do from my experience, apart from perhaps IBM/Hitachi (data corruption) and Fujitsu (FAT tables). Then again, you get what you pay for, don't you? I don't expect this piece of crap to last too long before I'm sending it back to WD AGAIN, but at least it isn't holding all the important data, the Maxtor is.

Edit: Incidentally, the performance of this WD SE 8GB cache drive is shit in a server environment (Windows 2000 Advanced Server).

 

[hokatichenci]

So solid that they keep dying on you? Wonderful.

WD drives are crap, that's all there is to it. The only good drive they make is the Raptor (I wonder how many times I'll have to keep repeating that?) I also have an SE drive in my server and it sucks, but it's left over from an RMA so I might as well use it for something besides the doorstop it was destined to become.

My harddrives have seen more usage than probably most people will see in their lifetimes. I have done a lot of video editing/ripping, and ran a rather high level fileserver at my University, I estimated network traffic download in the 4-8 terabyte range and uploads around 1 terabyte (~ 500 gb space, file rotation/deletion) in its first year. Throw that in with very hot southern california weather and I'm frankly not surprised that they are burning out earlier than most harddrive installations. I bought 2 Maxtors 80gb for raid1 for critical files and one of them died in a matter of months. The other seems to be chugging along relatively fine but with such a full case in such high ambient temperatures I do push the limits. At work one of the servers runs raid10 with 4x 250gb's and they are fine so far, but it hasn't been running more than a few months so one should take that into consideration. I'm personally very satisfied with them, and their return rates from RMA are pretty quick (being in the same county as them helps too).

While WD arn't likely the "almighty best" solution, for the price the original poster put up its not a bad deal.

 

[SirKenin]

I have Maxtors running for years and years, in less than favorable conditions, and I have never lost one yet. Same goes for the Quantum Fireballs of old. Don't give that to me as an excuse for the WDs dying. Mine go 24/7, 365 days a year for years and don't quit.

 

[Megadeth_Guy01]

WD drives are crap, that's all there is to it..

No that's not all there is to it, I've never had a problem with any drives I've ever bought from them (around 6-ish) and I will continue buying from them. Although Seagate has been winning me over lately because of some deals I got on this 120GB.

 

[SirKenin]

I just got word from a fellow VAR in Texas. He has just finished pulling another dead WD Caviar out of a rig. He apparently has a box just full to the brim with them. It is obvious that I am not the only one, further proving that the experiences of the odd enthusiast are meaningless. WD Caviars are crap, end of story. We are, after all, the one that has to put up with getting the client feedback (or RMAs) on how terrible these stupid drives are. When they break it is somehow magically our fault.

Again, a vote showing that the majority of people have the most experiences with WD RMA just means that WDs are the ones breaking down the most, forcing people to have experiences with the RMA department (with which so far my experience with them has been less than admirable).

 

[Megadeth_Guy01]

I just got word from a fellow VAR in Texas. He has just finished pulling another dead WD Caviar out of a rig. He apparently has a box just full to the brim with them. It is obvious that I am not the only one, further proving that the experiences of the odd enthusiast are meaningless. WD Caviars are crap, end of story. We are, after all, the one that has to put up with getting the client feedback (or RMAs) on how terrible these stupid drives are. When they break it is somehow magically our fault.

Again, a vote showing that the majority of people have the most experiences with WD RMA just means that WDs are the ones breaking down the most, forcing people to have experiences with the RMA department (with which so far my experience with them has been less than admirable).

He (and you) are apparantly doing something wrong to the drives if he has a box full of dead drives. WD doesn't just build a shit product and sell it, I'm sure they test it before release thoroughly, etc.

 

[SirKenin]

He (and you) are apparantly doing something wrong to the drives if he has a box full of dead drives. WD doesn't just build a shit product and sell it, I'm sure they test it before release thoroughly, etc.

Oh yeah. That's it. We have nothing fucking better to do than sit there and blow up client's HDDs so I can come in here and bitch about how crappy these damn things are... Get real for once.

When you find your head and bolt it back on to your shoulders, in case you missed it we are both retailers and technicians (I don't know how much experience he has in the field, but I have 18 years of it myself). They come in to us like that.

Edit: Forgive me for being so crass, but your comment was idiotic at best and just rubbed my fur the wrong way.

 

[Megadeth_Guy01]

Edit: Forgive me for being so crass, but your comment was idiotic at best

ROTF, you should have thought to give me some information about your knowledge/experience with computer repair so I could at least know that it wasn't a n00b that was just bashing WD for no reason, well sorry for all the bad luck you have had with WD but you (and him) are maybe the 2 unluckiest with hard drives that I've ever heard of in my life. I haven't even heard stuff that bad about Maxtor and look how shitty their drives are.

 

[mikeblas]

ROTF, you should have thought to give me some information about your knowledge/experience with computer repair so I could at least know that it wasn't a n00b that was just bashing WD for no reason,

Yeah! I think he also should've told us how big the box is.

 

[Dragon365]

Personally, I've had a 40gb WD drive for at least 3 years and an 80 GB for 1.5 years and both of them have been fast and reliable. Also, I work at a small computer firm, and the Western Digital drives we use almost always last for the life of the computer (3-5 years in most cases.)

 

[Lestang]

WD drives are very very good. My first computer I built over 10 years ago. The WD drive I got was bad from the start replaced it with another 6.4gig WD drive that is still running to this day. I ran out of room got a 13.6 after a couple years That on is still going strong have had that for about 6 years maybe 7. I have a 40 gig wd drive for my main drive that is going strong now for 4 years going on 5. I think I will buy that WD drive for the rebate thats an awesome price 50.00 after rebate.

 

[Squishead]

Love mine. I have had nothing by WD drives in the last 8 years. Except for my wonderful Quantum Fireball 6GB, that was great

I think I paid 70 CDN for the drive in my sig.

 

[Vapor1000]

Vapor, show us a pic of the inside of your comp

ok.. here ya go..

HD Rack (no flash), HD Rack (flash), yea... i know its dusty, Addin IDE Cards

 

[hokatichenci]

I personally can not see a darn thing through all that cabling. Nice job. Way more full than my case

-hoka

 

[Megadeth_Guy01]

God damn, how hot is it inside that case? lol.

 

[Vapor1000]

I personally can not see a darn thing through all that cabling. Nice job. Way more full than my case

-hoka

yea... its in a transitional stage right now so some of the SATA cables i just THREW in there untill i get my new ATA/SATA PCI Controller card...
but its kinda hard to keep it clean when u have as much hardware in a computer as i do...
what im trying to show off is all dem' WD Hard Drives.. my system is loaded down with the WD Goodness ;-)

and as for temps... i dono how hot my HDD rack gets but it gets plenty warm breaching on hot to the touch even with 2 80mm fans on it... GPU runs 50 idle - 58 load and cpu runs 93 idle - 104 load (and note that this is in my room that is running about 84-88*F now that its getting to be warm summer time again... winter my temps droped about 10*F on everything.

i remember some guy posting earlyer saying he was a retailer & WD was shit, i personally he eather got a couple bad batches or had TARD coustomers mistreating the drives, well and the fact that i think hes a lil bias against WD... but since 99 all of my systems have been WD drives & every computer i build for whatever person has a WD drive in it (about 3-10pc's a year) and since 99 i have yet to get a bad drive.. my last bad drive was a Maxtor... that was about 6 maxtor drives (all different size n models) that went out on me in 1 year... after that i swore them off, switched to WD and no problems since... im also partial to Seagate & i think Hitiachi/IBM makes a good drive too, they are just a bit loud for my tastes.

 

[SirKenin]

ROTF, you should have thought to give me some information about your knowledge/experience with computer repair so I could at least know that it wasn't a n00b that was just bashing WD for no reason, well sorry for all the bad luck you have had with WD but you (and him) are maybe the 2 unluckiest with hard drives that I've ever heard of in my life. I haven't even heard stuff that bad about Maxtor and look how shitty their drives are.

Listen, I'm sorry I came across the way that I did. The truth is that I lost my temper, which I don't often do, and I took it out on you. I shouldn't have done that and that's all there is to it.

I do have a lot of experience with these drives and no, as you can see I'm not a n00b. lol. WD Caviars, in my experience, cater to a consumer base that care more about the bottom line than they do about performance and reliability. They want to get something for nothing. As long as that consumer base exists, WD is naturally going to cater to it. They have provided a questionable line of harddrives. Now, they are NOT all bad. Obviously, or they wouldn't be selling ANY of them. However, there is a good percentage of them that fail, warranting my comments on their line. Especially when you start introducing them into a server environment or any other demanding environment. They just don't stand up to the challenge. Even in the lightest of deployment duties I have seen them fail.

WD is not the only manufacturer to do this of course. IBM is notorious for it and so is Fujitsu. Unfortunately Maxtor is too with their DM8s, QF3s and DX741s. They fail on a notoriously high rate, yet Maxtor insists on selling them as there is a market for them. I wish Maxtor wouldn't do this, but people keep on buying them so Maxtor doesn't see the need to change them, just the same as the other manufacturers.

So, to say ALL Caviars are bad is the wrong thing to say. They aren't ALL bad. There is a large percentage of them that make it, as many enthusiasts can attest to. However they also have an excessively high failure rate which makes VARs like myself cringe. There are also those in the consumer sector that can attest to this.

I guess it is more fair to say that with that particular lineup it is hit and miss. I, myself, would prefer not to take the chance. Thus, I would recommend the likes of Seagate, WD Raptors or Maxtor DM9s and DM10s instead.

 

[Vapor1000]

So, to say ALL Caviars are bad is the wrong thing to say. They aren't ALL bad. There is a large percentage of them that make it, as many enthusiasts can attest to. However they also have an excessively high failure rate which makes VARs like myself cringe. There are also those in the consumer sector that can attest to this.

I guess it is more fair to say that with that particular lineup it is hit and miss. I, myself, would prefer not to take the chance. Thus, I would recommend the likes of Seagate, WD Raptors or Maxtor DM9s and DM10s instead.

high falure rate or not, ive purchased well over 50 WD drives in the past 6 years and no bad experiances yet... why change a good thing?
so i guess i am ur enthusiest opinion ;-)
as far as drives being CHEEP
yes i am much more prone to buy the 320gb drives i did insted the $100-150 more Seagate 400GB that would be the only other drive i would chose over the WD320...
when ur talking about the 1.2 terrabytes im touching in just my primary machine... that extra money adds up very quickly...
and also i wouldent nessisarily call WD a cheep drive eather.... most of the time when im hard drive shipping, Maxtor & Hitiachi tend to have cheeper alternitives... but i just stick to my success with WD

 

[killerD]

Listen, I'm sorry I came across the way that I did. The truth is that I lost my temper, which I don't often do, and I took it out on you. I shouldn't have done that and that's all there is to it.

I do have a lot of experience with these drives and no, as you can see I'm not a n00b. lol. WD Caviars, in my experience, cater to a consumer base that care more about the bottom line than they do about performance and reliability. They want to get something for nothing. As long as that consumer base exists, WD is naturally going to cater to it. They have provided a questionable line of harddrives. Now, they are NOT all bad. Obviously, or they wouldn't be selling ANY of them. However, there is a good percentage of them that fail, warranting my comments on their line. Especially when you start introducing them into a server environment or any other demanding environment. They just don't stand up to the challenge. Even in the lightest of deployment duties I have seen them fail.

WD is not the only manufacturer to do this of course. IBM is notorious for it and so is Fujitsu. Unfortunately Maxtor is too with their DM8s, QF3s and DX741s. They fail on a notoriously high rate, yet Maxtor insists on selling them as there is a market for them. I wish Maxtor wouldn't do this, but people keep on buying them so Maxtor doesn't see the need to change them, just the same as the other manufacturers.

So, to say ALL Caviars are bad is the wrong thing to say. They aren't ALL bad. There is a large percentage of them that make it, as many enthusiasts can attest to. However they also have an excessively high failure rate which makes VARs like myself cringe. There are also those in the consumer sector that can attest to this.

I guess it is more fair to say that with that particular lineup it is hit and miss. I, myself, would prefer not to take the chance. Thus, I would recommend the likes of Seagate, WD Raptors or Maxtor DM9s and DM10s instead.

This clown tried to make the exact same case months ago and I proved him wrong with actual warranty claims disclosing WD's being the lowest in the field (that means they have the least failing comprende?). I will link them again if you like, can't argue with FACTS. The 80GB Caviar model has over 1000 glowing reviews on newegg, and is by x10 their best selling HD - are they all ignorant too? Or maybe your a Maxtor employee about ready to get canned? Whats your motive for trashing an obviously fine company making fine hard drives. To say this over and over for months you must have an agenda. Inquiring minds want to know.