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Western Digital Caviar SE EIDE 120 GB Hard Drive

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Western Digital Caviar SE EIDE 120 GB Hard Drive

CNET editors' rating: 4.0 stars Excellent
Detailed editors' rating

Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 73 reviews
See all user reviews

Product summary

The good: Huge, 120GB capacity; blazing performance; three-year warranty.

The bad: None.

The bottom line: This high-volume drive offers outstanding sustained throughput and Western Digital's reputation for excellence and reliability.

Specifications: Hard drive size: 120 GB ; Interface type: ATA-100 ; Enclosure type: Internal ; See full specs

Price range: $75.00 - $161.25 check prices

See all products in the Western Digital Caviar series

CNET editors' review

Reviewed by:
Jon L. Jacobi
Reviewed on: 05/05/2002

If you're looking for a high-capacity drive with top-notch performance, Western Digital's 7,200rpm, 120GB, ATA-100 WD1200JB offers it in spades. This special-edition drive, with its extralarge, 8MB buffer, easily bested Maxtor's 160GB D540X and tied with IBM's Deskstar 120GXP as the fastest 120GB drive we've tested.If you're looking for a high-capacity drive with top-notch performance, Western Digital's 7,200rpm, 120GB, ATA-100 WD1200JB offers it in spades. This special-edition drive, with its extralarge, 8MB buffer, easily bested Maxtor's 160GB D540X and tied with IBM's Deskstar 120GXP as the fastest 120GB drive we've tested.

Easy does it
The WD1200JB's professional, informative setup sheet and guide make installing the drive a breeze--if you're not scared of opening your machine and using a screwdriver. The retail package includes an 80-pin EIDE cable and mounting screws but no brackets for securing the 3.5-inch drive in a 5.25-inch bay. Western Digital's Data Lifeguard software makes it easy to copy data from your present hard drive to the WD1200JB and provides drivers to load on older computers that don't automatically support drives this large.

The WD1200JB finished in a virtual dead heat with IBM's Deskstar 120GXP in CNET Labs' performance tests. With such speedy sustained transfer rates, the Western Digital would be better for audio and video storage, where you need to maintain high throughput rates. However, in HD Tach 2.70 benchmarking, the WD1200JB was a tad slower than the IBM on two out of three tests, giving the IBM a slight advantage in everyday computing tasks such as opening and reading batches of smaller files. The WD1200JB's tested 13.4ms seek time in WinBench fell in the middle ground between the IBM 120GXP's 12.2ms and the Maxtor D540X's 14.5ms.

No shock here
The WD1200JB also promises to be reliable. The drive is shock-rated to a hefty 65G while operating and an average-to-low 200G while turned off. The drive spins quietly, living up to its rating of 35dB while spinning and 39dB when the read/write head is seeking. The WD1200JB ran a tad warmer than the IBM 120GXP, the other 7,200rpm drive in this review, but it also had a lower vibration level, so it won't rattle its cage or your computer case.

A comforting three-year warranty covers the WD1200JB, and Western Digital offers phone support six days a week via a toll-free line. Phone lines are open Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Fridays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturdays 8 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. CT. Online support is excellent and includes jumper diagrams, a knowledge base, operating-system limits, manuals, and software downloads.

Vie to tie
The WD1200JB offers the fastest sustained throughput of any 120GB drive we've tested, but its seek time is a little slower than that of the IBM 120GXP. Go with the WD1200JB for audio and video and the IBM 120GXP for everyday use--or get whichever one is on sale.

Editor's note: This page has changed from our original version. Please see the corrections page.

eTesting Labs' WinBench 99 2.0 test
Measured in kilobytes per second; longer bars indicate better performance

Disk-transfer rate: end

Disk-transfer rate: beginning

Western Digital WD1200JB

28,800

48,900

IBM Deskstar 120GXP

24,000

47,900

Maxtor D540X

36,600

20,200

HD Tach 2.70 tests
Measured in megabytes per second; longer bars indicate better performance

Write speed (maximum)

Read speed (maximum)

Read burst speed

IBM Deskstar 120GXP

30.2

49.6

87.6

Western Digital WD1200JB

29.6

50.3

86.1

Maxtor D540X

22.9

37.6

100

CNET Labs' tests evaluate the range of performance you may expect from a hard drive. The eTesting Labs' transfer rates are measured at the beginning of the disk (or its outside, where data moves past the read head at a higher rate) and at the end of the disk (or its inside, where data moves past the read head at a slower rate). HD Tach performs similar tests, returning a drive's maximum sustained write and read speeds. In addition, it measures read-burst speed, which evaluates the performace of the drive's read-ahead memory and the drive controller.

The Western Digital kept well ahead of the Maxtor on most tests. And though the WD1200JB looks slightly faster than the IBM on WinBench tests, the two are evenly matched. It's too close to call a clear winner.

User reviews

Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 73 reviews
My rating: 0 stars Write review

Showing 3 of 73 user reviewsSee all 73 user reviews
4.0 stars

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful

"Worked for 1 year then quit"

on September 4, 2004

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1.5 stars

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful

"Failed!"

on October 28, 2004

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5.0 stars

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful

"WD is the way to go!"

on April 8, 2003

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