WD SE 80GB platter drives- how to tell

I want to get very soon (like today) a WD 80 or 120 GB SE drive
but have just learned that the newer ones have 80GB platters as opposed to the 40GB platters on the old

Does anyone know of any way to tell which one you get, i can find no info anywhere, only that they started shipping the new ones this jan i think

I would imagine higher platter density = better performance and if the price is the same i would like to find a newer one


thanks

The 120Gig will be faster than the 80gig....

but wont the 120GB with the newer Platters be faster than
the older ones

yes they will

Then back to the original question
how can you tell the difference between the older 120gb and the newer 120gb drives?


every site ive seen has no information on this, maybe since newegg is sold out, they are re-ordering newer ones?

seems logical enough

I would like a more definintive method though

I would also like to know since i just bought an 80giger WD SE, and it was made in february. Im just wondering if its on a 80 gig platter or an older one.

raven

just make sure the manufacturing date is newer than january. (I dont know if january is the actual month but that is what you said)

does anyone know of any code or series of numbers to look for on the HD to tell if tis got the 80 gig platter?

raven

Western Digital announced the new series of Caviar drives in a press release on January 21. The press release is here.

I haven't heard anything else about these new drives since. Typically, when a drive maker says in a press release that they are "immediately putting into production" a new technology, you should read "sometime in the next 60-90-120 days".

Since none of the hard drive news sites have tested even a pre-production model of the new Caviar's, I don't think they have gone into production yet.




BHD

Excuse my ignorance, but why should the current 120 gig be faster than the current 80 gig? What is the current arrangement of platters?

That's actually a good question. As a rule, larger capacity drives are better in most common benchmark tests than smaller drives in the same series. The WD200JB, a 200GB drive, is by the benchmarks the fastest IDE drive on the market today.

There are a couple of reasons why. First, larger capacity drives tend to be the last released and benefit from updates to hardware and firmware through the production cycle. The other reason has to do with the benchmark tests themselves. One of the key tests is how long it takes the drive to read and write data across the drive. Higher capacity drives shine here because of the greater number of discs and heads.

But for some applications, the fastest drives aren't what the benchmarks tell you. Gaming is the best example. When running a game program how quickly the drive can access and recover sequential information is more important than reading data at widely seperated points on the disc. If everything else is equal, a single platter drive will outperform a multi-platter drive in this arrangement. But it should be noted that how this translates to FPS is lower than you'll ever detect with your eye.



BHD

Thanks for your response. One more question: which drives (fewer platters/heads or more platters/heads) will be fastest in RAID 0? Of course, I realize the speed difference is mostly negligible, but I am curious on the issue. Probably more platters/heads simply because of the way data is striped?

Here's your answer, from Toms hardware:
http://www4.tomshardware.com/storage/20021011/index.html


Those who are interested in the new 120 GB model should be on the alert, because this drive is available at the store in two versions: one with the previous inner mechanisms and three 40 GB platters, and another one that is technically the same as the WD2000 tested here, but with two 60 GB platters. The new model has higher performance capabilities, so if the prices are the same, then go for the newer model. The model number of the new drive doesn't allow you to identify which is which, so we recommend that you take a look at the total number of sectors (indicated on the drive as "Drive Parameters"): the "old" model has 234.375 billion; the latest model has 234.442 billion. An alternative is to look at the manufacturing date - models dated starting September 2002 are most likely the ones that have 60 GB per platter.

Papa_Legba said:

Thanks for your response. One more question: which drives (fewer platters/heads or more platters/heads) will be fastest in RAID 0? Of course, I realize the speed difference is mostly negligible, but I am curious on the issue. Probably more platters/heads simply because of the way data is striped?

Click to expand...

Actually, its the opposite. The best setup for a gaming RAID0 array are single-platter drives. Because you are working from sequential files, the advantage the single platter drive has in accellerating to speed will result in slightly better performance. But I have to stress again that we are talking about an improvement you would only see in a benchmark that was measuring this particular test.

RAID is fun to play and I don't have a problem with it from that standpoint. But if you are most concerned with your best drive performance in games and you can only afford two drives, you should consider using one just for your OS and game programs, and putting all of your media files and other applications on the second drive. This will keep your game drive clean and tight and probably give you better performance over a longer time than a RAID0 array with everything on it.



BHD