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Western Digital Caviar® SE 250GB SATA
Hard Drive Review |
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Its
been a few months now since we have
posted a review which always keep you all on
the hop. Though as many of
you are aware - much happens here that
never gets aired! Life in
the fast lane with the latest bleeding
edge hardware can get a little
frustrating - hmm the same thing could
be said when operating with local
councils in sorting planning permission
etc if you have been there you will know
what we mean!
Therefore, with this in mind, today we
look at the Western Digital Caviar® SE
250GB SATA Hard Drive with an 8MB Buffer
Cache in both Raid 0 and Raid 1
Configurations. Hopefully
the results obtained further on will
give you all an idea of just what to
expect from an entry level Hard Disc in
either configuration. |
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For the last 2 years, a majority of
all our reviews have been completed
using high-end Western Digital drives
and latterly all the hard drives have
the full 16MB Buffer Cache.
Performance from these drives needless to
say has been blistering, continuing to
get better with each new release of
mainboard and its updated raid facility
from the onboard chipset.
However, the burning question that we
receive in now and again from a good few
readers - what about the performance
from 8MB Buffer Cache drives that we
have! |
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So what
has this drive have to offer?
With a little help from Western Digital
on some complete stats we see below just some of the features
and benefits that the drive has to offer |
Key Features
1. It has a fast 7200
RPM spindle speed and next-generation
SATA 3 Gb/s interface with an 8 MB
buffer cache
2. Cool operation results in
the highest reliability, even in
intensely hot environments such as
digital video
recorders
3. Quiet - The WhisperDrive™
technology minimizes noise to levels
near the threshold of human hearing. To
cut
seek noise, SoftSeek™ technology streamlines
read/write seeking algorithms, resulting
in more efficient
operation.
Performance Specifications
1. Rotational Speed 7,200
RPM (nominal)
2. Buffer Size 8 MB
3. Average Latency 4.20 ms
(nominal)
Seek Times Read Seek
Time 8.9 ms
Track-To-Track Seek Time 2.0 ms
(average)
Full Stroke Seek 21.0 ms (average)
Transfer Rates Buffer
To Host (Serial ATA) 3 Gb/s (Max)
Buffer To Disk 748 Mbits/s (Max)
Ideal for Entry Level Workstations,
High-performance family and daily
business computing. |
Claimed Capacities
1.
Up to 71,000 digital photos -
Figures represent the average number of
photos taken with a 6 Mega Pixel
Camera in High Resolution JPEG mode with an
average size of 3.5MB per photo. Actual
number of images
will vary by camera model and compression
setting.
2. Up to 62,000 songs
(MP3) - Music capacity is based on 4
minutes per song. MP3 capacity is based
upon
128kbps bit rate and 11:1 audio compression
ratio.
3. Up to 6,200 songs
(uncompressed CD quality) - Music
capacity is based on 4 minutes per song.
Uncompressed CD quality is based upon 1:1 audio
compression ratio.
4. Up to 19 hours of
Digital Video (DV) - The DV format,
regardless of its mode (miniDV, DVCAM,
DVC-Pro)
has a data rate of approximately 25MB/s. In
storage terms, this translates to
approximately 3.5MB/s or
13GB/hr.
5. Up to 100 hours of DVD
quality video - DVD Video was
calculated on a data rate of 5MB/s which
translates
to an average of 2.25GB/hr.
6. Up to 30 hours of HD
video - HD Video was
calculated at 720p or 1080i video output
with an 8.3GB/hr
recording rate.
(Examples of the number of photos,
songs, videos and any other files that
can be stored on a hard drive are
provided for illustrative purposes only.
Individual results will vary based on
file size and format, settings,
features, software and other factors.)
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Test System Set-Ups and Notes
To complete a short review of this
magnitude in its best surrounds we ran with
one of our current in house test
systems. Therefore we had
to make a concessive decision what would
be the best way forward that you the
professional and the budget minded high-end
SoHo end user could quickly grasp.
We feel that
the tests shown today from this in house systems will give you the
reader a very good indication of what to
expect when you next take on your
evaluation upgrade systems.
Test System Used
1 X Akasa Mirage 62 Chassis
1 X Akasa ALLInONE Controller
1 X Akasa EVO 120 V2 HSF utilising Akasa
Pro Grade 460 Thermal Compound
1 X Intel E6700 CPU
1 X MSI 965 Platinum Edition – Modified
Version
2 X 1GB PC2 8500 Corsair XMS2 Memory
Modules
1 X NVIDIA Quadro FX 3500 (Driver
Release 91.85 WHQL)
1 X Akasa Amber 120mm Intake Fan
1 X Akasa Amber 120mm Exhaust Fan
2 X Western Digital Caviar® SE 250GB
SATA Hard Drives configured to Raid 0
2 X Western Digital Caviar® SE 250GB
SATA Hard Drives configured to Raid 1
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The mainboards bios settings were left
at default automatically finding the CPU
and 800FSB memory with the mainboard
automatically adjusting the clock speed
settings and voltages to facilitate
these parts to maintain the higher
functionality which it has to offer.
Hardware Suppliers for the Review
MSI for the supply of the Mainboards
shown,
Corsair, for the supply of their
Dominator memory,
Western Digital for
the SATA Hard Discs,
Man and Machine for
the supply of the PNY Quadro FX 3500,
and finally but by no means least;
Akasa
for the major peripherals required for
this review . Our thanks to all involved
in making this an interesting but
exciting review. The CPU - our thanks to
the donor of this superb chip, and
before anyone says it, no it did not
come from Intel.
Corsair’s new memory really has hit
home, it maybe expensive in some areas for some,
but the performance and stability that
we encountered over these last few months has
been magnificent. Ranting on once more
stability in the high-end is of a paramont.
For those so inclined and feel
the need for speed, we can say that this
memory on these mainboards and memory
can be well adjusted to keep the
overclocker well happy for many a day.
Systems Integrators, OEM’s and VAR’s
should contact all companies directly
for pricing and availability of all
components. Members of the public should
contact their respective suppliers
requesting the parts directly.
Diskeeper can be purchased from most
leading Distributors and software retail
outlets. Or those of you wishing a try
before buy, a 30 day trial version maybe
downloaded direct from
Diskeeper Europe.
We highly recommend the use of this
software as performance increase can be
quite considerable in many places;
especially when Raid 0 arrays start to
creep into 300GB in size.
Benchmarks and Software Used (32 Bit
Mode)
The plethora of benchmarks available in
this arena; one could spend all day in
producing results if the time permitted,
paralysis by analysis! Sadly the clock
ticked hard and fast against us
therefore we did only have a very short
time in which to complete this basic but
factual review.
Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2
Diskeeper 2007 Professional Premium
Edition
PCMark 2005 Advanced with build 1.2.0
Sandra 2007 SP1
HD Tach 3.0.1.0 - Journalists
Edition
Autodesk® 3ds Max® 9
Cinebench 9.5
SPECviewperf® 9.0.3
To complete all of the tests on the
systems has taken some considerable time
to complete. Each card completed the
tests etc on a clean system hard drive
to ensure that no residue drivers were
left installed. A test/render has been
completed many times over different
periods of the system uptime.
Maintaining the fair play rules of
SPECviewperf® we did not manipulate any
of this mainboards functionality and
left it at its default settings in which
it was supplied. All tests have been
conducted at 1280 X 1024 @ 60Hz in 32
bit colour. Results that have been shown
on this review are from the
application/benchmarks first run in
accordance with the SPECviewperf® fair
play rules.
A picture paints a thousand words and as
to our protocol we prefer that you see
the results from either screen shots or
excel charts. With this said
we now move onwards to the results!
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Page 1 -
Introduction
Page 2 -
PCMark
2005 Advanced with build 1.2.0
and
Sandra 2007 SP1
Page 3 -
HD Tach 3.0.1.0
Page 4 - Autodesk 3D Studio
Max 9 & Cinebench 9.5
Page 5 -
SPECviewperf® 9.0.3 and Conclusions |
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