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WD Caviar SE 180GB Hard Drive For $165

PostPosted: Wed Feb 26, 2003 7:19 pm
by BuddhaTB
WESTERN DIGITAL 180GB Caviar Special Edition Internal EIDE Ultra ATA/100 7200RPM Hard Drive with 8MB Cache - Retail Kit
$265.16 - $100 WD Mail-In Rebate = $165.16
*Comes With Free Ultra ATA Controller Card*
Image
Hard drive must be purchased by March 4, 2003.

Hard Drive
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/prod ... l=en&cs=19
Rebate Form
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/rebates/A0080839.pdf


Courtesy of [H]ard OCP Forum

PostPosted: Thu Feb 27, 2003 12:24 am
by tazdevl
Nice, I'm considering.

Only problem I see, it'd be nice if Dell and WD would get on the ball and have an instant rebate. I think uptake would be significantly better. However, I need a bigger backup drive, 40GB just doesn't cut it any more.

Also, the 200GB is 182 with the rebate.

PostPosted: Thu Feb 27, 2003 12:54 pm
by tazdevl
I pulled the trigger :D

I didn't think I needed the 200GB. 180 is plenty big for a backup and file sharing drive.

PostPosted: Thu Feb 27, 2003 1:09 pm
by tazdevl
FYI they kicked up the price so now it is $211 after rebate. I'm glad I stepped up to the plate when I did. Saved ~$50.

PostPosted: Thu Feb 27, 2003 3:13 pm
by BuddhaTB
tazdevl wrote:FYI they kicked up the price so now it is $211 after rebate. I'm glad I stepped up to the plate when I did. Saved ~$50.

Thanks for the update.

PostPosted: Thu Feb 27, 2003 8:00 pm
by tazdevl
Shipped today, so they have them in stock.

PostPosted: Fri Feb 28, 2003 4:16 pm
by imtim83
BuddhaTB i think i am going to wait for the new Western Digital Raptor Hard Drives or maybe go with a Seagate 15.3K SCSI Hard Drive! :) Can't wait to see the benchmarks of the Western Digital Raptor.

PostPosted: Fri Feb 28, 2003 4:35 pm
by BuddhaTB
What the heck is a Western Digital "Raptor" hard drive? What's so special about them?

PostPosted: Fri Feb 28, 2003 7:19 pm
by cfitz
Serial ATA intended for enterprise (company) use - 10K RPM, 8 MByte buffer, 5-year warranty. They are designed to compete with SCSI for less cost. However, don't expect them to be cheap like desktop IDE drives just because they are designed to cost less than SCSI. They are still targeted towards high-performance, high-reliability servers, and are priced to match.

cfitz

PostPosted: Fri Feb 28, 2003 7:59 pm
by BuddhaTB
Thanks cfitz.

Serial ATA hard drives, I'm not getting one until my next computer/motherboard features the connectors for it. I still think parallel ATA drives will be around for a bit longer.

PostPosted: Sat Mar 01, 2003 12:48 am
by imtim83
cfitz they are not going to be very expersive in my opinion. Western Digital is aiming to deliver the Raptor at around $160! I know its only 36 gigs at first when it comes out but there should be bigger versions soon after that one is out!

PostPosted: Sat Mar 01, 2003 1:00 am
by BuddhaTB
imtim83 wrote:cfitz they are not going to be very expersive in my opinion. Western Digital is aiming to deliver the Raptor at around $160! I know its only 36 gigs at first when it comes out but there should be bigger versions soon after that one is out!

$160 for 36GB is very expensive.

PostPosted: Sat Mar 01, 2003 1:11 am
by imtim83
BuddhaTB ok but at least you don't need a SCSI controller card like with SCSI HDs. So its a little bit better in that way. SCSI can get really expersive if you don't have a SCSI controller card already.

Plus it will be the first desktop Serial (ATA) HD! Can't wait for the benchmarks!

PostPosted: Sat Mar 01, 2003 4:57 pm
by Dartman
Depends on what SCSI card you get, and where you get it. I got a Avancesys ultra wide brand new for like 56 bucks on e-bay through a dutch auction, that included shipping. It still works fine and windows had built in drivers for it.
The Tekram card I had before worked great, had a few extra info type features but was only SCSI-2. Got it for around 60 new till I got the latest one. At that time I could have gotten their wide version for around 85. Only problem with them is windows didn't have built in drivers for the Tekram, probably do now though.
Most folks aren't going to use much past a wide 68 pin card so they've gotten cheaper with all the newer itra 160 and things around.

PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2003 10:01 am
by imtim83
Dartman how much would a good new SCSI card be for a Seagate 15.3K 18, 36, or 72 gig HD be ? Plus how many channels would it have and how many more SCSI devices would i beable to add to it? (Like lets say i wanted to add another Seagate 15.3K HD)

PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2003 2:40 pm
by tazdevl
BuddhaTB wrote:
imtim83 wrote:cfitz they are not going to be very expersive in my opinion. Western Digital is aiming to deliver the Raptor at around $160! I know its only 36 gigs at first when it comes out but there should be bigger versions soon after that one is out!

$160 for 36GB is very expensive.


Raptor is targeted for the small-mid size enterprise space.

8MB buffer, 5.2ms access time, 5 year warranty.

$160 is cheap when compared to $220 for a similarly performing and sized SCSI drive with a 4.7ms access time. Not to mention the difference in cost between a SATA card and SCSI card.

You could use it in a RAID 0 with another drive. Should be plenty fast with a reasonable amount of space.

SATA has some benefits (SATA2 will be the time to buy for most folks) like a better bus and better error checking (more important for mission critical situations, not consumer level)... not to mention extremely low CPU utilization <5% vs 30% for a RAID 0.

There's always a SATA/PATA converter.

PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2003 2:41 pm
by tazdevl
imtim83 wrote:Dartman how much would a good new SCSI card be for a Seagate 15.3K 18, 36, or 72 gig HD be ? Plus how many channels would it have and how many more SCSI devices would i beable to add to it? (Like lets say i wanted to add another Seagate 15.3K HD)


Pricewatch is your friend.

www.pricewatch.com

PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2003 2:46 pm
by tazdevl
BuddhaTB wrote:Thanks cfitz.

Serial ATA hard drives, I'm not getting one until my next computer/motherboard features the connectors for it. I still think parallel ATA drives will be around for a bit longer.


Most motherboards (new chipsets) are coming with SATA connectors these days and they just include SATA/PATA converters to plug into the back of your PATA hard drive.

PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2003 2:49 pm
by cfitz
tazdevl wrote:$160 is cheap when compared to $220 for a similarly performing and sized SCSI drive with a 4.7ms access time.

True, and those figures match up with Western Digital's stated intention of selling the SATA Raptors for about 30% less than similar SCSI drives. But $160 is still quite expensive for a 36 GByte desktop drive, particularly for one that, at this point, requires purchase of an extra adapter card. Each customer will have to make his own decision as to whether or not the real performance improvements offset the real price increase (both compared to IDE).

Personally, I am looking forward to widespread adoption of SATA, but I'm not rushing right out to be an early adopter.

cfitz

PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2003 2:52 pm
by cfitz
tazdevl wrote:Pricewatch is your friend.

www.pricewatch.com

Amen. I don't think there is tazdevlwatch.com yet, or a dartmanwatch.com, now is there? :wink:

cfitz

PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2003 3:04 pm
by tazdevl
cfitz wrote:
tazdevl wrote:$160 is cheap when compared to $220 for a similarly performing and sized SCSI drive with a 4.7ms access time.

True, and those figures match up with Western Digital's stated intention of selling the SATA Raptors for about 30% less than similar SCSI drives. But $160 is still quite expensive for a 36 GByte desktop drive, particularly for one that, at this point, requires purchase of an extra adapter card. Each customer will have to make his own decision as to whether or not the real performance improvements offset the real price increase (both compared to IDE).

Personally, I am looking forward to widespread adoption of SATA, but I'm not rushing right out to be an early adopter.

cfitz


LOL smartass... fer yer second post.

When all the peripherals available for my PC have SATA, then I'll pull the trigger. So we're looking at maybe 6 months. Also, SATA2 is what 400MB PS vs 150? That's a compelling reason to make the switch.

Though a RAID 0, Raptor array does sound intruiging on a Canterwood/Prescott platform with a built in controller and some groovy new pre-fetch logic on the chip and chipset. I can hear hit screaming already... buymeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2003 3:22 pm
by cfitz
tazdevl wrote:LOL smartass... fer yer second post.

It was just a general reminder that some questions can be easily answered by oneself with a minimal bit of research, including "How much is X?" :wink:

cfitz