Western Digital WD1600AAJS: 160GB Served on Single Platter
by Gary Key on February 5, 2007 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Hard Disk Test Comparison and Features
The Western Digital WD1600AAJS drive we are reviewing today will be compared directly against the Maxtor DiamondMax 17 6G160E0 drive in our benchmark test suite. We have also included the results of drives from our previous articles and will provide additional reviews of drives in the 160GB to 500GB capacity ranges in the near future.
The Western Digital Caviar SE OEM drives ship with a three year warranty. Based upon reasons that are inexplicable Western Digital ships their retail SE kits with a one year warranty. The user can currently extend their warranty by two years through Western Digital for a cost of $14.95.
Test Setup - Hardware
Our current test bed reflects changes in the marketplace over the past six months. Based upon the continuing proliferation of dual core processors and future roadmaps from AMD and Intel signifying the end of the single core processor on the desktop in the near future, we settled on an AMD Opteron 170. This change will also allow us to expand our real world multitasking benchmarks while providing a stable platform for the next six months. We are currently conducting preliminary benchmark testing under Vista with both 2GB and 4GB memory configurations. We will switch to Vista and possibly a new platform once the driver situation matures and our benchmark results are repeatable.
We debated on the memory size for our iPeak trace file creations and decided to move to 2GB of system memory. A system with a 1GB memory configuration is the predominant standard at this time, but 2GB memory setups are quickly becoming the new standard. Although a 1GB memory installation allows us to capture and report a higher amount of disk activity in certain applications, we decided the make the switch at this time as the difference is minimal when compared to the 1GB trace files.
| Specifications | ||
| Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJS |
Maxtor DiamondMax 17 6G160E0 |
|
| Stated Capacity: | 160GB | 160GB |
| OS Capacity: | 149.05 GB | 149.05 GB |
| Interface: | SATA 3Gb/s | SATA 3Gb/s |
| Rotational Speed: | 7,200 RPM | 7,200 RPM |
| Cache Size: | 8 MB | 8 MB |
| Average Latency: | 4.20 ms (nominal) | 4.17 ms (nominal) |
| Read Seek Time: | 8.9 ms | 8.9 ms |
| Number of Heads: | 2 | 2 |
| Number of Platters: | 1 | 1 |
| Power Draw Idle / Load: |
8.75W / 9.5W | 7.9W / 10.0W |
| Command Queuing: | Native Command Queuing | Native Command Queuing |
| Warranty: | 1 Year - Retail Kit | 1 Year - Retail Kit |
The Western Digital WD1600AAJS drive we are reviewing today will be compared directly against the Maxtor DiamondMax 17 6G160E0 drive in our benchmark test suite. We have also included the results of drives from our previous articles and will provide additional reviews of drives in the 160GB to 500GB capacity ranges in the near future.
The Western Digital Caviar SE OEM drives ship with a three year warranty. Based upon reasons that are inexplicable Western Digital ships their retail SE kits with a one year warranty. The user can currently extend their warranty by two years through Western Digital for a cost of $14.95.
Test Setup - Hardware
| Standard Test Bed Playback of iPeak Trace Files and Test Application Results |
|
| Processor: | AMD Opteron 170 (2.0GHz 2x1MB L2) |
| RAM: | 2 x 1GB Corsair 3500LL PRO Settings - DDR-400 at (2.5-3-3-7, 1T) |
| OS Hard Drive: | 1 x Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300S0 300GB 7200 RPM SATA 16MB |
| System Platform Drivers: | NVIDIA Platform Driver - 6.85 |
| Video Card: | 1 x Asus 7600GS (PCI Express) for all tests |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA nForce 84.21 WHQL |
| Optical Drive: | BenQ DW1640 |
| Cooling: | Zalman CNPS9500 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ GameXStream 700W |
| Case: | Gigabyte 3D Aurora |
| Operating System: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
| Motherboard: | MSI K8N Diamond Plus |
Our current test bed reflects changes in the marketplace over the past six months. Based upon the continuing proliferation of dual core processors and future roadmaps from AMD and Intel signifying the end of the single core processor on the desktop in the near future, we settled on an AMD Opteron 170. This change will also allow us to expand our real world multitasking benchmarks while providing a stable platform for the next six months. We are currently conducting preliminary benchmark testing under Vista with both 2GB and 4GB memory configurations. We will switch to Vista and possibly a new platform once the driver situation matures and our benchmark results are repeatable.
We debated on the memory size for our iPeak trace file creations and decided to move to 2GB of system memory. A system with a 1GB memory configuration is the predominant standard at this time, but 2GB memory setups are quickly becoming the new standard. Although a 1GB memory installation allows us to capture and report a higher amount of disk activity in certain applications, we decided the make the switch at this time as the difference is minimal when compared to the 1GB trace files.
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18 Comments
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semo - Monday, February 5, 2007 - link
Gary, are you thinking of including some ssds (slc and mlc) in the mix for future comparisons. also, are you planning on doing a raid article (again with ssds too) and see if raid edition drives make a difference.Gary Key - Monday, February 5, 2007 - link
Hi,We will have a ssds roundup in March if the products are released on schedule. We will concentrate on SLC first as the MLC drive I do have is just terrible for general desktop usage. It was designed for industrial use and even I would not want to be a user at that workstation. ;) I am working on RAID article for March that will cover several chipsets and drives along with some new benchmarks.
oDii - Monday, February 5, 2007 - link
Gary, would it be possible along side the various chipsets to see how Linux Software RAID performs (http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-RAID-HOWTO-5.html">http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-RAID-HOWTO-5.html or XFS)? It'd be great to see the results in context, as I haven't been able to find a complete and reliable source of results.semo - Monday, February 5, 2007 - link
thanks!the only reason i wanted to see an mlc drive in a roundup is to get an idea how bad they are but i get the picture now.
i wonder if the faster response of the ssds compensate for their lower transfer rates and beat hdds in general usage. i guess we'll find out in march.
mostlyprudent - Monday, February 5, 2007 - link
I should wait to see some numbers from the versions with 16MB cache sizes, but for me - this article reaffirms my choice of the Seagate 7200.10 320GB.mjz - Monday, February 5, 2007 - link
i'm amazed that the raptor didn't do so good.. why couldn't they just combine the 160 platter with the 10000 rpmDrMrLordX - Tuesday, February 6, 2007 - link
I kinda agree, though the newer 74 gig Raptor w/ 16 meg cache is supposedly faster than the 150 gig Raptor.Personally I'd rather see the 74 gig Raptor in there, but . . .
Gary Key - Tuesday, February 6, 2007 - link
I will have a short performance update to include the 74GB 16MB cache Raptor tomorrow, not a full article but enough results to draw a conclusion.