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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orenlevy - Friday, November 9, 2007 - link
hi everybody i would like to say that i am a computer builder .latly i recived this hard drive 160G aajs with access time of minimum 20m\s
i am speaking for a wile with wd support. ill write soon for now i had 4 harddrive like that.
fendell - Friday, May 4, 2007 - link
Any chance you could update this with the WD5000AAKS ?It is a great bargain atm :)
DrMrLordX - Tuesday, February 6, 2007 - link
Any chance you could include the Hitachi T7k500 in reviews like this one?Gary Key - Tuesday, February 6, 2007 - link
Yes, we will have the new/old WD and Hitachi 500GB drive results up in two weeks.DrMrLordX - Wednesday, February 7, 2007 - link
cool, thanksRike - Monday, February 5, 2007 - link
You might want to put up pics that are consistent. When I saw the first pic on page one, the fist thing I noticed was that the four pin was still there, which surprised me. Pics on pages 1 & 12 show a four pin power connection on the drive while the page 2 pics clearly show a big hole where the four pin would be. Of course the text on page two says . . .You might want to clear this one up.
Gary Key - Tuesday, February 6, 2007 - link
The press photos that WD sent us had the old casing for the open drive pictures. We really did not want to use them and WD was unable to provide new pics. I thought it was important to show the new platter design but certainly was not thrilled with using the old pictures. I will change them up today.noxipoo - Monday, February 5, 2007 - link
if i wanted low noise and performance similar to this drive?Accord99 - Tuesday, February 6, 2007 - link
The WD5000AAKS (The AA is the important designation):http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTool...">http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications...tails.as...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...
noxipoo - Wednesday, February 7, 2007 - link
boo, no 5 year warranty.