Cons: Only 2MB cache, not ATA133, ONLY 1YR WARRANTY.
The Bottom Line: Nice drive for someone without excessive needs, but the warranty period could be longer and an 8mb cache and ATA133 interface would be nice.
Versius's Full Review: IBM Deskstar 60GXP 40 GB ATA-100 Hard Drive
ADDED INFO: It has come to my attention that many people have found several of my hard drive reviews "too similar." I apologize for any confusion on this point. If you read the entire review, you will find that, aside from the general information that I provide in each review for those with little to no previous knowledge, each review is very specific to the particular drive. I only review products that I personally use and have experience with. If you don't want all the details, please skip to the sections that are under "THIS DRIVE" or "OVERVIEW" which leave out the information for those who already have a good understanding of hardware.
This review is intended for those with limited in depth hardware knowledge or those who don’t want to go through a ton of jargon just to figure out which drive you need. For those of you who have a bit more technical savvy, the data is listed, but the emphasis will be on reviewing the item in simple terms. If all you are looking for is a quick overview or you have already read another review I've written of hard drives, you can skip to the end of this review for my recommendations.
There are several factors to look at when deciding on a drive. I will try to explain each one of these and how this drive ranks in each area.
1.Compatability: Will this drive work in your system? Is it the best TYPE of drive for your system?
2. Size: How much space do you need? Will this drive have some room for your needs to grow and for upcoming software?
3. Speed: How will this drive affect system performance and the applications you use?
4. Reliability: How will this drive stand up and how long will it last?
5. Price: What's it gonna cost ya.
COMPATABILITY:
This is desktop drive, so the information below will not have details pertinent to those who are looking for drives for portable systems or servers. SCSI drives, although sometimes used by high end users, will not be included as references either, although SATA drives will be, since their prevalence is now starting to affect the market and may be a decision maker.
This drive has an IDE (Intelligent Drive Electronics or Integrated Drive Electronics). What you really need to know is the ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) standard of the IDE interface that you are using. ATA drives have the actual controller built into the drive itself (some other standards, like SCSI, have to have a separate controller). There are several different ratings for ATA drives. Generally, these include: ATA33, ATA66, ATA100 and ATA1333. The number refers to the MBps (MegaBit per second) rating of the drives bus. The higher the number, the more data can theoretically be transferred at one time. There are actually several other types of ATA drives that were used in older drives, but most of them will not have a lot of bearing on picking a system for a modern (post 1999 or so) system. One thing: you will sometimes see a drive listed as an ULTRA-ATA or UDMA (Ultra DMA); these drives are normally ATA33 drives. If you have a very old system, you may see just ATA, ATA-2 or ATA-3. The ATA-2 drives were the first to have extended DMA capabilities (read on if you need more details about this standard). Most of these are very small drives and are used on very old systems. Computers that came out with these controllers will not have the capability to address large drives like this one and would require a separate higher level controller.
The ATA33,ATA66,ATA100 and ATA133 drives are somewhat compatible. For instance, an ATA133 drive will work fine on any of the older ATA33, ATA66 or ATA100 systems, but will revert to the older and somewhat slower bus speed (although there may still be a significant performance increase). Likewise, you could use an older ATA33 drive on a system that has the capability to handle an ATA133 drive, but you probably would not ever want to do this as the performance would not be very good. The difference between each level, however, may not be so significant that it makes a difference for the average user. For instance, an ATA100 drive can be more than adequate for most users, even if your system supports ATA133.
There are also other standards. The ATA drive specifications we just looked at are also called parallel ATA. There is a newer standard called SATA (Serial ATA) that operates at a higher bus rate (theoretically) and can offer advantages for gamers, multimedia applications and other power users. Generally, the newer systems will have support for SATA (but not all do), but virtually all of them still support Parallel ATA. In addition, there are drives like SCSI, Fibre, etc., but these are out of the scope of this review and are not going to be relevant for the average user.
THIS DRIVE:
This particular drive is an ATA100 (Parallel) drive. This is pretty much the middle ground and standard today. For an average user this should be fine. It is the best choice for upgrading an older system (even if the system uses ATA33 OR ATA66) and will work for most people even if your system supports ATA133. If you want a bit of additional performance at the peak, then go with an ATA133 drive.
One more note: Get a cable that is rated for the speed of drive that you have. If you use an older cable with your newer drive, you may not see all the performance that you might otherwise gain.
And one more factor in deciding if a drive is the right one for you: The physical size of the drive. Most ATA Hard Drives (but not the other types of drives that use this interface, like CDROM, DVD, CDR, etc.), have a 3.5" external size. So, if you are adding in capacity to an existing system, make sure that you have an extra 3.5" slot open. You should also make sure that you have an available power plug (if you don't ask for a power Y-splitter; it should cost around 2.00). If you have one of those small cases that many manufacturers have recently started putting out, you may also want to think about the size of the power supply. Some of them have miniscule power supplies that simply won't handle larger capacity drives; I've seen a lot of them fail after a few months when a larger drive was placed in them. Unfortunately, there is generally very little you can do in those cases. This is a bit tricky to figure out, so if you have an older system: drop me an email with the model you have and what you want to do and I will get back with you.
SIZE:
The capacity (not the physical size of the drive) is how much information you can store on your computer.
It is important to differentiate between memory and storage. Novices often get these terms confused. When we talk about storage, we are referring to the amount of storage available on the computer. Memory or RAM is the active storage where information that is currently in use by the computer is stored. Increasing your RAM will not allow you to store more on your computer. Getting a larger or extra hard drive (like the product I am currently reviewing) will. It can get a bit confusing because modern operating systems use "virtual memory" where they will take part of the hard drive and use it is as memory. Increasing your RAM allows you to run more programs and can speed up your system if you don't have enough memory. If you are reading these reviews because you have been told that you need additional "memory," be sure that you are needing additional storage and not RAM. You should be able to tell how much free space is on your hard drive from "My Computer." If you need help with this, please feel free to drop me an email. If you need RAM, then you will need to check out those sections.
Okay, back to hard drive sizes:
The rated hard drive size will almost always be a bit larger than what you will actually get. Basically, you can figure on a modern drive having about 5% or so less than what it is advertised as. On older drives, this can be 20% or more.
The amount of storage you will need depends upon several factors. One of these is the operating system that you are using or will use. Another is the other programs that you will use. You should also keep the type of information you will store in mind. Also make sure that you have room to grow and for upgrades in software.
Different operating systems require different amounts of space. Windows XP for instance, will take up a considerable amount of space and will need additional space for features like "virtual memory" (we talked about that earlier) and System Restore (basically a built in back up feature which allows you to revert to a previous state if your system fails). So, you should allow at least 5GB just for Windows XP if you are planning on using it. On the other hand, if you are still using Windows 98, you can be pretty safe with around 2GB or maybe even less for your OS.
Then you have the various programs that you will want to run. These can range from utilities and word processors to games and video production utilities. Generally, a user who wants to do little more with their system than word processing and exploring the net can get by with just a few GIGs of space allotted for programs. If you are going to run complicated games or do a lot of photo or video work with advanced programs, plan on giving up a lot more space (anywhere from 10-25GB or possibly more).
You will also need to take into consideration the type and quantity of files that you will need to store. If you don't save a lot of photos, videos, movies, music files or other large files, then you may not need a lot more space than we calculated before. (this also applies if you will burn them onto CD's rather than storing them on your computer, which can be an economical alternative). Basically, for every 200 songs you want to store on your computer, figure an extra GB of storage. For every movie, approx. an extra GB and, depending on the photos, you may need some additional capacity for those. Many games will also take up a very considerable amount of space; some of them as much as 5GB apiece!
You should also take into consideration that programs and operating systems are constantly getting larger and your collection of files will likely continue to grow as well, so you should always allow for at least 1/3 of your drive (above the numbers we calculated above) of your drive to be empty.
For most people today, a minimum of 40GB of is advised.
THIS DRIVE:
This drive is rated at 40GB. The actual available storage on this drive is usually around 37GB. This should be considered a bare minimum, but will be fine for the average user without large music collections or other large files or programs.
SPEED:
The speed of your drive, especially if it used as the primary drive in your system, will have a lot to do with the performance of your computer. Because virtually everything you do will require at least some information to be pulled up from your hard drive, it is one of the most important components in terms of the overall performance of your system. For this reason, choose carefully. It is also recommended that if you are upgrading and plan to use your old drive, that you load your operating system on the new drive as the newer faster drives can breathe new life into an existing system (within reason and certain limits of course).
First of all, the interface that we talked about in the first section will have something to do with the speed of your drive, but we won't go through all of that again. If you need to, check back on that section.
Next, you will want to look at the RPM (rotations per minute); the rotational speed of the platters inside the drive. Most drives of this type that are built today will be 7200RPM drives. There are still a few that are rated at 5400RPM, but I would not recommend them unless you get a really good deal and do not need much in terms of performance. Older drives were rated at 4500RPM, 5400RPM (and really old drives even lower). Upgrading to a 7200RPM drive will almost always result in at least some increase in overall performance and may be quite significant. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here, but as a general rule, by a 7200RPM drive. Of course, this does not apply to other types of drives, for notebooks or servers (SCSI or Fibre, etc.). There have also been a few drives that have entered the market in the IDE/ATA interface that advertise a higher RPM than 7200RPM, but I have not had the opportunity to adequately test them to tell you how they compete. Generally, 7200RPM is the standard today.
Another factor in the speed category is the amount of cache that the drive has. When we talk about cache and a hard drive we are referring to the amount of fast memory(RAM not storage) that is present on the drive itself to work as a buffer. The software that controls the drive stores information that helps you find the information faster in the cache. For this reason, an increase in cache will speed up the performance of the drive. This is especially beneficial on larger drives in many circumstances. Most modern drives will have 2MB, 4MB or 8MB of cache. If the price difference is small, go with the 8MB version of a drive, but don't be overly worried here if it is a 2MB drive and you are not an intensive user.
All of these factors, as well as the individual computer that you are attached to will result in ratings for the overall access and transfer speeds of the drive. Be careful to read reviews of other people's experience with each line more than the rated speeds, as different companies will rate their drives differently.
THIS DRIVE:
This is an ATA100 (parallel), 7200RPM, 2MB cache drive. A drive with these specs. will generally be best for someone with average needs. Gamers and those worried about peak performance will want a somewhat faster drive. ALTHOUGH: We have had excellent experiences with these IBM/Hitachi drives and this particular line with speed.
RELIABILITY:
Reliability is also a significant element to keep in mind. You want to make sure that the drive will last long enough make it through the life of your needs. Most drives will be good for 5 or 6 years of light use, but under heavy use may fail earlier. Today's drives are much more reliable than those of several years ago, but there are still some drives that are better than others. There are terms, like MTBF(mean time between failure) that are often used to express how long a drive will last, but they tend to be inaccurate in my experience. The real method for finding a drive that will last is to find a drive line that has gotten good reviews from real users. You will want to look at the warranty period as well.
REMEMBER: NO DRIVE IS FULL PROOF, ALWAYS BACK UP IMPORTANT DATA!!!
THIS DRIVE:
This line and IBM/Hitachi drives in general are usually very reliable drives that should give you several years of good use. The warranty will vary depending upon who you purchase from and wether or not you purchase an extended warranty. This particular model has a VERY LOW standard 1YR warranty. The few dollars that you will save by going with a 1yr warranty drive may be better spent on another drive or an extended warranty.
PRICE:
It is always important not to overpay for your equipment. Prices in this industry change very rapidly and a good price one day will not be a good price a few months later. The specifications, in addition to the size of the drive, will alter the price.
THIS DRIVE:
At around 60.00 (as of Feb 04, 2004), this drive is a pretty good deal, but the warranty is lacking. There are drives for a few dollars more with a longer warranty period, but this drive should do the average user fine.
OVERVIEW:
Nice drive for someone without excessive needs, but the warranty period could be longer.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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