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Noise
and Temperature Levels:::...
No technical readings here, just observations
based on ears and finger tips. The WD2500JD was certainly
marginally noisier than the Maxtor in general use,
though not in an annoying way. Seek noise levels seemed
pretty standard and I doubt that in most systems you'd
identify this drive amongst the other fractionally
quieter units around, or that you'd even hear it if
you run a case fan or two.
The drive would get reasonably warm
under heavy use but not enough that I'd be too concerned
about it needing any additional cooling when used
in any reasonably well ventilated case, in fact it
stayed somewhat cooler than I'd expected for a drive
of this type.
Further Testing:::...
Over the next month or two we'll be
working on adding one or two more tests to our HDD
regime. The key for me is to strike a balance between
becoming too simplistic, and alternatively being too
technical when there are already enough fine sites
who specialise in this field (sites like StorageReview.com).
Purely for the record as many of you
are familiar with HDTach, here's the results from
that:
It's interesting to note that other
than the low spikes which give a minimum of 19457kps,
the results otherwise tally well with AIDA32.
One thing for certain is that the anticipated
boosts we were expecting from Serial-ATA hasn't really
happened, and it's a little premature to be getting
excited about the next generation of Serial-ATA when
we're barely nudging half the the bandwidth of the
existing standard. 150MB/sec sure sounds exciting
but the truth is we're a mile away from achieving
it so far. Still, it keeps the marketing guys in a
job eh!
Conclusion
The
3DVelocity 'Dual Conclusions Concept' Explained: After
discussing this concept with users as well as companies
and vendors we work with, 3DVelocity have decided
that where necessary we shall aim to introduce our
'Dual Conclusions Concept' to sum up our thoughts
and impressions on the hardware we review. As the
needs of the more experienced users and enthusiasts
have increased, it has become more difficult to factor
in all the aspects that such a user would find important,
while also being fair to products that may lack these
high end "bonus" capabilities but which
still represent a very good buy for the more traditional
and more prevalent mainstream user. The two catergories
we've used are:
The
Mainstream User ~ The mainstream user is likely
to put price, stock performance, value for money,
reliability and/or warranty terms ahead of the need
for hardware that operates beyond its design specifications.
The mainstream user may be a PC novice or may be an
experienced user, however their needs are clearly
very different to those of the enthusiast, in that
they want to buy products that operate efficiently
and reliably within their advertised parameters.
The
Enthusiast ~ The enthusiast cares about all
the things that the mainstream user cares about but
is more likely to accept a weakness in one or more
of these things in exchange for some measure of performance
or functionality beyond its design brief. For example,
a high priced motherboard may be tolerated in exchange
for unusually high levels of overclocking ability
or alternatively an unusually large heat sink with
a very poor fixing mechanism may be considered acceptable
if it offers significantly superior cooling in return.
The
Mainstream User ~
Depending
on your plans for your hard drive you may find that
250GB is overkill, though at the rate things have
been going we may be looking at 100GB for your operating
system in a couple of releases.
For
video editing or other capacity heavy activities this
is a great solution but for general desktop use you
may find you only ever use a small proportion of this
drive's undoubted capabilities.
The
cleaner, simpler cabling that comes with Serial-ATA
is of course a great plus, but you don't need to buy
a 250GB drive to enjoy the benefits of Serial-ATA,
there are far more manageable sizes available.
The
big selling point for me no matter what your uses
are, is the 3 year warranty, and although that's no
guarantee the drive will live for three years it is
at least some small comfort in a time when hard drive
reliability has become the subject of much anxiety.
The
Enthusiast ~
Other
than its linear read speeds this hard drive doesn't
seem to excel in any particular department yet as
a total package it's probably the best balanced drive
I've had the pleasure to try so far.
Combine
the benefits of Serial-ATA and in particular SecureConnect
with the cavernous capacity, strong, all-round ability
and 8MB cache and you have a piece of hardware with
all the attributes needed to grace just about any
power rig with just about any function in life from
high end video editing system to completely over-the-top
power gaming system.
I
doubt noise levels are enough to put many folk off
buying this drive but if silence is of utmost importance
you might want to take a look at WD's fluid dynamic
bearing version, the WD2500PB.
All
in all there's little to complain about and provided
the only other variable, reliability, holds up, then
I can't think of a better option at this capacity
and price. Another excellent offering from WD.
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