The best hard drive for your hard earned money.

Author's Rating:

Pros: Affordable, extra large capacity, ideal for home use.

Cons: Too small for certain professionals.

The Bottom Line: 
If you plan to purchase a large, yet affordable hard drive. Look no further, with the Western Digital Caviar 40GB @ 7200rpm ATA/100. It's worth every penny.

Author's Review
Overview

About 3 months ago, when I decided to build my own computer for entertainment (DVD movies and MP3 music, in addition to the Internet), I feel that a 20GB hard drive wasn’t really going to cut it and it wouldn’t be enough for my kind of computer use patterns, despite that I was going to have a CD Rewriter for my computer. With the prices of hard drives up to 40GB falling, I knew that it was my perfect time to really go for a freshly built computer. Especially with the shrinking price gaps between the 20GB to 40GB hard drives, I really have decided to go with the 40GB for just $20 more than the 20GB. So, I went to the local computer store and found a selection of Maxtor and Western Digital hard drives for me to choose from. Since many of my friends have used Western Digital and they haven’t broken down for even years down the road with vigorous use. So, I decided to go with Western Digital and bought it from the local computer store (Not stores like Circuit City) and paid a decent price for it.

Installation

Before I installed the hard drive, I removed the cover off the tower to access the internal 3.5 inch bay. Then I placed the drive into the 3.5 inch unexposed bay from the anti static packaging, and tighten them with a couple of screws supplied with the hard drive. Then I plugged theIDE cable on the hard drive side of the master outlet from the hard drive to the primary IDE cable to the motherboard. Once, I got that plugged in, I plugged the jumpers as set to be the master drive, since this is my sole hard drive for the computer. After the jumpers, I plugged it into the avaialbe 4-wire socket to the power supply, then I installed the hard drive and entered the BIOS to set the hard drive to master IDE hard drive and checked for the settings.

Experience

After only 6 weeks of use in the hard drive, there is still no damage or wear and tear to the hard drive, after moderate use of the hard drive. I would of expected great reliability with Western Digital. After just 6 weeks again, I have felt the sense that I won't abandon Western Digital for hard drive solutions. Yet, after the Windows 2000, my photographs, my MP3 collection and many more, I have only used up 7 of 40GB the hard drive. At 7200rpm, the drive has a fast access rate, combine that with the ATA/100 capabilities of my motherboard and the drive it’s really a performance hard drive. It would be ideal for even the family use. I think it really has something to do with my motherboard and my AMD Duron 850 processor that is giving me the great speed from the hard drive here.

Final Thoughts

Although the hard drive doesn’t come with any software, it’s still an excellent value. I would recommend it to all users, except for the professionals that are into video creation or CAD/CAM. For the rest of us, I would definitely recommend it to all. This hard drive is ideal for families who want to do their finances, surf the Internet, store music, digital photography and entertainment for their computer. Combine it with a CD Rewriter, you have an endless supply of storage space.