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Reader Review: Western Digital Expert 18GB IDE Hard Drive Update 5/28/99: - A reader reported all 3 of his WD Expert 18GB Drives installed in a B&W G3 exhibit the .smi image data error noted in yesterday's news link to FWB's B&W G3 Compatibility page. Even the drive connected to the CDROM channel has the same issue he said. The FWB 'fix' (changing DMA mode) dropped his peak rates from 28MB/sec to 12MB/sec he said. Tonight I have verified this problem on my B&W G3 with 18GB Western Digital Expert drive. Even disabling ATA66 mode (via a PC) did not help. Only the TurboMax IDE card allowed the Expert drive to pass the data checksum test. BTW - Performance was excellent with the TurboMax card/Expert combo, about equal to the onboard B&W G3 IDE.-Mike]
I first looked at Ultra Wide SCSI controllers and drives, and came out with the following total cost:
Total for 18 GB RAID 0 Ultra Wide: $1140 (minimum) [Note - the prices above reflect an external drive configuration and cables from MacGurus.com (case, etc.). Note some fast SCSI drives can achieve sustained rates well over 10MB/sec. See my SCSI Features page for more information. Andy's main point that IDE is a better value for most consumers is valid. Current IDE drives are surprisingly fast with very low cost/MB.-Mike] As a college student, $1200 presents a lot of cash for me (a little less than the total cost of tuition for one quarter!), certainly more than I should be spending on computers. And after looking at the Storage Review's database of drives, it appeared that this setup would give me transfers between 10 and 15 MB/sec. This sounded pretty good, but then Ultra2 made a splash, and I questioned my needs. Did I really need a disk array for the small amount of work I do on my Power Mac? No. Enter ATA. I was satisfied with the Caviar, but it was just too small. And knowing that I can only have 4 ATA devices internally limits my choices; I had an ATA zip drive and CD-ROM at the time, so I could only get one very large ATA drive to minimize my expansion needs in the future. I was looking around on Xlr8yourmac, and I noticed that the Maxtor 13.6 gig hard drive cost only $250 originally. A quick check on Storage Review showed that the Maxtor DiamondMax easily beat out the first-generation Seagates I had been considering, and was 2/3 of the price. So for 10 MB/sec transfers, I could spend only $250 instead of the $1100 originally planned. I am still amazed at the low cost per megabyte of ATA/IDE hard drives. Around early March 1999 I read on the Storage Review that Western Digital was to introduce a new breed of ATA drive, a 7200 rpm 'Expert' model. I read the review as soon as it was posted, and I was awestruck. Head to head, the Expert outperforms every Ultra2 drive except the Seagate Cheetah in most of the tested categories, but most importantly, scored 17 MB/sec under WinBench 98. Although benchmarks are certainly not everything, this ATA drive compared so well with the Ultra2 drives then shipping that it was a steal at $309 at TJT International. So for a final cost of $350 (tax is a real bitch), I quadrupled my storage capacity from 6 to 24 GB, and got a blazing 18 gig ATA/66 drive for less than half the cost of a single 9.1 gig Ultra2 Cheetah. Admittedly, the quality, reliability, and performance of the Cheetah are unbeatable, but the Expert comes very close to embarassing the world's premiere drive manufacturer. Physically speaking, the Expert is a winner. It runs almost as cool and quiet as the original Caviar. I currently have the Expert mounted in the original bay above the power supply, and the Caviar in the floppy drive bay. I must say I am disappointed in the construction of the drive's casing, however. It is similar to the original Caviar, but has some plastic parts to it. This is ridiculous- even my three year-old 4 gig Micropolis drive is made completely out of steel. But aside from that little issue, everything is top-notch. It's really heavy (good sign). Jumpers were easy to set- the settings are in the manual and on WD's web page. I currently have the Expert as the Master on Bus 1, with the CD-ROM slaved, and the Caviar on Bus 0 by itself. The only other gripe I have with this drive is the fact that it is advertised as '18 GB', but formatted is only 16.8 GB. However, it is my understanding that all hard drive manufacturers define 1 GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes, instead of the 1,024,000,000 bytes that the software (and computer) uses as 1MB [This Binary vs Decimal 'lost' drive space is explained in the FAQ's SCSI/IDE/Controller list of questions and answers, including a link to Maxtor's page on the issue.-Mike] Real-world performance is hard to duplicate, but I have prepared a simple chart to demonstrate the difference the Expert makes:
It should be noted that every single application launch is significantly faster with the Expert. I even notice the difference with Outlook Express and Sherlock! Also, the larger the file/test size/task, the greater the difference between the two drives. The expert seems to top out at 15.8 MB/sec in FWB's BenchTest with a sustained read and write size of 20,000K (both read and write produced transfers of greater than 15.7 MB/sec with this setting), while the Caviar's maximum is an 8.3 MB/sec read and 5.5 MB/sec write. BenchMark Results:
FWB's Benchtest - Expert Drive
MacBench 5 Main Disk Test
MacBench 5 Disk Inspection Tests
MacBench 5 Processor Tests
(Note 66Mhz bus vs 83Mhz bus) Specifications/What's Included: The Expert is 7200 rpm with 2 MB cache, is 1 inch high, and comes with no cable unless you buy a retail kit ($400+ for the 18 gig model), It includes a brief manual and software for PC's. No additional software is needed for Mac G3's- true plug and play [only older PCs really need the software I think, which is normally to add a dynamic drive overlay to compensate for very old IDE controllers that cannot address the full capacity of large IDE drives-Mike]. The drive comes with two jumpers and is factory set for single operation on its own channel. At the UCLA store the Expert costs $418 in retail kit, but is available on the web as low as $285 currently ($309 when I bought it in March '99). The drive runs cool enough to be placed in the bay above the power supply, and that is where I put it. It comes with a 3 year warranty. For additional information visit the Western Digital Expert product page. Conclusion: With that said, keep in mind that SCSI will always be the only choice for high-performance RAID subsystems transferring in excess of 50 MB/sec. I don't normally do full-motion video capture from a television or other source, and I don't use my Mac to make a living, so ATA is just fine for virtually everything I do. My mp3 server is doing great on my 6 gig Caviar, but it's full now, so it may be time for an even larger drive than the Expert- perhaps a 22 gig Caviar dedicated to mp3's? I'm ahead of myself. The WD Expert 18 gig drive is an incredible value for the money, as it nearly matches the performance of today's best Ultra2 drives on a one-to-one basis. For anyone who want applications to launch faster, video capture to go smoother, and all-around performance to just "feel" faster, this is the drive for you. If you're debating which standard to follow, you probably don't need a RAID anyway. In fact, if you are even reading this column, you already know what the answer to that question is. Make no mistake- if I had $7000 to burn, I would get a custom 8-drive Cheetah array from MacGurus. But since I have to first pay for my tuition and housing, I have a limited budget. So if you're in a squeeze but still need more space and performance than your inadequate stock hard drive can cough up, this drive is the perfect contender. Macbench scores are posted below- but before you note the exceptionally high 'Disk' and other scores, realize that if I had a Blue & White G3 at 550 mHz with UltraDMA/33 internal bus, speeds would be far better. But the EIDE (is it DMA or EIDE or ATA?) interface in my beige G3 combined with a 266 mHz cpu make for excellent scores as it is. In comparing the Caviar and Expert, note the extreme write speeds of the Expert- in some cases more than three times greater than the Caviar. Oddly, the Caviar is closer than I expected in reads, and is actually faster in the sequential read 512K test. Both drives are of very high-quality for ATA drives, in my opinion. It will be interesting to see what new offerings come from San Jose as all the storage companies continue their war to make larger drives smaller, cheaper, and faster. In particular, I will keep an eye on the Quantum Fireball series and the IBM Deskstar line. Until these manufacturers put out their new offerings, the Western Digital Expert will apparently remain unopposed. If you have further questions, don't hesitate to email me. Thanks for the great site, Mike!
- Andy Watters
Western Digital's Expert product page. For a comparison of Ultra2 SCSI vs IDE performance - see the Ultra2 SCSI Cards Review. For other reviews of drives and controllers - see my SCSI/IDE Features page. Included are illustrated guides to IDE drive upgrades in a Beige and B& G3, adding a SCSI card/UW Drive to an 8500, how-to on building an internal 4-drive RAID Array in a 86/9600, SCSI Card comparisons (UW and U2 SCSI) and RAID Software performance tests.
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