BlueSmoke - HDD Article : Western Digital Caviar WD1000BB

		Date	: Sept 19th, 2001
		Category	: Storage
		Manufacturer	: Western Digital
		Author	: Jin-Wei Tioh

With its Expert AC41800, released many moons ago, Western Digital definitely established themselves as a performance brand in the eyes of hardware enthusiasts. However, the Expert was a result of a technology sharing program between IBM and Western Digital, with IBM's Deskstar 22GXP being the same drive. Could Western Digital continue to blaze the trail?

The answer is a resounding yes. With the pioneering release of a 20GB/platter drive in the form of the Caviar WD400BB, Western Digital had a serious challenger to IBM's Deskstar 75GXP. This was followed by the WD800BB, a drive with very similar performance characteristics and increased size (80GB). As mentioned in our IBM Deskstar 60GXP review however, IBM switched to a more conventional 3-platter design, thereby decreasing the 60GXP's flagship capacity to a mere 60GB, instead of a potential 100GB 5-platter design.

What did Western Digital do? Increase the density to around 30GB/platter, and you have a 100GB 3-platter drive : the Caviar WD1000BB. Western Digital is positioning this drive more towards the enthusiast market, which usually scutinizes all aspects of a product. They can already say "we 0wnz j00" to other manufacturers from a capacity standpoint (being the only 100GB 7200 RPM drive), but what about performance? Will it match or exceed the Deskstar 60GXP? And can it fend off competition from the equally competent Seagate Barracuda ATA IV?

Join us as we find out. First, a formal introduction. As implied earlier, the Caviar WD1000BB is the first 100GB 7200 RPM ATA drive. Yet this monstrous sounding drive comes in a compact low-profile, 1" high design. Drive packaging is a standard, sealed ESD bag, encased within a thick foam layering in a retail box. On a personal note, the packaging somewhat reminds us of the Intel retail boxes, but it is nonetheless a good branding move by Western Digital. Like the competition, the Caviar is speced with a 8.9ms seek time, a 2MB buffer and an ATA-100 interface. A full 3-year warranty backs the drive.

Our usual fare, ZD's WinBench 99 is up next...

Testbed Low-Level Measurements Methodology

HDD	Disk Access Time	Disk Read/Transfer Rate
		Beginning	End
IBM Deskstar 60GXP (40.0GB ATA-100)	12.3	39800	21100
Quantum Fireball Plus AS (20.0GB ATA-100)	13.5	36000	21100
Seagate Barracuda ATA IV (80.0GB ATA-100)	14.9	42500	27200
Western Digital Caviar WD1000BB (100.0GB ATA-100)	13.7	41400	27700

The Caviar WD1000BB clocks in at 13.7ms. While it is nearly at the bottom the pack, please keep in mind that the seek time amongst nearly all current generation 7200 RPM drives are in the 13.Xms region so a difference of 0.2ms is hardly monumental. Subtracting 4.2ms of rotational latency yields a measured seek time of 9.5ms, about 6%off Western Digital's claim of 8.9ms.

Sequential Transfer Rates (STRs) are quite a different matter altogether. No doubt the Deskstars have are in a class of their own for seek times, the WD1000BB has a 4% (1.6MB/s) outer-zone STR advantage over the 60GXP, placing it in second place behind the Seagate Barracuda ATA IV. The Caviar's inner-zone STR is simply breathtaking, 27.7MB/s! This is a full 32% or 6.6MB/s faster than our previous performance king, the Deskstar 60GXP, and effectively up ends the Barracuda ATA IV's lead.

Business applications depend more on a drive's transfer rate rather than its average seek time. Seek time factors more heavily into server applications performance, or applications which incur fairly constant disk access. Therefore in theory, the Caviar WD1000BB should be a top contender in the higher-level WinBench 99 Disk WinMarks, with the Barracuda ATA IV being the drive to beat.

Fact or fiction? The hard data will reveal all.

Testbed Disk WinMarks Methodology

HDD	Business	High-End
IBM Deskstar 60GXP (40.0GB ATA-100)	4960	17700
Quantum Fireball Plus AS (20.0GB ATA-100)	5010	15500
Seagate Barracuda ATA IV (80.0GB ATA-100)	5350	17700
Western Digital Caviar WD1000BB (100.0GB ATA-100)	4870	18400

Surprisingly, the Caviar WD1000BB comes out behind all drives in the Business Disk WinMark, nipping at the heels of both IBM Deskstars. The Barracuda remains the undisputed champion. In the High-End Disk WinMark, the WD1000BB turns in a most impressive 18.4MB/s, besting our previous record holders (the IBM Deskstar 60GXP and Seagate Barracuda ATA IV) by about 4%. All in all, quite consistent with theory.

It is not clear cut which is the superior drive under WinBench 99. The Caviar WD1000BB sets new records for the inner-zone STR and High-End Disk WinMark, but fails to overthrow the Barracuda's outer-zone STR and Business Disk WinMark scores. There is no single, overall winner, but one can approximately place both the Caviar on par with the Barracuda.

As mentioned in our last hard drive evaluation, IOMeter is more seek time dependant, whereas WinBench 99 scores rest more on a drive's transfer rate. The Caviar WD1000BB should fare better than the Barracuda ATA IV under IOMeter, though with its lagging seek time shouldn't upset the IOMeter rankings much. Let's see if Intel's IOMeter deviates from this point of view.

Testbed IOMeter - Total I/Os Per Second Methodology

HDD	Load	Access Pattern
		File Server	Workstation	Database	Video Workstation
IBM Deskstar 60GXP (40.0GB ATA-100)	Linear	71.67	85.15	71.79	3136.53
	Light	106.22	118.65	104.63	3504.76
	Moderate	128.00	141.30	126.62	3504.72
	Heavy	143.43	156.94	142.72	3504.80
Quantum Fireball AS (20.0GB ATA-100)	Linear	73.28	84.93	77.49	2788.41
	Light	95.74	95.68	83.45	2838.38
	Moderate	106.66	103.55	103.15	2833.93
	Heavy	114.29	102.67	110.54	2830.29
Seagate Barracuda ATA IV (80.0GB ATA-100)	Linear	68.62	79.56	72.92	2868.30
	Light	86.00	96.34	88.36	3011.27
	Moderate	102.59	114.73	102.82	3005.34
	Heavy	119.29	133.76	117.64	2996.39
Western Digital Caviar WD1000BB (100.0GB ATA-100)	Linear	73.97	88.91	80.29	3174.05
	Light	93.46	118.52	103.61	3480.16
	Moderate	113.64	137.43	119.29	3458.60
	Heavy	125.73	150.31	129.64	3403.27

On a cautionary note, please remember that "Workstation" is simply an arbitrary label for one of the IOMeter access patterns. Whereas WinBench 99 uses real world applications simulations in its suite of disk benchmarks, IOMeter generates a completely user-defined, synthetic workload. It may or may not represent your actual workstation/desktop, as this access pattern simulates applications with relatively heavier disk access, something akin to a server environment.

As it turns out, the Caviar WD1000BB steals the IBM's thunder in all access patterns under a Linear load, generally lagging the Deskstar by an average of 10% under heavier loads. However, this performance margin shrinks in the Workstation access pattern (despite the penalty of the Caviar's slower seek time) and virtually disappears under the Video Workstation access pattern. Clearly, Western Digital has optimized the Caviar's firmware for workstation and video workstation / NLE applications.

We are still tackling the issues relating to numerical values for drive temperature and noise levels. Our previous hard drive evaluation, the Barracuda ATA IV review, has more details on this.

Again, the operating temperature and noise produced by the Caviar WD1000BB is definitely lower than the levels found in previous generations of 7200 RPM drives. It is quiet and unobstrusive, though to us it seems to run a touch warmer than the Deskstar 60GXP after heavy extended usage (eg. right after IOMeter). While it would probably be fine without any form of active cooling, we make it a rule of the thumb to cool any >= 7200 RPM drives in our personal systems.

So overall, how did the Caviar WD1000BB fare, performance-wise? It rises to the occasion to rival the Seagate Barracuda ATA IV, though it still lags the IBM Deskstar 60GXP by a small average margin in the IOMeter tests due to its slower seek time. This excellent performance showing, coupled with the fact that it is the only drive with a monstrous capacity of 100GB makes it the new leader in the 7200 RPM IDE category at BlueSmoke. Congratulations Western Digital!

Western Digital Caviar WD1000BB
Other Models :	N/A