Subject: REVIEW: Western Digital Caviar AC31200F hard drive
From: [email-masked] (Randy Kruszka)
Date: 9 Nov 1995 17:27:42 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	Western Digital Caviar AC31200F, Version 14.0

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	This is an Enhanced-IDE 1.222GB (AmigaDOS) 1.282GB (WD) 3.5"H 10ms
4500 rpm 64KB cache hard drive with 250000 Hours MTBF.  (Whew!)

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		Western Digital Corporation
	Address:	8105 Irvine Center Drive
			Irvine, California  92718
			USA

	Telephone:	(714) 932-5000
			(714) 932-4900 [Tech support]

	World Wide Web:	http://www.wdc.com

LIST PRICE

	I don't know what the list price is, but I paid $290 US without
shipping in October 1995.

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		An IDE host interface.

		The Amiga has a 2GB partition limit.

	SOFTWARE

		I recommend AmigaDOS 3.1 because I heard that it solves the
		initial "insert disk" screen on power-up.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	Amiga 4000, 2MB Chip RAM, 16MB Fast RAM.
	1 internal 1.76MB floppy drive
	Emplant Deluxe
	GVP I/O Extender
	Kickstart and Workbench 3.0.

INSTALLATION

	If your computer is still under warranty, you should first check to
see if opening it will cause warranty claim problems.  Make sure that you do
not have any static electricity on yourself, and that you do not rush this.
I still consider all drives to be pretty fragile.  If you do not feel
confident, let someone else do the installation.

	That said, I removed the two screws on the back of the A4000 and slid
the cover off.  The drive mount can be used for two 3.5"H drives if you
want, and removes with 4 screws.  I mounted the WD drive in place of the
Seagate and just set the Seagate on top of the manual while I copied files
over.  I figured the fastest way would be to make the WD the Master and
Seagate the Slave, and then when you are done you can remove the Seagate and
make the WD the only drive.  If this is an addition, you just have to move
the jumper on both drives to let the interface know you have two drives.
For you Seagate users, you could leave the 124MB drive in but it resets so
slow that the Amiga must wait for it.  It is a mere 10% of the WD anyway, so
there's not much to be gained.

	Partitioning it with HDToolbox was interesting...yes, I'll call it
that!  I wanted 4 slices, and found out that after the first partition was
even numbered the rest wanted to be odd.  After some sliding around I had:
20M (20.18) 300M (300.73) 300M (300.23) 600M (600.47) = 1220M (1221.6).
()=Actual size since AmigaDOS truncates decimals.  1MB=1024000 Bytes.  I
don't know how WD gets 1282MB.  To confuse you further, SysInfo reports 1222
MB and HDToolbox 1222.1 MB.  The "info" command lists the above ().

REVIEW

	Now for the info you have been waiting for!  My original idea was to
get something like the Seagate Barracuda and WarpEngine.  It would be so
fast that it would get done before I even start!  :)  Then I added up the
prices... :( Then I found out that WD says "100% IDE compatibility".  And at
$290 US, :) :) :)

	Since the A4000's interface is IDE and not EIDE, you will not get the
5.26MB/s maximum transfer rate that WD says you will.  However, SysInfo
reports 1.67MB/s (a nice change from the Seagate ~1MB/s) and I included the
Seagate vs. WD info below on V4.2 DiskSpeed & ScsiSpeed.

SCSISPEED RESULTS

(Using FFS-International)

Comments: ScsiSpeed 4.2 Started from Project Icon

CPU Speed Rating: 3549        *Seagate 124MB*

Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI:    145002 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 79%

Testing with a 4096 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI:    197688 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 84%

Testing with a 32768 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI:    804454 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 46%

Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI:   1030317 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 33%

Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_CHIP, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI:    150392 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 73%

Testing with a 4096 byte, MEMF_CHIP, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI:    257919 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 73%

Testing with a 32768 byte, MEMF_CHIP, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI:    678297 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 38%

Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_CHIP, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI:    795165 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 29%

Average CPU Available: 57%  |  CPU Availability index: 2023

CPU Speed Rating: 3549         *WDC 1.2GB*

Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI:    515993 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 33%

Testing with a 4096 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI:   1453875 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 11%

Testing with a 32768 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI:   1625292 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 8%

Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI:   1652222 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 9%

Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_CHIP, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI:    445235 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 25%

Testing with a 4096 byte, MEMF_CHIP, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI:   1023385 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 8%

Testing with a 32768 byte, MEMF_CHIP, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI:   1204224 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 3%

Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_CHIP, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI:   1232245 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 2%  <-- Ouch!

Average CPU Available: 12%  |  CPU Availability index: 426

	Summary:  It maxes out the IDE interface and nearly stops the CPU as
a result.  I heard this has something to do with how IDE works.  You can be
pretty safe assuming that this is the limit for the A4000 IDE.

DISKSPEED RESULTS

Device:  hd1:    Buffers: 30   *Seagate 124MB*
Comments: DiskSpeed 4.2 Started from Project Icon

CPU Speed Rating: 3105

Testing directory manipulation speed.
File Create:           34 files/sec  |  CPU Available: 78%
File Open:             73 files/sec  |  CPU Available: 62%
Directory Scan:       314 files/sec  |  CPU Available: 50%
File Delete:          208 files/sec  |  CPU Available: 36%

Seek/Read:             74 seeks/sec  (13.5ms) |  CPU Available: 86%

Average CPU Available: 62%  |  CPU Availability index: 1925

Device:  hd2:    Buffers: 30     *WDC 1.2GB*

CPU Speed Rating: 3105

Testing directory manipulation speed.
File Create:           49 files/sec  |  CPU Available: 72%
File Open:             99 files/sec  |  CPU Available: 54%
Directory Scan:       551 files/sec  |  CPU Available: 11%
File Delete:          332 files/sec  |  CPU Available: 12%

Seek/Read:            114 seeks/sec  (8.8ms) |  CPU Available: 80%

Average CPU Available: 46%  |  CPU Availability index: 1428

	Summary:  I expected it to be faster everywhere and use more CPU
again, but 8.8ms access time???  If this is true, apparently it is not
affected by the "slow" interface.  I believe that it is, since an EIDE-IBM
friend saw as low as 7.5ms.  10ms looks conservative.

DOCUMENTATION

	It comes with documentation which has some useful specifications in
it, along with jumper and installation instructions, but most of it is
Windows NT, '95, UNIX, etc. specific.  Their WWW site has the best stats.
You also get a disk to get you beyond the 528MB IBM-BIOS limit, which isn't
necessary for the A4000.

	If you can install the drive without reading the manual, it probably
won't be that useful.  But, you can read all of the trouble you'd have to go
thorough to get it working on an IBM.  Maybe my struggles with getting
HDToolbox to use the whole drive equaled it anyway...

LIKES

	This drive is mass storage at a nice price.  It does not need a new
interface, and actually reports the drive information properly.  The 100%
IDE compatibility seems to be true.  It is quieter and uses less power than
the Seagate 124MB, but is a little noisier during reads.  The 3 year
warranty is nice, but if you need to use it with 1.2GB you won't be too
happy!  It resets very quickly after the Ctrl-A-A sequence, basically a
blink-pause-blink read.

DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS

	It spins-up slower than the Seagate so my un-upgradeable KS 3.0 times
out too soon and shows the "insert disk" screen on power up.  This is not
WD's fault, and Commodore fixed it in KS 3.1.  This would be my only
suggestion for improvement.

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	There are other drive test reports on math.uh.edu so I won't repeat
them here.  If the IDE interface could handle it, I would guess that the
only drive currently faster than this one is the 1.6GB WD.

	Just for your information (it did not change my mind) at one local
computer store they told me not to get WD since they tend to stall often.
They recommended the "8ms" Samsung for $239 US.  Statistics would tell you
that if this were true, WD probably sells 100 (or more) drives to every
Samsung.  My IBM friend sells WD drives with many upgrades he does and has
not seen one problem.  Interestingly enough, after I saw the Samsung manual
it said 11ms.  So guess what...  they measured it and took the lowest number
they saw.

BUGS

	None found.  The maxtransfer bug on some IDE drives is not on this
one.  I was wondering if that bug had to be there for 100% compatibility!
It supports the "sleep" command also.  My Seagate did not.

VENDOR SUPPORT

	None needed.  I hope it stays that way.

WARRANTY

	The product warranty is 3 years.  It covers only the drive itself,
and the repaired drive's warranty will be either the remainder of the
original warranty or 90 days - whichever is longer.  Claims must be made
within 90 days of the defect's discovery, but I'm not sure why anyone would
want to wait.  It does not say that the warranty isn't transferable.  It
does say "within 3 years from the Buyer's date of purchase from ...
dealer".  It does not specifically say that it is, either.  You may need a
lawyer to decide.  :)

CONCLUSIONS

	I'd say that the drive would get 5/5 stars, and the Commodore
interface 2/5 stars!  It is equal to or better than what I expected.  I
thought that I'd be seeing at least 2MB/s transfer rates since the A1200
gets a similar speed, but it's not the drive's fault.

	If you are looking for a larger than 1GB drive (which someday may be
made to run much faster) at a good price, this is it.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	Copyright 1995 Randy Kruszka.
	Email: [email-masked]

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