*DEAD* Western Digital 120GB SE 8MB Cache $58 - Being Honored!

[mchas]

Out of curiosity, I called WD. The CSR didn't know anything about the 2 vs 3 platter issue, but was familiar with Tom's Hardware, so I sent him over there. Basically, calling WD accomplished nothing. I took a look at their site, and under the drive specs, it shows the number of platters = 3 for the LBA 234,441,648...so now I am even more confused. All in all, I don't really know how much of a difference it makes. I'm happy with 120 gigs for 85 bucks

 

[Oxonium]

I emailed WD and this is what I got:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discussion Thread
Response (Jason) 11/06/2002 01:38 PM
You can not tell the difference between the two drives. There is not difference in their performance. There complete specs can be view on our web site at:

http://www.wdc.com/products/products.asp?DriveID=27
=========================================================================================================================
Customer (Oxonium) 11/06/2002 01:03 PM
I recently purchased a Caviar 7200rpm 120GB SE drive (1200JB). I have heard that there are two versions of this drive: one with 2 platters and one with 3 platters. I cannot find any information on your website about this. Is this true? If so, how can one differentiate between the drives (serial#, Rev#, LBA#, Manufacturing Date,...)? Is there a performance difference? Thank you.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So I take this to mean that there are both the 2- and 3-platter drives out there. I don't know if this guy is full of it or what but he clearly says that there is no way to tell. Take it for what it's worth....

 

[OuiKikUrAzz]

Originally posted by: neomits
What are you guys sending in as your receipt? The invoice or the email you got?

im curious of this one too

 

[KL123]

I think the packaging slip is fine because I think the rebate form from dell webpage stated packaging slip but the wdc stated purchase slip anyway, what you want is two dates 10/11-10/13 and the shipped date.

 

[Ogewo]

I just called WD @ 800-ASK-4WDC (800-275-4932) and the tech went and talked to two other techs and looked through the documentation and said there was no way to tell the difference between the 2 and 3 platter drives. Probably not true based on the LBA number discrepency.

My drive was manufactured October 22 and it has the LBA number corresponding with the 3 platter drives according to Tom's Hardware. WD said there is no performance difference based on their testing and even Tom's only said there is a "potential" performance difference. Noise and heat are the only issues I can think of, both minor. Unless someone can post some benchmarks I don't think I'll go through any trouble to get a 2 platter instead of my 3 platter.

Rock on 60-80$ 120gb 8mb cache drive owners!

 

[K-squared]

Hey KavMan - can you look to see if there is a major difference in the serial number (as listed externally on the retail box) for the four (4) harddrives? I'm curious as to whether the serial number listed on the bottom of the box would also identify the two- versus three-platter harddrives.....

Originally posted by: KavMan
I have 4 WD 1200JB's

1 - 24 Feb 2002 - LBA: 234375000 - Rev A00

2 - 09 May 2002 - LBA: 234375000 - Rev A00

3 - 16 Aug 2002 - LBA: 234441648 - Can't find a Rev # - This drive has pictures of the power connector and jumper settings that the other 3 doesn't have and also it has WD1200JB - 00CRA1 instead of ther other three that has WD1200JB - 75CRA0

4 - This is the drive Dell sent - 15 Oct 2002 - LBA: 234375000 - Rev A00

 

[Nessal]

AHHH....im so confused....I guess I can't cancel my order anymore...my drive arrived today. I ordered the Retail Special Edition on the Home buyers section one...can anyone explain me to step by step on recieving the rebate? THanks so much!

 

[KavMan]

Originally posted by: K-squared
Hey KavMan - can you look to see if there is a major difference in the serial number (as listed externally on the retail box) for the four (4) harddrives? I'm curious as to whether the serial number listed on the bottom of the box would also identify the two- versus three-platter harddrives.....

Originally posted by: KavMan
I have 4 WD 1200JB's

1 - 24 Feb 2002 - LBA: 234375000 - Rev A00

2 - 09 May 2002 - LBA: 234375000 - Rev A00

3 - 16 Aug 2002 - LBA: 234441648 - Can't find a Rev # - This drive has pictures of the power connector and jumper settings that the other 3 doesn't have
and also it has WD1200JB - 00CRA1 instead of ther other three that has WD1200JB - 75CRA0

4 - This is the drive Dell sent - 15 Oct 2002 - LBA: 234375000 - Rev A00

The only retail drive I have that came with a box was the Dell one

The other three WD 1200JB's were purchased from Newegg which are OEM

 

[aperry]

Originally posted by: Nessal
AHHH....im so confused....I guess I can't cancel my order anymore...my drive arrived today. I ordered the Retail Special Edition on the Home buyers section one...can anyone explain me to step by step on recieving the rebate? THanks so much!

Simple. Look through the previous pages for the information. It has been posted in this thread at least 5 times. Someone posted a nice summary a couple of days back...

 

[K-squared]

For those of you that "appear" to have the two-platter version of this drive, does the placard on your harddrive match the placard that is shown in the Tom's Hardware review of the WD2000JB harddrive????

another 'view' of the data placard on the WD2000JB harddrive

You will note in this second picture, that the serial number is WMACK1032153. I've noticed that the serial number in all the WD1200JBs I've looked at, have a serial number that includes one numerical digit (eg. WMA8C264xxxx). Now this is purely speculation, but what if the serial number decodes as follows:

W - Western Digital
MA - Malaysia
CK - production facility
1 - production run
032153 - individual unit number

If Western Digital is producing the JB Special Edition series harddrives at several locations, it's likely they would only shutdown one production facility at a time, to retool - thus resulting in an overlap in manufacture dates between the two versions of the same drive. Again, this is just speculation, but possibly the serial number may in some way indicate which harddrives are the two-platter versions of the WD2000JB drive.

It seems logical, that the higher areal density of the two-platter drives would equate to faster read/write speeds since the heads have less distance to travel between read/write tasks. It also stands to reason, that mixing two- and three-platter versions within a raid-array, would create a performance hit, since the two drives could not read/write at the same relative rate due to the different relative positions of the read/write locations on the two different platters....

Reply question posted by: K-squared
Hey KavMan - can you look to see if there is a major difference in the serial number (as listed externally on the retail box) for the four (4) harddrives? I'm curious as to whether the serial number listed on the bottom of the box would also identify the two- versus three-platter harddrives.....

Originally posted by: KavMan
I have 4 WD 1200JB's

1 - 24 Feb 2002 - LBA: 234375000 - Rev A00

2 - 09 May 2002 - LBA: 234375000 - Rev A00

3 - 16 Aug 2002 - LBA: 234441648 - Can't find a Rev # - This drive has pictures of the power connector and jumper settings that the other 3 doesn't have
and also it has WD1200JB - 00CRA1 instead of ther other three that has WD1200JB - 75CRA0

4 - This is the drive Dell sent - 15 Oct 2002 - LBA: 234375000 - Rev A00

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Oxonium
I emailed WD and this is what I got:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discussion Thread
Response (Jason) 11/06/2002 01:38 PM
You can not tell the difference between the two drives. There is not difference in their performance. There complete specs can be view on our web site at:

http://www.wdc.com/products/products.asp?DriveID=27
=========================================================================================================================
Customer (Oxonium) 11/06/2002 01:03 PM
I recently purchased a Caviar 7200rpm 120GB SE drive (1200JB). I have heard that there are two versions of this drive: one with 2 platters and one with 3 platters. I cannot find any information on your website about this. Is this true? If so, how can one differentiate between the drives (serial#, Rev#, LBA#, Manufacturing Date,...)? Is there a performance difference? Thank you.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So I take this to mean that there are both the 2- and 3-platter drives out there. I don't know if this guy is full of it or what but he clearly says that there is no way to tell. Take it for what it's worth....

there is 2 and 3 platter versions of the drive, the 2 platter should perform like the 200JB reviewed at storage review


and when a billion people order the drive you can't expect everyone to get it immediately.

 

[Freebird]

Originally posted by: K-squared

It seems logical, that the higher areal density of the two-platter drives would equate to faster read/write speeds since the heads have less distance to travel between read/write tasks. It also stands to reason, that mixing two- and three-platter versions within a raid-array, would create a performance hit, since the two drives could not read/write at the same relative rate due to the different relative positions of the read/write locations on the two different platters....

i agree, unless WD changed the inter-workings of the drive so that it performs the same, this would account for their claim that there is no performance difference. just a thought

 

[spinn]

got my drive early this week and a credit for $108.25 back to my charge. 120GB for $63. I'm happy.

 

[Alternex]

My newly upgraded 270 Hour Tivo (really 81 hrs at best quality) now has more than twice as much hard drive space as all the computers in my apartment combined!

 

[HoosierDadE]

Originally posted by: K-squared
For those of you that "appear" to have the two-platter version of this drive, does the placard on your harddrive match the placard that is shown in the Tom's Hardware review of the WD2000JB harddrive????

My 2 platter (based on LBA number) has a placard like the picture of the WD2000JB. FWIW, it also has the numeric digit in the serial number you were speculating might mean a 3 paltter drive. But if the LBS is decisive, does anything else matter? or does someone think that there are two different capacity 3 platter versions?

 

[K-squared]

Guess what Dell has listed again . . . .

Anyone what to guess . . . .


yep!

<a target=new class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.asp?Sku=A0060210&spagenum=1&category_id=864&keyword=&mnf=&prst=0&prEnd=0&mnfsku=&orderby=&SearchType=&customer_id=19&Pageb4Search=&page=productlisting%2Easp&icompatid=&instock=0&refurbished=">WESTERN DIGITAL
120GB Caviar Special Edition Internal EIDE Ultra ATA/100 7200RPM Hard Drive w/8MB Cache - Retail Kit</a>

The URL link lists "&instock=0&refurbished="

and the price . . . .

$216.95
or as low as $7/mo


Looks like they're trying to make a little back on that "little loss" they took....


They have also lowered their pricing on the 180GB and 200GB versions

 

[OuiKikUrAzz]

Originally posted by: KL123
I think the packaging slip is fine because I think the rebate form from dell webpage stated packaging slip but the wdc stated purchase slip anyway, what you want is two dates 10/11-10/13 and the shipped date.

my packing slip is dated 10/31! i have nothing stating 10/11-10/13 date even though i bought the drive on 10/12

 

[Walliser]

Of course the packing slip is dated with the date it was shipped and not the date ordered.

The order date will be printed on the Order Acknowldgment that is being mailed a day or two after the drive is shipped.
One alternative mentioned several times in this thread is to print the order acknowledgment online.

If only people would read... how many times has the whole procedure been explained so far? Or is it just that some people want everything spoonfed to them?

 

[K-squared]

Oh well, it would have been nice if it was that easy. Care to post the date, location and serial number as listed on the outside of the retail box (bottom)?

My "apparent" three-platter WD1200JBRTL:

16 Oct 2002
Malaysia
WMA8C264xxxx

Originally posted by: HoosierDadE
My 2 platter (based on LBA number) has a placard like the picture of the WD2000JB. FWIW, it also has the numeric digit in the serial number you were speculating might mean a 3 paltter drive. But if the LBS is decisive, does anything else matter? or does someone think that there are two different capacity 3 platter versions?

Originally posted by: K-squared
For those of you that "appear" to have the two-platter version of this drive, does the placard on your harddrive match the placard that is shown in the Tom's Hardware review of the WD2000JB harddrive????

 

[Parn]

Hehe, UPS Tracking is kinda being weird. It said on route to Santa Clara yesterday, and now it's reverted back to Arrival at Richimond (stop before Santa Clara). Either way, it says scheduled delivery date Nov 7th... I don't have the drive here!! Darn...

 

[hildatk]

Mine was delivered yesterday and somebody in my building signed for it and stole it. I called Dell and they say they would send me another one out 3-5 days. I hope nobody will steal this one. Does anyone knows what I can do about this? Would reporting to the police help? Any ideas or sugguestions would be appreciated.

 

[Arkane]

w00t. got my retail drive today.

 

[flynclippr]

got mine today too. woohoo.

 

[John P]

What the heck, may as well lengthen the thread. I received mine today too!!

 

[SupaCh1nk]

some people are receiving $100 credit back, how come?
to get the rebate, do you send in the acknowledgement letter, packing slip, email confirmation, or all three?