NOW SCORCHING HOT: 100GB 8MB SE Western Digital HD (WD1000JBRTL), $74.99 AR/AC, $55.19 after PM, Sunday 1/12 @ Best Buy

[Devious1]

I went and Picked mine up in Menter, Ohio. They had about 20 drives on the shelf. Went to the register to check out told CSR to make sure he took off %10 and not $10. He screwed that up and I told him to fix it. He fixed it to the point of %20 off. So I walked out paying just $121 plus tax. Very nice deal. Now the wait begins for the MIR's.

 

[MaxDepth]

Ok. I got my drive but here is the funny story.

I called around to the Best Buys in my area Friday (1/17). Everybody in the Raleigh/Durham area sold out. The next one in Greensboro was sold out too, but the guy there was swapping the 120s for the 100s and had three left. After establishing a land speed record in a Mazda truck on I-84/40 dirung rush hour, I managed to pick the last one up.

I got the rebates with some code rework they did at the store to make it look like I picked up a 100, so the rebates will go through as a 100 gb. Including the UPC codes. It is such a sweet deal that I forgot to see if I could price match it (no need to be too much of a hog, and it really isn't a true pricematch anyway).


Anyway, now that I have it home and installing it now, I have a question. How come my bios is showing it as 112 gb hard drive. I know for sector allocations that 1 meg is actually 1.024 megs - so shouldn't it be at least 122 gb? Where did my 8 gigs go? Secotr allocation for NTFS and Fat32 should be that big? Should it?


Oh and it turns out the Durham Best Buy had several in stock in the back room, but somebody there was hiding them. Next time, go there in person and watch them type out product code into their allocation database. It show if they have em in stock or not.

 

[MrNutz]

Did they call or email you to let you know they were in? I haven't heard and I really don't want to call

I don't know what time they call to tell you it is in and I wasn't home friday morning to catch their call so I called them......I thought about the same thing (waiting for them to call me)....but i figured it wasn't worth missing out on this deal all together and also I didn't want to have to argue with a CSR about it not being in stock just cause they didn't call me

....i know this reply is a bit late....so did you wait and try to get them to deduct everything @ the register?

 

[Cat13]

Originally posted by: MrNutz

Did they call or email you to let you know they were in? I haven't heard and I really don't want to call

I don't know what time they call to tell you it is in and I wasn't home friday morning to catch their call so I called them......I thought about the same thing (waiting for them to call me)....but i figured it wasn't worth missing out on this deal all together and also I didn't want to have to argue with a CSR about it not being in stock just cause they didn't call me

....i know this reply is a bit late....so did you wait and try to get them to deduct everything @ the register?

Well, I just got back from my drive to BB. They still did not get the drives in so I spoke to the manager. He said that since I have a raincheck showing the sale price with the rabate's, that when the drives come in he will honor the FINAL price of $89.00 at the register! No rebates! I have 2 rainchecks and he said no problem! I also have 1 on backorder at BB.com, but I may cancel that if I get the others before it ships.

The wait is on.

 

[MrNutz]

Well, I just got back from my drive to BB. They still did not get the drives in so I spoke to the manager. He said that since I have a raincheck showing the sale price with the rabate's, that when the drives come in he will honor the FINAL price of $89.00 at the register! No rebates! I have 2 rainchecks and he said no problem! I also have 1 on backorder at BB.com, but I may cancel that if I get the others before it ships.

sweet......damn i wish my BB could of waited a couple more days before updating its stock

 

[ZakPC]

Anyway, now that I have it home and installing it now, I have a question. How come my bios is showing it as 112 gb hard drive. I know for sector allocations that 1 meg is actually 1.024 megs - so shouldn't it be at least 122 gb? Where did my 8 gigs go? Secotr allocation for NTFS and Fat32 should be that big? Should it?

may need a BIOS update

 

[CZroe]

Originally posted by: MaxDepth
Anyway, now that I have it home and installing it now, I have a question. How come my bios is showing it as 112 gb hard drive. I know for sector allocations that 1 meg is actually 1.024 megs - so shouldn't it be at least 122 gb? Where did my 8 gigs go? Secotr allocation for NTFS and Fat32 should be that big? Should it?

WD and most HDD manufacturers consider 120 billion bytes to be 120GB. To the BIOS, it would need to be almost 129 billion bytes to equal 120GBs (128,849,018,880). Therefore, the BIOS will see 120 billion bytes as less. This is how the file system and the world in general measures a GB and therefore 112GBs is the correct size. For future correct calculations, a byte is eight bits. A kilobyte is 1024 bytes. A megabyte is 1024 kilobytes. A gigabyte is 1024 megabytes. And so on.

Exactly 112GBs comes to 120,259,084,288 bytes... Slightly more than WD's 120 "decimal GB" claim.

It's not as bad as Iomega. Most external storage devices go as far as to claim the formatted capacity. ie, a floppy may claim 1.44GBs formatted capacity and a CD-R may claim 700MB. You will achieve the rated capacities on them, but not on a Zip disk. A Zip 750 is MUCH less than 750MB. They would purposely decieve by taking their measurement and claiming that it could hold 70 1.44MB floppies on a Zip 100 disk. That's apples and oranges man!

 

[OatMan]

got a rain check for 2 - hope i can get both...

Question:

Maxtor and WD both have 8MB cache drives. I know these WD SE drives are highly regarded for quality, reliability and performance - which is much in contrast to WD reputation over the last few years. Anyone know the quality of the Maxtor drives? Historically Maxtor has been pretty good.

My head is spinning from all these hard drive deals. Its starting to get confusing with all the combo's of rebates, coupons and PM. Anyone notice how the different retailers stock different Drive capacities? Some only have the 120, 60, 40. Some 100, 200, 180, 80. Wonder if its to thwart PM?

Regarding HD speed. Someone said (not sure if its this thread or another similar one) that the 200GB SE should be faster than the 100GB or 120GB. with the same rotational speed (7200 RPM) and Buffer (8M) and I assume similar access and seek times, this is counter intuitive. Smaller capacity drives should be much faster as the data density on platters and layout should be much more effecient. I'm fairly ignorant tho, so if someone in the know could chime in I'd appreciate it...

FWIW - It was pointed out to me that the 'zine coupon says not valid for rain checks, but some of the other coupons may work...

 

[MaxFusion16]

Originally posted by: OatMan
got a rain check for 2 - hope i can get both...

Question:

Maxtor and WD both have 8MB cache drives. I know these WD SE drives are highly regarded for quality, reliability and performance - which is much in contrast to WD reputation over the last few years. Anyone know the quality of the Maxtor drives? Historically Maxtor has been pretty good.

My head is spinning from all these hard drive deals. Its starting to get confusing with all the combo's of rebates, coupons and PM. Anyone notice how the different retailers stock different Drive capacities? Some only have the 120, 60, 40. Some 100, 200, 180, 80. Wonder if its to thwart PM?

Regarding HD speed. Someone said (not sure if its this thread or another similar one) that the 200GB SE should be faster than the 100GB or 120GB. with the same rotational speed (7200 RPM) and Buffer (8M) and I assume similar access and seek times, this is counter intuitive. Smaller capacity drives should be much faster as the data density on platters and layout should be much more effecient. I'm fairly ignorant tho, so if someone in the know could chime in I'd appreciate it...

FWIW - It was pointed out to me that the 'zine coupon says not valid for rain checks, but some of the other coupons may work...

the platter density is what matters the most, the reading head goes through more data in one rotation due to the higher density of the platter, therefore being faster. So the overall capacity of a harddrive does not matter, it's the platter used that matters. For example: a 80gh harddrive made up of 2 40gb platter is slower compared to a 80gb harddrive made up of 1 80gb platter with everything else being equal.

 

[CZroe]

I heard that the 200GB WDSE drive is the only one in WDs line that uses 66GB platters. The 180GB WDSE drive on the other hand uses 60GB platters. The first 60GB SE drives probably had three 20GB platters. Now, (If they still make them) I'm sure they have a single 60GB platter and therefore each rotation transfers three times as much data. WD is notorious for changing platter densities without changing drive model numbers, but at least they are making them faster

 

[deramon]

Hey thanks CZroe for the info on the mfgering. I had wondered how they could make some many drive sizes without major costs. Now it makes sense.

 

[Cat13]

Well, just recieved an email cancelling my order for this drive on BB.com. Looks like they are making room for the new series.

Lost out again.........

 

[joecav]

I just got an email not cancelling my ORDER but cancelling my raincheck?!?! I thought a raincheck meant that whenever they do get the drive in, I can get it at the price offered?? Guess not, oh well.