WD1200BB or IBM120GXP?

[kazeakuma]

The time has come for me to increase my HDD space, so I've been looking at these two drives. Unfortunately I can't find any decent benchmarks for the 120GXP. Some people are saying it edges out the WD but I can't find the numbers to back it up. I'm just looking for the better drive of the two as the price difference is $5 (in the GXPs favour) so that's not a concern. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

 

[kazeakuma]

Anyone?

 

[iluvdeal]

I saw a comparison in PC magazine and the IBM edges it but not by much. It's a toss up, I'd just buy the one you can get for cheaper or the one with the better warranty/replacement policy.

 

[Ionizer86]

If they are about the same speed, I'd probably get the WD1200BB. The older 75GXP hard drives had such a high failure rate; 60GXP's are also reported to fail more easily than the average hard drive. IBM sort of tainted their name by making unreliable hard drives in the past.

 

[KenAF]

The 120GXP is faster than the WD1200BB. The WD1200JB (which is the WD1200BB with 8Mb of cache) is faster than the 120GXP. You can get the 120GB WD1200JB online for $260.

 

[JellyBaby]

Given IBM's reliability concerns I would go with an 8 MB WD unless price is a factor...of course the IBM's aren't cheap either.

 

[John]

Anyone have some comparisons with the 1200JB & 120GXP benches?

I have the 80GB 120GXP and it's a rocket of an IDE drive.

 

[Rand]

<< Anyone have some comparisons with the 1200JB & 120GXP benches?

I have the 80GB 120GXP and it's a rocket of an IDE drive. >>



Judging by the fact that the 1200JB was kicking around 10K SCSI drives, and almost doing 15K SCSI performance for desktop applications at StorageReview I'd hazard a guess that it's preety safe to say it'll crush the 120GXP.

 

[John]

I highly doubt it will "crush" the 120GXP. You sound like Dr. Pabst.

 

[kazeakuma]

Ok thanks for the responses people. The 120GXP is faster in some respects than the 1200BB (I can't get the JB easily where I live) but in reality it's not much. I'm going for the 1200BB simply because I can't be sure of the reliability of IBM anymore. I have a 75GXP that is still going but it's given me a scare or two and others haven't been so lucky. So WD it is. Thanks again.

 

[KenAF]

Do not get the WD1200BB. The WD1200JB is far superior. Here's a comparison between the WD1200BB, WD1200JB, and 120GXP. The Western Digital outperformsthe 120GXP and crushes the WD1200BB (by 50% in some cases); see below:

http://www.barefeats.com/hard22.html
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200201/20020124WD1200JB_3.html

The cost is $265 for the WD1200JB right here at Googlegear.

 

[Rand]

<< I highly doubt it will "crush" the 120GXP. You sound like Dr. Pabst. >>



Considering it's practically 50% faster then any other IDE HDD accroding to SR I think it's quite reasonable to say it will "crush" the 120GXP. I mean this thing is consistently beating out the fastest 10K SCSI drives, in an industry in which HDD performance improves about 10% year over year a good 50% improvement with the JB series drives is pretty damn incredible.

 

[kazeakuma]

KenAF - I would gladly get the WD1200JB IF I could get it. Where I live I'm looking at a few weeks or more before it's available and around $50-$75 increased cost. Not worth it for me.

 

[KenAF]

kaz,

If I had to wait until the WD1200JB became available here...I'd be waiting forever! That's why we have mail order.

 

[John]

Considering it's practically 50% faster then any other IDE HDD accroding to SR I think it's quite reasonable to say it will "crush" the 120GXP.

I am not doubting the WD1200JB in regards to the overall speed of the drive. However, since SR hasn't reviewed the 120GXP I don't think we can say that it "crushes" it. The review from above shows it is marginally faster from what I read.

 

[subhuman]

I just built a rackmount Northwood with dual 100gb WD, both with the 8meg cache for audio / video recording - these drives SMOKE! Extremely fast. The client is happy, it replaced his 10,000RPM SCSI drives, gave him a ton more space, and was cheaper than what he paid for his SCSI rig 2 years ago! These WDs are also relatively quiet, considering how well they perform.

 

[edc03]

storage review has done a new review on the ibm 120 gxp. the review discusses all the top of the line hard drives: maxtor d740x, wd 1200/1000 jb, and ibm 120gxp.

Storage Review

however, i'm still not sure what to get for my new hard drive. i mean ibm is cheaper, but wd is freakin fast. right now, it's up to the ibm 120gxp 80gb for $151 before shipping/tax or wd 1000jb for $209 before shipping/tax. someone, help... which one?!?

 

[KenAF]

Judging from the IBM 120GXP vs WD-JB results right here, I'd say go with the WD drive. The IBM 120GXP isn't nearly as fast as I thought. Although it's still reasonably faster than the Maxtor and Seagate, it's still 20-35% slower than the WD. These benchmarks come straight from the number of seconds it takes to complete tasks....so that's like a 30 second vs 42 second bootup, 8 vs 11 second game level load, etc.

 

[oldfart]

Aren't we mixing up the BB and JB results? I thought he was looking at a BB.

Also, I see a 1000JB on the WD site. Is the 1000JB just as fast as the 1200JB?

 

[Devistater]

I would definately reccomend thinking twice about the IBM 120gxp. In the official tech specs for the drive (I found this info on storage review.com) they say the monthly power on usage is only 333 hours (about 11 hours per day). Pretty strange
http://www-3.ibm.com/storage/hdd/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/E0B26749E1A7728C87256B290055ECA5/$file/D120GXP_ds.pdf

 

[butch84]

In most of the reviews i have read, the 8mb cache version only yeilds a performance increase in burst transfer rate. At most everythying else, the JB and BB are very close, unless you are doing server stuff. I would probably go with IBM myself as im currently runing a 16gxp and a 60gxp, and both are great. However, the 120BB would be good too. I would only go for the 1200JB if you really need to have that extra speed and money isnt a factor.

Just my $.02

Butch

 

[smp]

heh.. this is funny because not too long ago people would have been recommending IBM's over WD's anyday and now it seems the tables have turned. I feel the same way though, I don't really trust IBM anymore.

 

[LXi]

*cough* don't worship into those SR numbers so much *cough*

This is getting out of hand, I see people claiming some drives are some 40% faster than another of the same generation, where does he get these numbers? From StorageReview? This is just a flat out crazy claim, more of an effect of worshipping these SR tests. Im not saying SR is not accurate, but just because you see a graph showing some drive 40% faster than another doesn't mean it is 40% faster overall, in fact it might mean jack in real life situations. We need to get real and get down to earth, these tests are good indications of how good the hard drives can be, but not how good it really is in real usages. Anyway, try mail ordering that overrated JB across the Pacific Ocean, I guarrantee it's no fun.

 

[Goi]

storagereview has reviews of both drives, and tomshardware has the WD

 

[KenAF]

LXi,

<< Im not saying SR is not accurate, but just because you see a graph showing some drive 40% faster than another doesn't mean it is 40% faster overall, in fact it might mean jack in real life situations. >>

Storagereview did use real world situations and found those results. That's exactly why their tests are so good; they don't rely on synthetic tests for access and throughput like a number of sites (although they offer those too), but actually have a real world test methodology. As far as I know, they are the only site to offer real world tests of windows bootup and game level loading performance.

For their gaming benchmark, Storagereview tested the time it took to load the game and game levels in Lionhead's Black & White v1.1, Valve's Half-Life: Counterstrike v1.3, Blizzard's Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction v1.09b, Maxis' The Sims: House Party v1.0, and Epic's Unreal Tournament v4.36. They found that the WD1200JB loaded these games and their levels 30-40% faster than a number of other drives. For more information on these tests, see this explanation page at Storagereview.

For a head-to-head IBM 120GXP vs Western Digital WD1200JB benchmark comparison, see this page.