Western Digital Caviar 80GB Hard Drive (Western Digital-WD800JBRTL)

Reviewed by: tyleralan11

Duration of ownership: 3 Years

Strengths: RUNS COOL!

Weaknesses: VIBRATES A LOT, BUT I BOUGHT A SECOND ONE AND THAT DOES NOT I BOUGHT ANOTHER AND THAT DOES ETHER THAT FIRST I BOUGHT MUST BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH IT?

Overall: SOME DRIVES MIGHT BE NOISY! BUT THEY ARE KIND OF FAST. AND THEY LOCK UP A LOT I NOTICE TO. EVERY ONE I BOUGHT HAS LOCKED UP I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST THE DRIVE SO GOT ANOTHER ONE I GUESS IT WAS NOT?

Reviewed by: Madmadge

Strengths: Reliable

Weaknesses: None

Overall: My first computer had a Western digital drive (1990). That hard drive stil works to this day! I don't question their reliability. I just installed two of these in an HP and Dell 80 gb 8 mb cache/buffer They are super fast and quiet. Would highly recommend.

Reviewed by: Archmaille

Strengths: none

Weaknesses: died at end of warranty

Overall: If you love the idea of never knowing when your drive might fail this is the one for you! I had one of these bad boys and it died right at the end of the 1 year warranty. This is the second Western Digital Drive that I've had die on me wouldn't purchase ever again! DON'T PURCHASE THIS DRIVE!!!

Reviewed by: zbsmith

Strengths: NONE!!!

Weaknesses: NOISEY

Overall: This drive is a noisey piece of crap!! There is always a constant whine. My drive also rattles and the light constantly flickers. I contacted the WD company and ran their diagnostic software. According to them the drive is working fine. I purchased this drive at Officemax for 19.99 after rebate. At the time I thought I was getting a bargain. After listening to all the noise this drive emits I wish I would have bought a different brand.

Reviewed by: inaerik

Strengths: So far it is running OK

Weaknesses: WDC's customer service is very poor.

Overall: After opening the box I found out that it came with a 1 year warranty. It had a flier offering to extend the warranty to 3 years for $14.50, provided it was done on-line. When I registered the drive and checked the warranty, it showed that it expired in November 2004, effectively shortening me 1 1/2 months. When I tried to extend the warranty, their system refused to let me. I called customer support and waited on the phone for 50 minutes. I was told to fax them my complaint, receipt, serial #, etc. I have never heard back from them. I have sent then 2 additional e-mails, but they never answer. I hate to think what will happen when the drive fails. I went back to Office Max and bought an extended warranty for $22.50. I will try some other manufacturer next time.

Reviewed by: BOBL273

Strengths: Fats and quiet

Weaknesses: Had to run scan disk and defrag to get the drive to run as advertised

Overall: I installed this drive as a slave to hold video, music and picture files. The WD Data Lifeguard Tools made installation easy. However, it ran dog slow. I ran defrag, but I got a disk error message. I ran a Thorough Scandisk, which took hours, then ran defrag again. It took only minutes to defrag the disk. Now the drive runs like a bat out of hell. It's fast and very quiet. Plan to replace my Maxtor 40GB system drive with the 40 GB version of this drive and upgrade to WINXPPro. I'll let you know how I make out with this upgrade. This drive is a great bang for the buck!