Ordering Information:
Order placed on Sept 26, 2009
Shipped on Sept 26, 2009
Delivered on Sept 28, 2009 (Amazon Prime)
Intended Use:
The initial use for this drive is to replace a Western Digital
74 GB boot drive on a Dimension XPS Gen 3 machine. Dell
Disk Diagnostics reported an Error Code 7 problem on the boot
drive. After downloading free software from the Western
Digital support site, and performing a software repair the disk appeared to function normally and passed all diagnostics. Simple data error or pending hardware failure? I'm not a risk taker. New drives are cheap, replacing the
programs and data is not.
Cabling and Software for the New Drive:
Note! If this is to be an additional drive, it is mandatory to
purchase a SATA data cable. The retail package contains
the drive itself and a pack of four screws with some minimal
documentation. The Dell is standard with power connections for
4 SATA drives so no worry there. The Western Digital site
carries cables at moderate prices, and Radio Shack has one
available in its stores for less than $10.00 (Part # 26-1142)
You may want to downloaded from the WD site a copy of Acronis
True Image (2009) software. The free WD version moves data
from any drive to a WD drive (only).
Installing in a Dell Dimension XPS Gen 3 BIOS version A07,
running Windows XP Pro SP3:
Easy and simple takes about 10 minutes. Open the HD bay
shroud, extract the two green rails and attach to the HD.
Push into the bay, connect the power and data cables. Replace
the shroud. Note! A SATA boot drive must be connected to the
lowest numbered enabled SATA connector. The procedure should
be similar in other units with SATA connectors.
Cloning the Drive:
With the original boot drive still in the computer, start the
True Image Software. If asked whether to format the new drive,
skip the procedure. Click the clone operation, automatic
option. The software offers a choice of formatted drives to
clone, and automatically selects the new "raw" drive as the
destination. Manual cloning offers many more options.
The cloning process took about 20 minutes. At the end I
rebooted, went into setup and disabled the SATA port for the
original boot drive. After exiting setup, Windows booted normally,
all of the installed programs were present and running
without a problem, no reinstall of anything was required. From the
Microsoft Office applications to McAfee to Digital Security
certificates, all was there and operating. The only
thing different is the 854 GB of free space on the C: drive.
Total time from opening the box to booting up the new drive
with everything transferred, about 40 minutes.
Speed and Noise of New Drive:
I have not yet run comparison tests on the new equipment, but
the "feel" is that the new drive loads the OS and other data
just as quickly, if not more so, than the 10,000 RPM drive it
replaced. It's so silent that one can forget its working. The
cooling fan is louder.
For the future:
I'm not very technically proficient, so I'm going to need time
to device a good data management and backup system. I've
temporarily left the old drive in place, so I have three SATA
drives to play with, and there's probably a need for externals
drives as backup.
Conclusion:
The drive is speedy, dead easy to install, and un-naturally
quiet. With the free True Image software, it's everything I
ever dreamed about in a Hard Drive. I'll update this later on with reliability
information. For now, though, I'd recommend this product
without reservation.
| 制造商 | Western Digital |
|---|---|
| 型号 | WD10000CSRTL |
| 商品重量 | 567 g |
