Hi
I use all Western Digital Drives ranging from a 2MB cache 100GB to an 8MB cache 160GB.
I would say the most probable reason for the drive working harder and taking longer is the cache. The Extra 6MB of cache is useful for exactly the slow downs you are getting.

I see a similar performance drop with my 100GB 2MB vs a 120GB 8MB.

Also pb stand for 8Mb cache with fluid bearings (quieter). The Hitachi/IBM 750/2k is supposed to be the best out atm:
http://storagereview.com/php/tiki/tiki-i...eaderBoard
(Last updated January)

thanks for the info about the fluid bearings. The Raptor blows the Hitachi away in every aspect according to r/t experience and benchmarks...

Its a totally different drive, in terms of price and capacity. Its like comparing scsi with ide, there is no point; you either want one or the other and they are not competitors, unless u consider ide vs scsi & scsi controller!?

good point, the comparison between SATA and SCSI is what the Maximum PC article is about. They expected SATA to do OK, instead it kicked-ass beyond belief. My point is that anyone can use a retail version of the Raptor (with the SATA to parallel IDE adapter in the box) and get previously unheard of performance with out going to ultra-expensive SCSI and getting even BETTER performance depending on the other peripherals/components in their system...

(it's all good, so my point is made and I'm done expounding on this one)

__________________________________________
(my main box at the moment)
Athlon XP 3200+ Barton @ 2484MHz/12x@207FSB@1.81V
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1536MB Corsair DDR434 2-3-2-5-1T, Asus A7N8X Deluxe 2.0 (1007 BIOS), Radeon 9800PRO (Cat 4.4), Audigy 2 Platinum (EAX4 4.43), 2x74GB WD 10,000 rpm Raptors SATA RAID 0, Plextor PlexWriter Premium CD burner, Plextor PX-708A DVD burner, Antec TrueControl 550, 21" Sony GDM-F500R CRT 1600x1200@85hz (analog), 17" NEC Multisync LCD 1760NX 1280x1024@60hz (digital), Klipsch ProMedia 5.1, MS Internet Keyboard Pro+MS Office USB kyboard, MS Intellimouse Explorer 3.0, XP Pro Sp1

got the wd jumpered right

they have a funny 2x master options

and stand alone with no slave master is jumperless

jumper it master with no slave on the ide and odd things happen

yep, you're right about that. The first WD HD I installed drove me crazy trying to figure out that I had to run it jumperless as a single Master drive (am still crazy and blame computers for it). Cable Select also can cause problems, don't use it. Set the jumpers manually to use master/slave drives on the Primary/Secondary cables...

(see what happens, I said I was done kicking this dead dog, I must be having a slow day)

yes ... cable select CAN slow down your HDD ... this shows very clearly in a RAID sstem ... so why not in a single drive system