IBM Deskstar 120GXP HDD (IBM Deskstar 120GXP 80 GB)

Member Name: Dave_UK

Product:	IBM Deskstar 120GXP 80 GB
Date:	27/01/04 (100 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast, Quiet, Cheap

Disadvantages: none

This is a great drive, that I bought about a year ago when I built my PC. I was looking for a good all round IDE hard disk - fast, reliable, and well priced. After reading various reviews, I discovered the best hard disk in its class. Was it a Maxtor? WD? Seagate? No - it was made by IBM.

>Price<
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These drives are selling in many places, such as dabs.com (where I purchased mine). The DeskStar line is extremely well priced, so the price/performance ratio is excellent here if you are on a budget.

>Performance<
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I am a musician and I use digital audio/recording applications. These can be very hard-disk intensive, and the Deslstar 120GXP performs brilliantly. I also have a firewire-capable digital camcorder so I use the PC to edit digital video which is also very hard-disk intensive. Again, the drive performs competently. Seek times and transfer rates are top-notch.
In fact, the disk performs quickly when loading/playing games, or any of the other myriad applications of today's PC's.

>Noise/Heat<
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The drive is also exceptionally quiet, even when being used intensively (e.g. Video Editing, Defragmenting) and therefore practical in an office/business environment. There is little or no vibration coming from the unit.
The drive itself also appears to be well-designed from a thermal perspective. My case temperatures are fine, and the drive does not appear to become overly hot, so I doubt you will need a seperate hard-disk cooler unless your ventilation is poor, or you have lots of drives in a small case.

>Overall<
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Overall, this is a fast, quiet, reliable and well-priced drive. It has since
been surpassed by the 180GXP version, and the technology has been acquired by Hitachi, but the drives are still great. Heartily recommended for all mainstream/performance applications on a budget.

Dave.

Summary: