Western Digital’s 808.8GB - “All the Way Lucky with 8″

[onethreehill]

Western Digital’s 808.8GB Hard Drive Brings Good Luck to You

http://en.expreview.com/img/2009/04/20/WD808.8G_1.jpg


You might know that the number 8 is regarded as a lucky number in China. Considering this, Western Digital has offered a 808.8G SATA2 32M hard drive (WD8088AADS) to everyone’s delight. With the slogan of “All the Way Lucky with 8″, lots of people might get interested.

http://en.expreview.com/img/2009/04/20/WD808.8G_2.jpg


This model comes from Western Digital’s Caviar Green Series with advantage of cool, quiet and environmentally friendly. It offers 32MB cache with 500GB capacity on each single platter.
http://en.expreview.com/2009/04/20/western-digitals-8088gb-hard-drive-brings-good-luck-to-you.html#more-3209

[RazzleUltra]

Presumably it's just a short-stroked 1TB drive, so why didn't they make it 888.8GB?

[RPGWiZaRD]

It would have been nice if it wasn't a Green series drive. Oh well should still offer a quite good value if the xtreview's estimate of $79 is correct, would make it good afforable storage drive.

I'd wanna see a 2x500GB non stripped and Blue series drive though. Why is WD pushing their Green series HDDs so hard today, before the normal series arrived at same time.

[Jamesrt2004]

1 less head or something? -shrug-

[clonez]

ha, china lucky number version :D

[alfaunits]

I'd wanna see a 2x500GB non stripped and Blue series drive though. Why is WD pushing their Green series HDDs so hard today, before the normal series arrived at same time.

It prolly brings better revenue.

[XS Janus]

If more follow this kind of idea, things will get quite confusing quite fast...

[revenant]

808 state.. I like it. :)

[lowfat]

What is the point? Why not just use a 1TB drive? I could understand if this was a performance drive, but its not.

[Ronnie Coleman]

808 is like 404 (error) multiplied by 2... :dj:

[XS Janus]

What is the point? Why not just use a 1TB drive? I could understand if this was a performance drive, but its not.

Just for the kicks I guess.
Must have started as an inside joke... an Chinese exec. peeked at the idea and voila... Anti recession battling funny products:D

[YMAA]

Wonder if we'll see any sales of Intel 8088 CPUs crop up? :shrug:

[xytrius]

I wanna 777 drive for work and a 666 one for home...:D

[MrToad]

I have modest needs... give me a 69, either at home or at work doesn't matter :p:

Better even, give me a 68. You suck my thingie and I owe you one :p::p::p:

[ChongL]

8's are good for asians...like me.

[Piotrsama]

why didn't they make it 888.8GB?

Indeed that would be a nicer number.
But the answer is in the article:

As the 500GB-per-platter technology is newly introduced, the product yield rate is quite low. Thus, Western Digital disables partial capacity to improve their production efficiency.
Those yields must be really bad :D

[Bo_Fox]

I thought 7 was the lucky number.. like at all the casinos using 777 on their slot machines???

[shoota]

I thought 7 was the lucky number.. like at all the casinos using 777 on their slot machines???

8 is lucky in china, 7 is lucky elsewhere, read, read, read..

[chinaguy]

Well 8 is a very luck number, the number of Chinese getting married last year on the 08 08 08 was very very large! When you go to a wedding you hand over a red enverlope with 888, 88, 800 or as many 8s in rmb as you like. But 4 is an unlucky number here aswell.

I think it will sell as well as the Green/Blue 640GB drives!

[STaRGaZeR]

Well 8 is a very luck number

Why?

[CyberDruid]

808 is like 404 (error) multiplied by 2... :dj:

:rofl:

[chinaguy]

The main reason has to do with the pronunciation of the word for the number 8 in China. It is pronounced "ba" and sounds like the word for prosperity which is pronounced "fa". Another reason why the number 8 could be considered lucky is because it is a perfect symmetrical shape. You can cut the number 8 in half vertically or horizontally, and both halves mirror themselves perfectly. Perfect symmetry lends itself to perfect balance. In Chinese Astrology, perfect balance is considered the ideal.

Many Chinese believe in lucky numbers. Mostly base on the pronunciation of number itself. These numbers can be anything, day of the year, house or apartment numbers. Phone or license plate even serial numbers on money bills. This is way beyond the fact most of the price tags end with 98 or 88. Such number are not FengShui based but people just love them. Here are some examples:

168: a road of prosperity or be prosper together. Many areas in China, charged telephone service numbers starts with 168 (similar to 900 number in America but has nothing to do with sex), the company who provides the serve are definitely getting a road of prosperity when you call them.

289: Easy long-term prosperity, mostly in south east China and Hong Kong
5: me, myself
518: I will prosper
5189: I will prosper for a long time
516289: I will get on a long, smooth prosperous road
5918: I will soon prosper
6: easy and smooth
7: together
8: sudden fortune, prosperity
9: long in time

Some times not so attractive numbers can become attractive when form a phrase:
48: 4 sounds like 'death', when placed in front of the prosperous 8 becomes 'determined to prosper'. Not bad at all for a new year's resolution.

So you can imagine how much lucky car number plates and mobile numbers will cost you in China!

[G0ldBr1ck]

Interesting info chinaguy, thanks for the insight.

[B.E.E.F.]

So if I buy this, and I make two 404.4GB partitions, what happens?

[Tekdemon]

So if I buy this, and I make two 404.4GB partitions, what happens?

lol, presumably you and everyone you know would die I guess.

[Aerou]

So if I buy this, and I make two 404.4GB partitions, what happens?

the MBT will auto-erase

[Den Leiw]

I like this thread >.<

thanks for the explanation chinaguy by the way :)

I ph33r teh day when 666 GB HDDs will be released O_O

[gumballguy]

But it's not that big after formatting....

1tb formatted, then partitioned to 888.8gb (better than 808.8) only costs you 33gb.

Can you imagine teh complaints when these 808.8gb drives show up as ~745gb in Windows? lol.

Scary thing is I'm sure they'll sell well.

[The0men]

Well 8 is a very luck number, the number of Chinese getting married last year on the 08 08 08 was very very large! When you go to a wedding you hand over a red enverlope with 888, 88, 800 or as many 8s in rmb as you like. But 4 is an unlucky number here aswell.

I think it will sell as well as the Green/Blue 640GB drives!

Oh I better not go to china, 4 is my lucky number lol

[chinaguy]

I had a friend who changed his flat number from 4004 (4th flat on the 4th floor) to 1808 so not to live in the "Death House". 1807 was the last flat number in building so 1808 was the next free number!

I will have a look for one this weekend but cant find one on newegg.com.cn or 360buy.com the two big online shops here in China! I may have to buy one for the wife!

[Bo_Fox]

The main reason has to do with the pronunciation of the word for the number 8 in China. It is pronounced "ba" and sounds like the word for prosperity which is pronounced "fa". Another reason why the number 8 could be considered lucky is because it is a perfect symmetrical shape. You can cut the number 8 in half vertically or horizontally, and both halves mirror themselves perfectly. Perfect symmetry lends itself to perfect balance. In Chinese Astrology, perfect balance is considered the ideal.

Many Chinese believe in lucky numbers. Mostly base on the pronunciation of number itself. These numbers can be anything, day of the year, house or apartment numbers. Phone or license plate even serial numbers on money bills. This is way beyond the fact most of the price tags end with 98 or 88. Such number are not FengShui based but people just love them. Here are some examples:

168: a road of prosperity or be prosper together. Many areas in China, charged telephone service numbers starts with 168 (similar to 900 number in America but has nothing to do with sex), the company who provides the serve are definitely getting a road of prosperity when you call them.

289: Easy long-term prosperity, mostly in south east China and Hong Kong
5: me, myself
518: I will prosper
5189: I will prosper for a long time
516289: I will get on a long, smooth prosperous road
5918: I will soon prosper
6: easy and smooth
7: together
8: sudden fortune, prosperity
9: long in time

Some times not so attractive numbers can become attractive when form a phrase:
48: 4 sounds like 'death', when placed in front of the prosperous 8 becomes 'determined to prosper'. Not bad at all for a new year's resolution.

So you can imagine how much lucky car number plates and mobile numbers will cost you in China!

LOL, did you copy that off of Wikipedia?

The Oriental are usually the wise ones when it comes to spiritual stuff, but America are the most "practical" ones, when it comes to physical, scientific stuff!

[chinaguy]

Not Bo_Fox there are other online sources, I just did not want to spend all day typing something up that is already written!

As I have said I can not find the 808 drive on sale here in Shanghai, but I will have a look this weekend. Pity WD could not have had it on sale last year 2008!

I should imagine its going to sell very well here in China, I will keep everyone posted on this example of XTREMARKETING.CN What next Gskill 808MB DDR2 PC6400???

[chinaguy]

Well it could be a Hoax as I cant find anyone selling it!

It does appear on the WD site so must be around somewhere

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=613&language=en

[strange|ife]

would like to see benchmarks against a 1TB.

either get a 750 or a 1TB imo...this odd number 808 is just well odd.

[chinaguy]

Well it turned up on newegg.com.cn today so it must be Lucky.

http://www.newegg.com.cn/Products/ProductDetail.aspx?sysno=65179

I wonder how it will sell for $85 a pop?

[trans am]

I heard Western Digital is also working on a Green 420GB version. for US customers.


http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff94/jackalsmith/420gig.jpg

[chinaguy]

Whats lucky about 420 in the USA

[trans am]

Whats lucky about 420 in the USA

I can't remember.

[Frank M]

Western Digital’s 808.8GB Hard Drive Brings Good Luck to You

hahaha
now can we have a 1337GB HDD? :D


Oh well should still offer a quite good value if the xtreview's estimate of $79 is correct

Make that $80.8 :D


So if I buy this, and I make two 404.4GB partitions, what happens?

Hard disk drive not found
Hard disk drive not found
:D


I heard Western Digital is also working on a Green 420GB version. for US customers.


Sleazy shoop is sleazy :p:

[ChinStrap]

yawn...

I made the mistake of replacing an older “black” drive with a larger “green” drive.

The green is noticeable slower. :( - last time I make that mistake.

[3NZ0]

yawn...

I made the mistake of replacing an older “black” drive with a larger “green” drive.

The green is noticeable slower. :( - last time I make that mistake.

WD seem to be having fun releasing various green drives and their GP-RE4 spin-offs. The green drives are amazingly slow compaired to their black counterparts. When I setup my greens in raid I though I had setup something wrong as I was expecting much higher speeds.

That said, they are much cooler and quieter than the blacks and the blues. The blacks by quite a big margin. (Tested 640gb black, blue and green)

[RaZz!]

WD seem to be having fun releasing various green drives and their GP-RE4 spin-offs. The green drives are amazingly slow compaired to their black counterparts. When I setup my greens in raid I though I had setup something wrong as I was expecting much higher speeds.

That said, they are much cooler and quieter than the blacks and the blues. The blacks by quite a big margin. (Tested 640gb black, blue and green)

well, that's exactly what the green series is designed for: high capacity, low power consumption, low heat dissipation, low noise.
so these drives are targeted as storage drives or for external drives (usb cases, nas storage, etc) rather than as primary system drive or smth.

if you want speedy drives go with caviar blue or black. even though, most of the time the higher price for the black over the blue isn't worth it. i had a black 640gb drive as well and it was only a little bit faster than my 640 blue, like 2-5 mb/s (avg)... so i decided to keep the blue. the only reasonable pro of the blacks are their warranty.

[Frank M]

I made the mistake of replacing an older “black” drive with a larger “green” drive.

The green is noticeable slower. :( - last time I make that mistake.

You are using it for the wrong purpose then.
I have a GP for a network-attached drive. The bottleneck is either the
10/100 Eth or the Wifi, so going with a faster drive would have no
benefit in this case. However, when I had a faster drive, it was running
very hot even with fans attached to it, and on a hot summer, it just
overheated and stopped. The GP however has been running for maybe
a year now, always on, and it's just warm without any fans and cooling.

The GP are cool and quiet -- they are for media storage, NAS, HTPCs,
not general purpose computing.

[Pinacolada]

8 is not more "lucky" than 0 5 6 or whatever.And we have XXI century and people still believe in such crap.No wonder most people IQ is only around 100 they were designed to eat,drink,make babies and die and not to think too much.

[RaZz!]

8 is not more "lucky" than 0 5 6 or whatever.And we have XXI century and people still believe in such crap.No wonder most people IQ is only around 100 they were designed to eat,drink,make babies and die and not to think too much.

what do "symbols" (e.g. the 8 for luck) have to do with intelligence? ye, absolutely nothing.

[tool_462]

8 is not more "lucky" than 0 5 6 or whatever.And we have XXI century and people still believe in such crap.No wonder most people IQ is only around 100 they were designed to eat,drink,make babies and die and not to think too much.

Odd that you would mention "most people IQ is only around 100" :rofl: (Complete with the typo)

"most people" of course have to have an IQ around 100, or the whole "average" of 100 would be thrown out and they would have to find a new way to calculate IQ :shrug:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/IQ_curve.png

[Kingcarcas]

I think he just had one too many pinacoladas this morning :rofl:pwned.

[Darakian]

I can't remember.

:rofl:

[celerity]

666,0 GB, then I'll buy one! Bet I'll get blue screen anyway.

[RaZz!]

666,0 GB, then I'll buy one! Bet I'll get blue screen anyway.

blue... errr, pardon me, i mean redscreen of death :D

[Donnie27]

I heard Western Digital is also working on a Green 420GB version. for US customers.


http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff94/jackalsmith/420gig.jpg

Is that a Pot plant? :rofl: "The 808 Kick Drum makes the girlies get dumb" Sir Mix-A-Lot Posse on Broadway is what I think when I see the drive's name.

[Bo_Fox]

8 is not more "lucky" than 0 5 6 or whatever.And we have XXI century and people still believe in such crap.No wonder most people IQ is only around 100 they were designed to eat,drink,make babies and die and not to think too much.

LOL.. that's funny.

So what's your IQ then? 150? Yeah, I feel ya because I also wish the "average" IQ was higher than that, but just like with animals, you can only accept them for who they are! :lol:

The Chinese were always more "spiritually-inclined" than the western civilization, who have made science their own religion. The placidity and "letting-go" of mental noise for allowing the "Buddha" nature of self to radiate, the chinese 12-year cycles, and the belief in the spiritual significance of numbers, are a few examples.. They just seem to be more inspirational than skeptical Americans/Europeans, but then again, they could also be more gullible in that manner.

[Bo_Fox]

Whats lucky about 420 in the USA

4:20 is the time to smoke weed! :cool: All the American presidents have smoked weed!!! Michael Phelps, the best and most disciplined swimmer in the world, smokes on a regular basis. And it's legal in the Netherlands.

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

That's such a horrible shop of the 420 gig drive. :p:

[Bo_Fox]

Synthetickiller;3803883']That's such a horrible shop of the 420 gig drive. :p:

OH please, at least it was good enough that Chinaguy didnt even notice. The logo should've actually been even brighter, so that it's more noticeable!

[Donnie27]

OH please, at least it was good enough that Chinaguy didnt even notice. The logo should've actually been even brighter, so that it's more noticeable!

So that is a Pot plant right?

[chinaguy]

Well the last time my IQ was measured it was 128, better then the average joe, but not high enough to be classed as a "GENIUS". You need a score or 140+ for that title.

In the last year I have bought nothing but WD Black and Blue drives AIMO the Blues are excellent value for money. I can pick up the 640GB here in Shanghai for $64.64 US which is very poetic! (Did someone in Newegg sit down and work that one out I wonder)

The WD 640GB Black comes in at $73.23, not such a magic number! I use the Blacks for the OS of the systems I build for friends and the Blue for Data storage. The Greens are at to high a premium at the moment.

But the idea of a few Green 1.5 or 2TB drives in Raid5 for my home server is becomming more apealing!

PS Just say no to drugs!

[WangChung]

I'm a pragmatic and simple person. My guess as to why they didn't make it a 888.8GB drive? That's 4 8's, 4s are bad. :)

[tiro_uspsss]

I only recently saw this HDD... I vote dumbest hardware release '09

[awdrifter]

Why is it 808.8gb and not 888gb? They should make a 168gb drive.

[Bo_Fox]

So that is a Pot plant right?

What, you've never ever smoked pot in your life?? :rofl:

[cegras]

LOL.. that's funny.

So what's your IQ then? 150? Yeah, I feel ya because I also wish the "average" IQ was higher than that, but just like with animals, you can only accept them for who they are! :lol:

The Chinese were always more "spiritually-inclined" than the western civilization, who have made science their own religion. The placidity and "letting-go" of mental noise for allowing the "Buddha" nature of self to radiate, the chinese 12-year cycles, and the belief in the spiritual significance of numbers, are a few examples.. They just seem to be more inspirational than skeptical Americans/Europeans, but then again, they could also be more gullible in that manner.

With that comment, you've made yourself sound like so much of a stereotypical, world-ignorant american that it isn't even amusing. You should take a long look at your own country's problems with Christianity. At least China isn't trying to teach creationism in it's schools. I'm sure if you are smart enough, you can dig into a few surveys about the prevalence of fundamentalist religion in your country. Hint: it's really high.

Also, you should work on your english. I could hardly understand your last sentence.

Yes, my motivation for this post was because your asinine and ignorant assumptions irk me.

[Gautam]

Drugs, politics, flaming. yep. This thread has run its course.