The Western Digital WD800BB 80GB is a hard disk drive, which means it stores data using quickly rotating disks, or platters, that can be read and written on via the moving actuator arm. Hard disk drives generally have a large storage capacity, and so are perfect for large amounts of data. The potential performance is well below that of solid-state drives, but they can definitely still hold their own. The Western Digital WD800BB 80GB is a bottom of the range hard disk drive, and should only ever be used as basic data storage.

With a cache of 2MB, the Western Digital WD800BB 80GB can store a very small amount of data temporarily. Loading data that has previously been loaded will result in barely any difference in access speed and load duration. At a speed of 0 RPM, the hard disk drive spins at a very slow speed. This speed should be avoided entirely unless used as a dedicated storage system, as the resulting performance would be infuriatingly slow.

With a capacity of 80GB, the Western Digital WD800BB 80GB has a tiny amount of storage space for an hard disk drive. The IDE interface is now obsolete, so this hard disk drive would be a poor choice in a modern build. However, it would still function as a very low-end storage device.

A form factor size of 3.5" is standard for desktop drives, and this will fit into any standard case drive bay, or into a 5.25" drive bay with an adapter.