![]() Upgrades have been applied elsewhere on the drive, too, including a bump in onboard cache to 32MB. Higher areal densities can also improve performance by allowing the drive head to access more data over shorter physical distances.Īccording to Western Digital, the Black’s platters are simply an evolved version of what’s available in the 640GB Caviar SE16. Increasing the Black’s areal density allows the drive to reach the terabyte mark with only three platters, which reduces the load on the drive motor and can lead to quieter operation and better reliability. That drive squeezes 320GB onto each of its two platters, but the Black does a little better, boosting platter capacity to 334GB. After all, the Caviar Black is based on the same platter technology as the seriously quick Caviar SE16 640GB. Of course, WD’s recent string of successes leaves plenty of room for optimism. The Caviar Black, then, is Western Digital’s flagship desktop offering at 7,200RPMthe best of the breed, or so one would hope. Caviar Blue drives fill out the middle of the range as mainstream products, while Caviar Black variants take over the high end. On the desktop, GreenPower Caviar GP drives have become the Caviar Green Line. Western Digital recently juggled its hard drive naming scheme in an attempt to simplify things for consumers. So was the Caviar Black 1TB worth the wait? Can WD extend its hot streak and add the terabyte performance crown to its already impressive palmarès? Read on to find out. Indeed, the new Caviar Black 1TB is the last 7,200-RPM drive to reach the terabyte mark, arriving a year after Hitachi broke the seal and well behind entries from Seagate and even Samsung. Somewhat surprisingly, Western Digital was apparently in no hurry spinning a terabyte up to full speed. The GreenPower line’s prodigiously low power consumption is achieved by dialing back spindle speeds, but that sacrifices performance, and it ultimately cost WD the title of fastest terabyte on the block. And let’s not forget the power-efficient and nearly silent “GreenPower” Caviar GP drives with terabyte capacities. For enthusiasts, the Caviar SE16 640GB offers the best blend of performance, capacity, noise levels, and overall value of any 7,200-RPM desktop drive. Then there’s the radically redesigned VelociRaptor, which recently raised the bar for Serial ATA hard drive performance while riding a bold new form factor. The company’s Black and Blue Scorpios fared very well in our latest mobile storage round-up, outpacing rival Momentus drives from Seagate. While Seagate grabs headlines as the market share leader in the hard drive world, lately we’ve been more impressed with Western Digital’s portfolio.
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