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Western Digital Caviar Black  (Source: Western Digital)
Caviar Black HDD has 32MB cache

The storage capacity and performance of hard drives used by desktop computers is growing all the time. Capacity isn’t the only thing to consider with a hard drive; the read/ write performance and cache size comes into play as well.

Western Digital has introduced a new Caviar Black line of hard drives that is available in both 750GB and 1TB storage capacities. The new drives have twice the normal cache size of typical drives with 32MB of high-performance cache memory. The Black edition drives also feature dual electronics architecture processors for twice the processing power.

The motor shaft on the drives is secured at both ends to reduce vibration and the technology is dubbed StableTrac. Western Digital also uses NoTouch ramp technology that prevents the recording head from touching the media for reduced wear and longer operational life. The Caviar Black line uses SATA 3.0 interface. The buffer to disk transfer rate is 145MB/s max.

The Caviar Black drives can withstand operating shock of 30G and a non-operating shock of 250G. At idle the drive produces 24 dBA of sound, seek mode 0 produces 33 dBA, and seek mode 3 produces 29 dBA of sound. The rotational speed of the drives is 7200 RPM.

Both the 750GB and 1TB drives will be available next week with the 750GB retailing for $199 and the 1TB retailing for $249. Western Digital didn’t comment on the platter size used in the new Black drives. Western Digital recently moved to 334GB platters for some of its other 1TB Caviar drives.

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wowaweewa"
By GhandiInstinct on 6/10/2008 2:44:35 PM , Rating: 2
I like, it's nice.




RE: wowaweewa"
By XtAzY on 6/10/2008 2:56:48 PM , Rating: 2
you chose that post title from Borat isnt it haha

Cant wait to see performance results. I need to replace my Maxtor soon. I'm afraid it will die very soon.


RE: wowaweewa"
By RjBass on 6/10/2008 3:23:56 PM , Rating: 5
A Maxtor? I'm surprised it hasn't died already.


RE: wowaweewa"
By StevoLincolnite on 6/10/2008 8:57:34 PM , Rating: 2
Your not the only one, however occasionally you do get a drive that lasts for many years, I have a 20gb Maxtor Drive still humming along (Although loud) in another machine which I got in the late 1990's.


RE: wowaweewa"
By RjBass on 6/10/2008 9:39:51 PM , Rating: 2
That was purchased before they were bought out and became the low end product line for a larger HDD company.


RE: wowaweewa"
By RjBass on 6/11/2008 2:01:34 PM , Rating: 3
Wow I got rated down for speaking the truth.

Those of you who don't know, Maxtor used to be a pretty good company that made pretty good HDDs. But when they fell into some financial trouble the quality of their products went down some. Then in 2006 they were bought out by Seagate and turned into Seagates low end brand. That was the time when Maxtors quality really went down.

Maxtor drives were awesome back in the IBM XT days (pre 94) and they were still decent enough up till about 2003 or so. My business of fixing computers has seen a huge boost largely in part because of Dell. In 2002 and 2003 Dell used mostly Maxtor HDD's in their consumer desktops. This resulted in my bench nearly over flowing with Dell computers with bad Maxtor HDD's in them which also resulted in my kids having a great Christmas in 06 and 07.

Now with every HDD manufacturer you will find success stories and failure stories. Some people will to this day not purchase anything but Maxtor HDD"s as they have had no issues with them, while many others won't go near them anymore. I am obviously part of the latter group.


RE: wowaweewa"
By DeepBlue1975 on 6/10/2008 9:59:13 PM , Rating: 2
Tell me about it. The drive in my PC is the third maxtor 300gb I had to get in order to get a good one. This one's just crossed the 3 year old barrier and I'm looking for alternatives and mean to replace it before it hits the 4 year mark.

This one in the article looks interesting, but from a cost standpoint, the old SE16 750gb and, even better, the new 640gb one look more attractive.

The thing I don't know if I still care so much about getting the fastest available drive, as I can't notice such a great performance difference in normal usage scenarios... And specially when I know that SSDs can be much faster and it might be only a question of waiting maybe a couple (of couples of couples?) of years to finally be able to attain a quantum leap in performance at a reasonable price.


RE: wowaweewa"
By XtAzY on 6/11/2008 2:48:17 AM , Rating: 2
My 200gb Maxtor died already. The PCB was toast for some reason. My 300gb still humming nicely. If that PCB dies too, I'm gonna plug it into 120V and watch the fireworks just to entertain me from sadness.


RE: wowaweewa"
By BruceLeet on 6/10/08, Rating: -1
RE: wowaweewa"
By teldar on 6/10/2008 4:58:08 PM , Rating: 3
I'm starting to think the only way to go is going to be the GreenPower drives for mass storage of absolutely everything with a small and fast system drive of limited capacity for programs.

That, and my experience with the 7200.11 drives hasn't impressed me a whole lot yet. Two drives dying within six months for the both of them..... Not good.


RE: wowaweewa"
By BruceLeet on 6/10/2008 7:54:58 PM , Rating: 3
Its my storage drive, I use them for storage.

My C drive is a 150GB Raptor. Maxtor drives kept failing on me after 6-12 months.


RE: wowaweewa"
By HrilL on 6/10/2008 4:41:39 PM , Rating: 2
I agree. Its about time I get rid of my older drives in my server. I currently have 1125GB of usable storage on 7 drives. If I get 2 of these I'll get way better perfomance and more space. /me drools for 2 of these in raid 0 And I'll be saving quite a bit in power consumption as well. Since the kwh rate is going to go up soon due to the high oil prices no doubt.


32M cache
By Natfly on 6/10/2008 3:01:10 PM , Rating: 4
quote:
The new drives have twice the normal cache size of typical drives with 32MB


Most large capacity (750/1000) drives from other manufacturers have had 32MB of cache for a long while now(Seagate .11's, Samsung, Hitachi), its about time WD got with it.




RE: 32M cache
By webdawg77 on 6/10/2008 3:06:19 PM , Rating: 2
I think that typical meant 250GB - 500GB drives. The typical drives that the majority of people buy (price per GB that people want).


RE: 32M cache
By DOCDAT1 on 6/10/2008 4:09:47 PM , Rating: 3
Though WD's drives have generally still been faster even with less cache...


RE: 32M cache
By Goty on 6/10/2008 4:29:12 PM , Rating: 4
That's exactly right. WD takes a slightly different approach than most other Hard Disk manufacturers in that they choose to use a better optimized, smaller cache. Seeing as that's the case, the performance of these new drives should be pretty good.


RE: 32M cache
By erikejw on 6/10/2008 8:54:42 PM , Rating: 3
32M is probably just for show.
They released their topoftheline Velociraptor 10k rpm drive with 16Mb and calimed they had done extensive research for 32Mb and did not find any improvements.


Caviar Black edition
By AmberClad on 6/10/2008 2:58:49 PM , Rating: 5
Caviar "Black"? Is the rotational speed on this thing unlocked?




RE: Caviar Black edition
By AmazighQ on 6/10/2008 3:46:24 PM , Rating: 4
its some marketing thing to know what kind of HDD 'class' it is
black = preformace
blue = mainstream
green = low power


RE: Caviar Black edition
By MrPoletski on 6/11/2008 5:39:52 AM , Rating: 2
Just don't buy the brown drives, they are total crap.


RE: Caviar Black edition
By JonnyDough on 6/11/2008 12:17:27 PM , Rating: 2
Actually, if HDD makers were smart they'd start offering different colors, same goes with almost thing. People like variety and choice. It would be a smart move, how hard is it to spray this 30,000 drives red, and this 30,000 brown? It would be even neater if they put key specs on the label - in UV reflective ink.


This drive is racist
By the goat on 6/10/2008 3:04:24 PM , Rating: 5
Western Digital is totally trying to jump on the Barack Obama bandwagon by making a "black" hard drive.




RE: This drive is racist
By Pottervilla on 6/10/08, Rating: -1
RE: This drive is racist
By Topweasel on 6/10/2008 6:22:29 PM , Rating: 3
I am not sure about you but I am pretty sure that was a joke. This close to Election you can't even take go to the bathroom without your choice of taking a one or two being compared to who you would vote for.


RE: This drive is racist
By SeeManRun on 6/10/2008 3:43:10 PM , Rating: 5
Can't believe this got rated down. It is hilarious.


RE: This drive is racist
By JonnyDough on 6/11/08, Rating: -1
RE: This drive is racist
By JonnyDough on 6/11/08, Rating: 0
RE: This drive is racist
By JonnyDough on 6/11/2008 8:37:12 PM , Rating: 2
Most people are prejudiced. It's really not a surprise that I got rated down, it is however, quite sad. Hey, did you hear the one about the DT readers that weren't colorblind? Yeah, they judged people by the physical attributes and even made jokes about them. Sad.


nice drive
By Moishe on 6/10/2008 2:55:07 PM , Rating: 4
I'd pay a little extra for that... Sounds like WD might have a winner on their hands. I wouldn't mind seeing benchmarks...




RE: nice drive
By bunnyfubbles on 6/10/2008 3:47:58 PM , Rating: 4
Considering I just paid $110 each for some Samsung 750GB Spinpoint F1s, $199 for this is still way too high.

I do admit that these drives do sound pretty interesting, but I'm not sure any of their new features justify the price (which is hopefully only high because they're so new)


RE: nice drive
By Doormat on 6/10/2008 4:22:57 PM , Rating: 2
Yea, I love my 750GB spinpoints. I paid 140 a few months back. Quiet, cool, fast. I cant ask for much else.


RE: nice drive
By Torched on 6/11/2008 9:46:30 AM , Rating: 2
A longer warranty?


Capacity?
By icrf on 6/10/2008 4:19:42 PM , Rating: 2
"The storage capacity and performance of hard drives used by desktop computers is growing all the time."

The first 1 TB drives were released in what, April of last year? There hasn't been a capacity bump in awhile. Where's the 1.2 TB? 1.5? I'm just kind of surprised that it's been over a year without seeing movement in the high end.




RE: Capacity?
By TonyB on 6/10/2008 5:07:15 PM , Rating: 2
seagate CEO has informally announced 2TB drives by early 2009 and SSD offerings as well.


RE: Capacity?
By bryanW1995 on 6/10/2008 8:18:52 PM , Rating: 2
I don't see the benefit in a $199 hd at 750gb when you can get a wd6400aaks for $100.


RE: Capacity?
By dragonbif on 6/10/2008 8:51:43 PM , Rating: 2
They are charging you for the +16MB cash on the HD and the 110GB of space. If you read my other post you see that it is also using the 320GB per platter like that 640 however they put it up to 334GB so they charge a little more for that. I personally would get the 1TB or the 640GB I don’t think I would get the 750 as it has 3 platters like the 1TB drive. They also took one of the heads off and a little of the space from each platter to get you to 750.


RE: Capacity?
By icrf on 6/11/2008 8:50:33 AM , Rating: 2
So the industry goes two years without an increase in maximum single drive capacity? Has that happened in the last 15 years?


32MB? PFFFT
By Duwelon on 6/10/2008 7:43:40 PM , Rating: 2
Why in all that is Holy don't they put some real RAM on there? I'm talking 512MB or something instead of a puny 32MB... Is there a technical reason or does it really not matter much?




RE: 32MB? PFFFT
By PB PM on 6/10/2008 7:54:28 PM , Rating: 2
It is cache memory, it doesn't need that much.


RE: 32MB? PFFFT
By MrPoletski on 6/11/2008 5:45:36 AM , Rating: 4
512MB buffer + powercut + Write cache = TEARS

512MB buffer + powercut + Write cache + RAID array = SUICIDE


RE: 32MB? PFFFT
By MrPoletski on 6/11/2008 5:47:02 AM , Rating: 2
(make that raid 0 array)


Strange sizes
By System48 on 6/10/2008 3:17:19 PM , Rating: 2
If you look on WD's website the product shots show a 3 platter drive, which would be the 1TB. That makes sense with 334GB platters but how do you come up with a 750GB drive? The usually wouldn't use a different platter tech for two drives in the same product line so it has to be either a two platter design and the platters they're using are around 375GB and they're just giving up the extra 125GB on the 1TB drive. Or they're using 3 334GB platters for both and the 750GB has one less head, 2.5 platters and they're giving up an extra 85GB. Then again I may have too much time on my hands.




RE: Strange sizes
By teldar on 6/10/2008 5:05:08 PM , Rating: 2
I wouldn't be surprised if that is just a stock photo rather than a photo of the actual product.

And as far as WD's platter use in a single series of drives, they have NEVER really stuck to particular platters for anything. They've pretty much always used what was cheapest for them to use. That's why they don't advertise platter and head count. That way they can use 2 or 3 platter 4,5, or 6 heads as they need to.

I've even seen it in an interview with a company spokesman about how they like to be able to change platters when they want to to use up old stock or upgrade to newer technology without changing models...

But if these are all performance drives, I would expect 3 platters short stroked with a total of 5 heads. That way they save on the extra head for each drive.

T


RE: Strange sizes
By JonnyDough on 6/11/2008 12:22:41 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
I wouldn't be surprised if that is just a stock photo rather than a photo of the actual product.


Either they didn't have the picture source up when you posted, or, you're an idiot. If it's off of the WD site it's legit. Period. WD doesn't need to make crap up, they're a leader in the HD market and they have some of the fastest, biggest drives out there.


RE: Strange sizes
By dragonbif on 6/10/2008 7:43:41 PM , Rating: 2
For all those who wanted to know
Configuration/Organization
Heads/disks 1TB 6/3, 750GB 5/3

So they have 3 disks (platters) and they took one head out for the 750. These are like the 320GB platters only that put a little bit more space on each one to get 1TB. They did say they were going to do this.

More specs at
http://www.wdc.com/en/library/sata/2879-701276.pdf


Western Digital = horrible reliability
By bwave on 6/10/08, Rating: 0
By Reclaimer77 on 6/10/2008 10:34:44 PM , Rating: 2
I agree. For 3.5" HD's its Seagate all the way. The warranty alone seals the deal.

I have the Seagate 330 gb and the 500 gb " Perpendicular " drives in my desktop and love them. They run super cool, don't make noise, and perform super.

I wonder how much technology and reliability measures carry over from their SCSI line into their 7,500 rpm SATA/IDE drives ? Because they are just stellar. Obviously Seagate knows a thing or two about keeping the spinners spinning :)


By tonjohn on 6/10/2008 11:39:20 PM , Rating: 2
Over the last 10+ drives I have had, the only drives I have ever had an issues with were my two Seagates. All my Western Digitals have worked great for years and years and years.

Maybe I was just unlucky w/ the Seagates.

But I plan on buy WD only from here on out until I get the raw end of a deal.


By BigJim on 6/11/2008 8:08:40 AM , Rating: 2
Seagate 1TB drive needs 5 platters. WD and Samsung do it with 3. 5 platters means the Seagate needs more power and runs hotter. But the real bonus of the 3 platters is the denser data makes for much faster read and write speeds. Most drives do 60 MB/sec but my WD 640 does 100. This 3 platter version should also do that. They call it Black to distinguish it from Green. The Black 1TB runs at 7200rpm, the Green at 5400 uses less power. No reason to use a 4 or 5 platter TB drive and suffer their old slow performance. The Samsung was unreliable at first (see reviews at newegg) dunno if they sorted it out yet.


My Question
By ineedaname on 6/11/2008 12:31:12 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
The Caviar Black drives can withstand operating shock of 30G and a non-operating shock of 250G.


Now why couldn't they put this into a laptop HDD first where it would be more useful???

If they put this tech into a laptop hdd I'd buy one for sure. Especially since SSD's aren't getting any cheaper for the next little while.




New Drive : Same crap WD warranty
By Reclaimer77 on 6/10/08, Rating: -1
RE: New Drive : Same crap WD warranty
By BigJim on 6/11/2008 8:14:21 AM , Rating: 1
Actually poindexter, you Seagate fanboys are stuck with drives that need 4 platters to get 1TB. Runs hotter; slower data transfer. Scientific fact.

Your claims:
-Just as fast. WRONG. 4 low density platters make for slow R/W
-More advanced. WRONG. 3 platters, from Samsung or WD, is advanced. At least Seagate doesn't need 5 platters like Hitachi.
-Warranty. Now matched by WD at 5 years.


RE: New Drive : Same crap WD warranty
By Reclaimer77 on 6/11/2008 3:44:18 PM , Rating: 2
Yes because we all know the only drive on the planet is a 1tb drive.

Hell I have fifty of them right ? Don't you ?


By BigJim on 6/11/2008 10:33:06 PM , Rating: 2
Good point. There's also the new VelociRaptor. Very innovative. Fastest drive there is. Made by Western Digital, not Seagate. I'm happy Seagate is putting pressure on everyone to have a 5 year warranty, but I can't find any examples of the innovation you claim.


"If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel." -- AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in 2007











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