DailyTech - Western Digital Adds New 4 TB Capacity Hard Drives to Its Black HDD Line

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Hardware Western Digital Adds New 4 TB Capacity Hard Drives to Its Black HDD Line
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - November 21, 2012 8:59 AM

35 comment(s) - last by dailyjohn.. on Nov 24 at 7:21 PM

New 4 TB hard drive will sell for under $350

When it comes to computing there are several things that enthusiasts can never get enough of. One of those things is storage; we can always use more storage space. Western Digital has announced that it has added a new 4 TB capacity drive to its line of Black hard drives.

These drives are aimed specifically at enthusiasts and gamers and are 3.5-inch 7200 RPM units. Western Digital is shipping a new 4 TB capacity drives immediately and notes that the drives have a 64 MB cache. The drives also feature WD dual actuator technology and use the SATA 6 Gb/s interface.

The new 4 TB hard drives include a dual processor controller, IntelliSeek to calculate optimum seek speeds and lower the power consumption, and StableTrac. The drives also have NoTouch ramp load technology so that the recording head never touches the disk media for significantly less wear, extending the lifetime of the drive.

The 4 TB Western Digital Black WD40001FAEX hard drive will be offered through select distributors and resellers for $339. The drive includes a five-year warranty.

Source: Western Digital

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RE: Why?

By DanNeely on 11/21/2012 11:15:24 AM , Rating: 2

They used to make 5.25" and full (double) height HDs. Standard 3.5" drives killed them by being smaller while still providing enough capacity for the vast majority of users.

The number of people who need 8TB and whose needs wouldn't be met well by two standard size drives to pay a significant price premium (either for an 8/10 platter controller or a package consisting of 2 standard drives and a RAID0 controller) aren't enough to justify the extra cost needed to design one.

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RE: Why?

By Nortel on 11/21/2012 11:38:39 AM , Rating: 1

The more I think about it, the more a 5.25" HDD makes more sense. The relative surface speed would be far greater on the larger platter and the surface area would also be far greater. The only real disadvantage would be seek time across a larger platter but if the disk is used for storage, a longer seek is not relevant.

Although this is really for not since solid state solutions are coming down so rapidly. It would be interesting providing a "Fusion" solution with a 5.25" 10TB drive and a SSD.

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RE: Why?

By steven975 on 11/21/2012 1:44:12 PM , Rating: 2

I remember when they had the oddball Quantum Bigfoots.

Those drives were sooooo slow!

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RE: Why?

By Samus on 11/21/2012 2:00:46 PM , Rating: 2

And so unreliable! You'd think a 3600RPM drive (or whatever the hell they were) would actually have great reliability. But leave it up to Quantum...

Maxtor and Quantum, a marriage made in heaven.

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RE: Why?

By someguy123 on 11/21/2012 2:34:41 PM , Rating: 2

how would the speed be greater on a larger platter? it's not as though you're reading an entire platter at all times, that actuator is spinning it around and reading off it. higher density on smaller platters would give faster performance.

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RE: Why?

By overzealot on 11/22/2012 6:33:36 AM , Rating: 2

Because the angular velocity at the outer edge would be greater if you maintained the same rpm, areal density and platter density. Which of course, you wouldn't.

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RE: Why?

By overzealot on 11/23/2012 9:44:23 PM , Rating: 2

I posted tired, apologies.
I meant linear velocity would be greater if you maintained constant angular velocity.

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RE: Why?

By FaaR on 11/21/2012 3:23:13 PM , Rating: 2

A 5.25" drive would draw far more power, both at idle but also during spinup. Vibration would be a bigger issue for the larger, much heavier platters making tracking at the extreme densities used today much more difficult. Seeks would be hella slow as well. Of course, a 5.25" drive would be a lot more expensive as well, and do you really NEED one? Do you seriously need more than 4TB storage of anything? If so, what the hell do you keep on your drives? :P

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RE: Why?

By Samus on 11/21/2012 4:03:31 PM , Rating: 1

"640K is more memory than anyone will ever need"

-Bill Gates

but alas, I don't see WD selling many of these for $300+ when reliable Seagate 3TB drives of comparable performance are <$90

You could have 12TB across four drives for the price of one 4TB drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

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