Western Digital intros 1TB 7200RPM Caviar Black HDD

Watch out, archive junkies. The 1TB internal HDD game just got one more player. Hailed by Western Digital as the "fastest 3.5-inch 7200RPM drive on the market," the Caviar Black SATA drive is available in both 750GB and 1TB flavors, with the latter obviously being the most appealing. On these beasts you'll find "twice" the processing power, 32MB of cache, StableTrac / NoTouch technologies and a respectable five-year warranty. Both units will be ready to grab next week, with the smaller of the two going for $199 and the kingpin $249.

[Skullgrl @ Jun 10th 2008 5:28PM]

Oooo! These look nice. Although I have absolutely no use for that much storage. Or 7200rpm (I can get by with 5400rpm or what ever the next step lower is. I'm not picky. As long as it has a decent amount of storage). I know people who use/need that much storage though. And it is truly disturbing.

[jimmy @ Jun 10th 2008 5:34PM]

what

[phanbouy @ Jun 10th 2008 11:20PM]

which

[LondonConsultant @ Jun 11th 2008 5:57AM]

why

[Skullgrl @ Jun 11th 2008 6:08AM]

What I meant was these look like decent hard drives, though I don't have a use for anything that large or fast. I know people who do need that much storage and that need it that fast and I find it rather disturbing that they are able to use up a TB so fast.

[BFish @ Jun 10th 2008 5:36PM]

Western Digital giving 5yr warranty ? Seagate must have done these for
them, had 2 WD harddisks and both died after 1.5yrs. I am Seagate only
nowadays with their 5yr warranty that I propably never need to use...

[Rick wilson @ Jun 10th 2008 5:50PM]

Agreed, I've had more WD die than any other drive. Seagates have never died on me so far and they all come with 5yr warranties now. Also their 1TB drives are on sale often at frys electronics for $179.00. They have the 32MB buffer and 7200RPM.

[Kurian @ Jun 10th 2008 5:56PM]

Bah thats just BS. All drives have more or less the same probability of dying.

I just bumped up my standards after a couple of hard drive failueres : I don't operate my computers without RAID 5 or better.

Now I couldn't care less if one of my disks failed.
Now the only problem is if 2 disks fail. But if you're worried about that, you should also worry about getting struck by a meteor.

[Ace b @ Jun 10th 2008 5:38PM]

not too shabby.Will deff pick one of these up when i upgrade.

[Kurian @ Jun 10th 2008 5:53PM]

No hard feelings but I had to say it:
**Flame on**
Thats EXACTLY what you should do. Put an overpriced HDD in your overpriced Crap Pro. When other 1TB same spec'ed HDDs are only ~ 190$, the right thing to do is to pay 249$ for one, because you already paid 200% for your PC.

[L.Rawlins @ Jun 10th 2008 5:53PM]

Not so much a platter as a buffet.

[Michael Scrip @ Jun 10th 2008 5:54PM]

I'm assuming it has 3 platters.

And is it faster than the 640GB?

[Maurice Troute @ Jun 10th 2008 6:00PM]

@Kurian

you're an idiot.

[Billy Gun @ Jun 10th 2008 6:23PM]

@Kurian

You're right, clak could buy this one insted for U$ 184
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152102

[Don Wilson @ Jun 10th 2008 6:24PM]

Kurian, I'm sure a lot of people are like me and only buy their harddrives from a specific manufacturer (mine being Western Digital), it's nice to see them come out with a nice HDD.

[Dragod @ Jun 10th 2008 6:26PM]

I just bought a Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB 7200rpm Hard Drive for my custom build, and it's plenty fast. Until I see some insane improvement that justifies a higher price, I don't think I'll need these... Plus I've had bad experience with Western Digital's hard drives.

[Charles @ Jun 10th 2008 6:52PM]

I also bought a Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB hard disk a couple of weeks back. I didn't want to after seeing all the reports of Samsung drive failures but there was no other viable options and I thought Samsung might have fixed the drive by now. Sadly not and it broke after a week losing all my data.

Can I suggest you get one of these Western Digitals to backup your data to for when your Samsung inevitably fails.

[GenBanks @ Jun 10th 2008 7:44PM]

Uh oh, I have a Spinpoint F1 1tb and although it's really fast, I'm having a problem where windows won't boot up saying that one of the system files is corrupt or missing. I hope it's not my month-old HDD failing... I have to keep restarting the PC until it does boot.

[raptor87 @ Jun 10th 2008 6:27PM]

StableTrac sounds like something that should be on a pontiac

[0megapart!cle @ Jun 10th 2008 6:29PM]

If you were going to pick one company to buy hard drives from, why in the hell would you pick Western Crapital??!! I only know my own experience, but I have bought three WD hard drives, and 2/3 have had major problems. (both corrupt the beginnings of recordings with BeyondTV, and one of them starts making a buzzing noise after access unless I access the drive again). Keep in mind, the two problem hard drives were bought years apart, so it isn't the problem of a single bad batch.

WD sucks, and choosing to buy them exclusively is the dumbest thing I have every heard!

[milkyway @ Jun 10th 2008 6:32PM]

kickass!

[kal326 @ Jun 10th 2008 6:43PM]

And the testing to backup these claims is where? Certainly not a WDs site that the article links too. I do have to say WD has stepped up lately in terms of performance.

I just picked up a 320GB 5400rpm lappy drive a week ago, good performance boost over the stock 120GB 5400rpm Fujitsu and a lot cheaper then a 7200rpm. Also the stock HD have all gone back up to 3yr warranties instead of the 1yr WD had dropped too.

I have had a drive from about every manufacture die as some point in time. I'm running 5 or 6 WD 7200rpm Cav SE16 drives in various boxes right now. I had a bad run with Seagates lately so I switch back to WD.

[PeterF @ Jun 10th 2008 6:47PM]

DAMNIT stop with the fucking quotes!

[Dan Davis @ Jun 10th 2008 6:55PM]

Wow, I remember paying 300 bucks for an 80gb HDD about 6 or 7 years ago and thinking, "Damn, I'm getting a helluva deal!"

My how times have changed.

[orky @ Jun 10th 2008 7:09PM]

I'm sure you were saying them "I remember paying 300 bucks for an 8gb HDD about 3 or 4 years ago and thinking, 'Damn, I'm getting a "righteous" deal!'

[in a kingdom by the sea @ Jun 10th 2008 7:01PM]

welcome to the future dan davis. This is for everyone, pc or mac!

[SoloSalsa @ Jun 10th 2008 7:22PM]

I'm surprised you didn't link back to their laptop drive of last week.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/02/western-digital-launches-7200rpm-scorpio-black-laptop-hdd/

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Jun 10th 2008 8:13PM]

0megaparticle:
A hard drive doesn't know the difference between a video recording and the catalog sectors that track all files on your disk. If these drives were corrupting data, you'd lose everything, not just the start of movies you record.

You have a BeyondTV software problem, probably that BeyondTV requires a 7200rpm drive and you bought a W-D GreenPower drive that only goes 5400rpm.

[kccboy2004 @ Jun 10th 2008 8:37PM]

@PeterF

Hey ! Leave Clak alone. Sure he did have to mention the brand of his machine, but that is coz he is dead proud of it. There is nothing wrong with that.

Give the guy/gal a break. Personally, I am pleased to get a constructive comment from him/her. I have a WDSE

[kccboy2004 @ Jun 10th 2008 8:41PM]

@PeterF

Hey ! Leave Clak alone. Sure he did have to mention the brand of his machine, but that is coz he is dead proud of it. There is nothing wrong with that.

Give the guy/gal a break. Personally, I am pleased to get a constructive comment from him/her. I found the comment useful.

I have a WDSE16 640GB. At work I have Hitachi and Seagates and Toshibas. I have no preference for any of them. Abuse them and they will stuff up. Backup regularly. Use your manufacturer warranty aggresivily. WE are still on the wild frontier as far as storage goes.

[Timothy Burgher @ Jun 10th 2008 9:33PM]

What exactly does "twice the power mean?" Sounds cool but I want to know what they are talking about.

[zach rattner @ Jun 10th 2008 10:02PM]

Twice the joules, same amount of seconds?

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Jun 10th 2008 11:56PM]

It has two processors instead of one. That's what they mean.

[phanbouy @ Jun 10th 2008 11:18PM]

@kccboy2004

normally I don't downrate accidental double postings, but yours came 4 minutes after your first?

[neofolklore @ Jun 11th 2008 8:41AM]

damn, terabytes aren't at the $100 price range yet.

[ji123 @ Jun 25th 2008 7:32PM]

I don't understand the bashing towards Western Digital or Mac Pro. I worked as a computer tech for 6 years and saw drive failures from all manufacturers. There was a point when Western Digital drives sucked, and then a point in time when the maxtor lines were sucking just as bad. IBM's would fail too before Hitachi took them over. Its just certain lines at certain times and any drive is subject. Personally I haven't had too many drive failures in my entire computer-using lifetime. I currently own maxtors and western digitals, and even an old IBM, that is still running fine.
And by the way... Mac Pro's are pretty good values :-) I was always a PC guy until Apple started using Intel cpus

[jerad lunsford @ Jul 3rd 2008 1:47PM]

i would like to add something about Western Digital. everyone is talking about how bad they suck and they go out but what i think you are more going on about is the "Quantum". when western digital bought "Quantum" THEY SUCK YES but what happened is that for some reason some of "Quantum's" drives got mixed up with WD and had the sticker put on well as they were going out it was a big lose for WD everyone down graded them well i can say i have no problem with WD i have one 200gb WD and two 320gb WD and one 500bg WD and two 750gb WD and one 1tb WD in my computer and both of my xboxes and my daughters xbox have 320gbWD and i have never had a bad NEVER i am going to say that WD has more then proved its self to me. i am building a server next and i plan on geting all western digital for it and i would like to get up words of about 28 - 29 tb in one shot dont know if it can be done but with any luck i believe i will have good house media server. one Tb for each letter of the alphabet and then one to two Tb for numbered movies i have just about 8000 dvds and well going to put them all on my server. :) any ways i hope this helps every one understand why WD was doing so bad

[RubenMiranda @ Jul 4th 2008 10:22PM]

It's funny. Someone mentioned 80gb HD for $300 and said how times have changed. I remember when 125MB seagates sold for $400+ I purchased WD for a client. It died after 5 years. I have on in my workstation, it died afte 3 years. Lesson here is that any drive can die at any time. Always backup and if you can afford it use RAID.

[Anthony @ Sep 6th 2008 8:40AM]

I have about 5gb all up of external Western Digital drives, purchased over the past 4 or so years, used for primary and backup purposes, and all have been perfect, no problems, I payed a fortune for a triple interface Lacie drive a while back, and when it died and I pulled it apart to find that it was actually a Maxtor drive! (*Not my pic, but proves the point.. http://scottspain.com/og/LaCie_dead.jpg)... If I had have known I was paying top dollar for a pretty case with a Maxtor drive inside, I never would have got it in the first place!! I lost a lot of trust and respect for Lacie after that and have since never bought another.. I like to know what I'm paying for. As for Seagate, I can't comment, as since I went to WD and haven't had a problem, I haven't needed to try another brand... Avoid Lacie tho, unless your into paying for pretty cases with sh*t drives inside...