Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB

Rob Williams · 12-23-2009, 12:50 AM

Kicking off our hard drive coverage begins with a look at Western Digital's Caviar Black 1TB. As an affordable "high-end" consumer drive, this model includes all of the important features, and performs quite well throughout all of our tests. It also happens to win the contest for having the lowest overall acoustic levels, and by a fair margin.

You can read the first of Bill's storage articles here and discuss it here!

Doomsday · 12-23-2009, 04:59 AM

Heey, nice review! i am thinking of buying a new HDD soon. I still run my OS on my old IDE Seagate 40GB which i bought in 2005 with my P4! lol! and its still running fine, no problems what so ever, for now atleast. Well i think this is what i will be aiming for when i buy a new HDD. Caviar Blacks r pretty good! as we dont have Seagate XT available here!

2Tired2Tango · 12-23-2009, 06:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob Williams

[I]Kicking off our hard drive coverage begins with a look at Western Digital's Caviar Black 1TB.

Nice review Rob....

I've been using WD drives by preference for a long time (mid-90s) and I've yet to have any problem that isn't one of abuse or age. In fact I have a late 1990s 20gb WD drive here that still works as good as the day it was made.

One thing I can confirm for you... WD drives are QUIET! Any seek noise they make is quickly drowned out by fans and typing. As a rule I end up putting my ear next to the drive to deterimine if it's spinning or not.

By contrast Maxtor drives me right up the wall... ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ all freaking day long! Needless to say, I swap them out whenever I get the chance. Seagate (which owns maxtor) drives are only a bit quieter. Samsung are acceptable but you're gonna hear seek noise.

I'll take a quiet drive with a 5 year warranty over the most golly gee wizz bang new thang any day.

Brett Thomas · 12-23-2009, 02:35 PM

Bill and Rob did a great job with this one - I have to say, that's as thorough an HDD review as I could ever stand to read and not get bored.

I definitely feel as I walk away from it that I know where this drive stands in the tested pack, and I might be picking up a couple of these for my home server - 3x2GB Raid 5 is a nice upgrade!

Glider · 12-23-2009, 02:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brett Thomas

3x2GB Raid 5 is a nice upgrade!

You won't get far on 4 GB

Rob Williams · 12-23-2009, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2Tired2Tango

Nice review Rob....

This is Bill's article, not mine. I mainly just slaved over the graphs and editing ;-)

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2Tired2Tango

I'll take a quiet drive with a 5 year warranty over the most golly gee wizz bang new thang any day.

I tend to agree. The only thing better is an SSD so you'd get performance as well, but for obvious reasons, that's not a real choice for a lot of people right now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glider

You won't get far on 4 GB

Haha

12-23-2009, 10:04 PM

Nice article however i wish to point out that the real competition on everyones mouth right now is the Samsung Spinpoint F3 versus the Western Digital Black Caviar.

The F3 is cheaper and outperforms the slightly more expensive Black Caviar. I think your article should mention this :/ Not to say that the Black Caviar is bad (it isn't). Just that comparing it to the competition, the F3 may be a better choice at the moment.

Source:
http://www.overclock.net/hard-drives...-f3-vs-wd.html

12-23-2009, 10:06 PM

By the way i own both of these hard drives

Rob Williams · 12-24-2009, 08:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moogle Stiltzkin

Nice article however i wish to point out that the real competition on everyones mouth right now is the Samsung Spinpoint F3 versus the Western Digital Black Caviar.

Thanks for the heads-up! We'll be sure to get one of the F3 drives in and put it to the test as soon as possible

12-23-2009, 12:50 AM	#1
Rob Williams Editor-in-Chief Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Atlantic Canada Posts: 13,246	Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB Kicking off our hard drive coverage begins with a look at Western Digital's Caviar Black 1TB. As an affordable "high-end" consumer drive, this model includes all of the important features, and performs quite well throughout all of our tests. It also happens to win the contest for having the lowest overall acoustic levels, and by a fair margin. You can read the first of Bill's storage articles here and discuss it here! __________________ Intel Core i7-990X EE @ 3.43GHz, GIGABYTE X58A-UD5, Kingston 12GB DDR3-1333, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD, WD VR 1TB, WD 2TB, Seagate 2TB, LG BD-ROM, ASUS DVD-RW, Corsair 1000HX, Corsair H60 Cooler Corsair 800D, Dell 2408WFP 24", ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Gentoo (KDE 4.10, 3.7 Kernel) "Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get!" - H.P. Baxxter <Toad772> I don't always drink alcohol, but when I do, I take it too far.

12-23-2009, 04:59 AM	#2
Doomsday Tech Junkie Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: KHI, PAK Posts: 1,539	Heey, nice review! i am thinking of buying a new HDD soon. I still run my OS on my old IDE Seagate 40GB which i bought in 2005 with my P4! lol! and its still running fine, no problems what so ever, for now atleast. Well i think this is what i will be aiming for when i buy a new HDD. Caviar Blacks r pretty good! as we dont have Seagate XT available here! __________________ PSU: Corsair AX850 - Case: Cooler Master HAF X - CPU:Core i7-2600k - Cooler: Cooler Master V6 GT - Motherboard: Asus Z68 Maximus IV Extreme Z - Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8 GB-1600Mhz - GPU: AMD MSI R6970 Lightning - HDD: WD Caviar Black 1TB, Seagate 2TB Barracuda Green - SSD: Intel 520 Series 120GB - K/B: Razer Lycosa Mirror - Mouse: Logitech G700 - MouseMat: Steel Series 4HD - LCD: Samsung 2333SW 23" - Speakers: Creative Inspire M4500 4.1 - Headset: Logitech G35 7.1 "Do not look at a man's prayers nor his fasts, rather, measure him by how well he deals with others, the compassion he shows his fellow man, his wisdom and his integrity" - Umar Ibn Al-Khattab

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12-23-2009, 02:35 PM	#4
Brett Thomas Senior Editor Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 164	Bill and Rob did a great job with this one - I have to say, that's as thorough an HDD review as I could ever stand to read and not get bored. I definitely feel as I walk away from it that I know where this drive stands in the tested pack, and I might be picking up a couple of these for my home server - 3x2GB Raid 5 is a nice upgrade!

12-23-2009, 10:04 PM	#7
Moogle Stiltzkin Guest Poster Posts: n/a	Nice article however i wish to point out that the real competition on everyones mouth right now is the Samsung Spinpoint F3 versus the Western Digital Black Caviar. The F3 is cheaper and outperforms the slightly more expensive Black Caviar. I think your article should mention this :/ Not to say that the Black Caviar is bad (it isn't). Just that comparing it to the competition, the F3 may be a better choice at the moment. Source: http://www.overclock.net/hard-drives...-f3-vs-wd.html

12-23-2009, 10:06 PM	#8
Moogle Stiltzkin Guest Poster Posts: n/a	By the way i own both of these hard drives