Western Digital Caviar Black and RE4 2 TB Hard Disk Drive Review

Conclusions

The new 7,200 rpm 2 TB drives from Western Digital, RE4 and Caviar Black, achieved the same performance level. They are a lot faster than the 2 TB “green” models, making them to be the right choice if you are looking for a 2 TB drive. The correct drive to choose will depend on the computer you are going to install it, a server (RE4) or a desktop (Caviar Black).

Price is still an issue. Although we couldn’t find Caviar Black for sale on the main on-line stores, it has a suggested price of USD 300. The 1 TB version from Caviar Black costs only USD 100, so if you are worried about performance you should buy two 1 TB drives and install them in RAID0 – and you will still save USD 100! Of course if you are building a computer with tons of terabytes of storage space using 1 TB drives you will need twice the number of drive bays to achieve the same capacity as if you were using 2 TB models.

Also the competition is heating up, as the first 7,200 rpm 2 TB drive from Seagate to arrive on the market, Barracuda XT, comes with the new SATA-600 interface (which provides double the available bandwidth – keep in mind that this does not necessarily mean that this drive is faster, this only means that the interface is capable of exchanging data faster, actual performance will depend on the drive) and with the same price tag.