Western Digital Quietly Moves to 334GB HDD Platters on 1TB Caviar GP Drive

[malware]

Watch.impress.co.jp is reporting that Western Digital has quietly updated its Caviar GP line of drives in Asia with a platter density of 334GB in the 1TB capacity drive. Currently WD is offering two 334GB-per-platter hard drives, the 320GB (only the latest generation) and 640GB WD Caviar SE16 models. The 1TB to join with three 334GB platters is WD Caviar GP (Green Power) model number WD10EACS-00D6B0. The drive is manufactured on 12 May, 2008. Presumably, all 1TB Caviar GP drives manufactured after this date will use 334GB platters. Other specs of the drive remain the same with 16MB buffer size and 7200 rpm spindle speed.




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[mullered07]

16mb ? not even 32mb for 1tb? are the cavier wd's low range hdd?

also will this mean that the 320gb cavier will be recognised in windows closer to 320 as it has a 334Gb platter as it currently stands my 320Gb seagate only shows as 299Gb

 

[panchoman]

caviers are the low range, raptors are the high end ones

 

[DanishDevil]

WD does not yet offer a drive with 32mb cache.

 

[mullered07]

WD does not yet offer a drive with 32mb cache.

arent the new velocoraptors meant to have 32mb ?

raptors are the high end ones

i know, i have one just seems strange to me theres the caviar and then the raptors, no in between, no 7200 drives with 32mb buffer

 

[MrW]

The extra 16MB of cache has extremely minimal effect on performance. Platter density and RPM are far more important.

 

[DanishDevil]

arent the new velocoraptors meant to have 32mb ?

They're not released yet now are they

 

[craigwhiteside]

im still waiting for 15,000rpm sata drives

 

[MrW]

im still waiting for 15,000rpm sata drives

I'm guessing SSD drives will prevent that from happening.

 

[craigwhiteside]

but i still wants one

 

[Bytor]

caviers are the low range, raptors are the high end ones

May want to take a read... I'm running 2 36 gig raptors in raid and just ordered one of these beasts to replace them both.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/Western-Digital-640GB-blows-away-rivals-in-The-Tech-Report-review.html


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218

 

[flashstar]

Unfortunately, there have been increases in the size but not the speed of magnetic hard drives recently. Unless you buy a velociraptor, you're not going to see more than a 10% speed increase when going to a new hard drive unless your drive is 5 or more years old. Like gasoline-powered cars, we seem to have hit the limits of a technology. SSD drives do not look like viable solutions for the future mainly because every time you write to one, you increase the chance of losing data. This problem is due to the damage caused by each write to a SSD's memory chips. You might not have any problems for 10 years, but eventually your data will be lost.

We need a new, inexpensive, and reliable technology. There probably won't be such a thing for a few years, but I'm definitely holding out for the new IBM storage technology that was just patented.

 

[WarEagleAU]

Wow Flashstar, I didnt know IBM was working on something like that.

my 320 was only showing up as like 287 or something like that.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

WD does not yet offer a drive with 32mb cache.

That is why I went Seagate this last round with my 250GB 32MB cache drive.

 

[Squirrely]

Yeah, they did this really quitely. The B3 revision of their 320 and 640gb versions are the one and two platter versions.

I actually have the one platter B3 revision 320gb harddrive. The nice thing about it having a single platter is it is super quite. I strive for a quite system, and this allows my system to be about as quite as possible. (Well except having a SSD, lol)

But its a sweet drive, and I love it.

 

[Haytch]

Excellent. Storage being what it is these days its important for companies to produce affordable and reliable hard disk drives.
The 640Gb version is a total success where im from and at that price im very sure it was world wide.
Comparing performance and caching from 16mb to 32mb must be fun but you shouldnt lose sight of the important factor. Its just storage.

' Jimmy can cache 128mb of porn ' - Jimmy needs a gf!

 

[breakfromyou]

WD doesn't offer drives with a 32mb buffer because they honestly don't really need it. Their drives are quick as hell. I'm definitely impressed.

By the way, if you want a 3 platter 1tb WD GP drive, the serial number starts out like this "WCAU"

they weigh under 2 pounds. the 4 platter models weigh in at just over 2 pounds. i weighed them

 

[DrPepper]

What is it that makes HDDs fast is it the number of platters, spindle speed, cache i dunno