Western Digital Launches Caviar Black - Three Flavors of Caviar

Reviews: Storage

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Max Slowik
Kurtis
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Jun. 10, 2008

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Black is the New Black

Welcomed by all, purchased by few: everyone wants a Western Digital VelociRaptor, but the people who have three hundred bucks to spend on three hundred gigs are... rare. Without a doubt, Western Digital has wowed the enthusiasts, but they're not slowing down on the consumer and enterprise fronts. It's come to light that the very fast, very quiet, and very cool SE16s aren't the latest in hard disk tech, but the first with just a few of the new tricks up Western Digital's corporate sleeve. Today they are launching an all new desktop brand, Caviar Black, claimed to be "WD's best hard drive ever." The first products in this new line will be 750GB and 1TB models.

Of course, like all press, some of it's real and some of it's release, but Ted Deffenbaugh, Senior Director of Product Marketing, used to be one of the engineers; he doesn't like guile and was frank with me in our interview. He's quite proud of these new hard drives, and I'm, well, I'm actually excited about their new spinning metal.

A major part of this release is branding, which is an excellent idea on Western Digital's part. Even I don't like digging up reviews and part numbers to find out which hard drive might suit me best, and the new Caviar color scheme illuminates things well. Blue is boring. It's mostly for the cost-conscious, looking for a middle option. I don't sit on the fence, so Green and Black are more interesting. Green is, you know, "Eco." A low-power, very quiet option. Black is "Enthusiast," "Fast/Feature-Rich," and now brings with it a five-year warranty.

Western Digital still isn't getting great marks for long warranties, though. Blue and Green are only covered for three years, and five, while realistically greater than the practical lifespan of a hard drive, isn't, say, eight. Better than the warranty are the actual, metal-and-circuit improvements.

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Page 1: Black is the New Black
Page 2: The Improvements
Page 3: Chatting with Western Digital's Ted Deffenbaugh

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