TheTechLounge - Recent Reviews: Storage: Internal Hard Drives

1TB Hard Drive Roundup - Update

Thu, 4 Dec 2008 15:53:14 -0600

The three drives which I DO have torturing rights to are the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 (ST3100340AS), and the Seagate Barracuda ES.2 (ST31000340NS). UPDATE: Western Digital has taken up the challenge and provided not one, but two separate drives. The first victim is the WD10EACS or as they are now called the Western Digital Caviar Green. The second drive is the WD1001FALS, otherwise known as the Western Digital Caviar Black.

Western Digital Launches Caviar Black - Three Flavors of Caviar

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:56:35 -0500

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.

1TB Hard Drive Roundup

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:25:36 -0500

Barriers are meant to be broken. As capacities have increased and prices fallen, each company wants those bragging rights of having the "biggest," or at least the fastest. We put three 1TB hard drives through the paces - Hitachi's Deskstar 7K1000 and Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 (ST3100340AS) as well as their Barracuda ES.2 (ST31000340NS). Which one will come out on top?

Seagate Barracuda 750 GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200.10)

Sun, 20 May 2007 13:45:28 -0500

Just last year, the 500GB hard drive was all the rage, now, in front of me is a brand new 750 GB drive. Yep, 3/4 of a terabyte! Never really thought I would see that word and home storage ever near each other. Honestly, how many wholesome family films can someone store on their computer?

500GB Hard Drive Round-Up

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 20:30:31 -0500

As platter densities have increased, we have watched our drives grow. 20, 40, 80, 120, 250, and now 500GB drives are in the mainstream. Larger ones are starting to show up, but the 500 GB variety is gaining popularity. All the big players are in the market. It is these 500 GB monsters that I have with me today. From Western Digital I have their Caviar SE16 (WD5000KS), from Hitachi I have their Deskstar 7K500 (HDS725050KLA360), and from Seagate the Barracuda 7200.9 (ST3500641AS). Each are SATA II, 7200 RPM drives with 16MB of cache.

Seagate 160 GB SATA (ST3160023AS)

Sat, 15 May 2004 15:44:19 -0500

Today we will be looking at Seagate's first generation SATA hard drive, the Barracuda 7200.7 SATA; specifically the ST3160023AS, which features speeds of 7200 rpm, an 8.5 ms average seek time, 8 MB cache and 160 GB capacity.

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 200 GB Hard Drive

Sun, 15 Jun 2003 01:00:00 -0500

The DiamondMax Plus 9 has it all: Speed, Size, and Silence. With 200GB of storage, high access speeds, and 8 MB cache, you can be sure that system performance will be boosted.