Review of the WD Caviar Black 2TB SATA Hard Drive

Back in July of last year, we reviewed the Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA hard drive.

Today we are going to have a look at the Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB SATA hard drive – model number WD2001FASS.

Like we have said many times before, you could easily argue that a hard drive is the most important component of your computer or storage device, and personally I agree with that. After all, it is the hard drive that stores all of your important data and serves it up to you when you ask for it.

The WD Caviar Black 2TB SATA drive has a 64 MB Cache, runs at 7200 RPM and connects at up to 3 Gb/s. The one we are looking at is the 2TB model, but it also comes as a 1TB, 750 GB, 640 GB or 500 GB model.

You might ask what the difference is between the Caviar Green drives and the Caviar Black drives. Well, the Green drives are designed for power efficiency and are eco-friendly, where as the Black drives are the performance drives. So if you want the best performance you can get then the Black drives are for you. This is also the first WD drive to come with a 64 MB cache which also makes it the fastest drive available today.

The drive itself consists of 4 separate 500GB platters.

FEATURES

High Performance Electronics Architecture

Rock Solid Mechanical Architecture

Massive Capacity – WD Caviar Black SATA drives are available in capacities
up to 2 TB.

5 Year Limited Warranty

How this WD hard drive protects your data

• Data Lifeguard is an exclusive set of data protection features, including shock protection, an environmental protection system and real-time embedded error detection and repair. WD’s Data Lifeguard technology automatically finds, isolates, and repairs problems that may develop over the life of a hard drive.
• Data Lifeguard Tools are software utilities designed for WD hard drives that work with the embedded Data Lifeguard features to make hard drive installation,diagnostics and repair both simple and worry-free.
• ShockGuard instantaneously protects the hard drive against damage from bumps and vibrations while it is running. This technology enables WD Caviar drives to achieve industry-leading shock specifications.

SPECIFICATIONS

Transfer Rates

Buffer To Host (Serial ATA) 3 Gb/s (Max)

Physical Specifications
Formatted Capacity 2,000,398 MB
Capacity 2 TB

Interface

SATA 3 Gb/s
User Sectors Per Drive 3,907,029,168

Physical Dimensions

English

Height 1.028 Inches
Length 5.787 Inches
Width 4.00 Inches
Weight 1.66 Pounds

Metric

Height 26.1 mm
Length 147 mm
Width 101.6 mm
Weight 0.75 kg

Environmental SpecificationS

Shock

Operating Shock (Read) 30G, 2 ms
Non-operating Shock 300G, 2 ms

Acoustics

Idle Mode 29 dBA (average)
Seek Mode 0 34 dBA (average)
Seek Mode 3 30 dBA (average)

Temperature (English)

Operating 32° F to 140° F
Non-operating -40° F to 158° F

Temperature (Metric)

Operating -0° C to 60° C
Non-operating -40° C to 70° C

Electrical Specifications

Current Requirements

Power Dissipation

Read/Write 10.70 Watts

Idle 8.20 Watts

Standby 1.30 Watts

Sleep 1.30 Watts

As used for storage capacity, one megabyte (MB) = one million bytes, one gigabyte (GB) = one billion bytes, and one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment. As used for buffer or cache, one megabyte (MB) = 1,048,576 bytes. As used for transfer rate or interface, megabyte per second (MB/s) = one million bytes per second, megabit per second (Mb/s) = one million bits per second, and gigabit per second (Gb/s) = one billion bits per second.