Western Digital Caviar Black (750GB) review

Caviar Black drives are Western Digital's flagship models, and the list of features doesn't disappoint. Every drive boasts 32MB of cache, and this is joined by features to prevent platters wearing out and knocks damaging the disk.

This 750GB model also uses a trio of 250GB platters, mimicking the arrangement seen in the 750GB Samsung SpinPoint F1 (see p78).

Performance, though, doesn't measure up: in our read and write tests the Caviar Black returned figures of 92MB/sec and 85.6MB/sec - not bad by any means, but not in the same league as the superb SpinPoint.

Other results weren't quite good enough - the Caviar Black's burst and average sequential read speeds were beaten by the 750GB Samsung.

The Caviar Black can't fall back on good value for money, either - its cost of 10.8p/GB pales in comparison with the 8p/GB of the SpinPoint. So unless you think the premium features are worth the extra, there's little reason to buy this drive.

Author: Mike Jennings