The WD AV is the most expensive 500GB SATA disk here, and costs 19p per gigabyte. Unfortunately, the higher price doesn't mean better performance and it was the second-slowest SATA disk in our large files tests. It fared better in our small files tests, but it couldn't keep up with Hitachi's 500GB Deskstar, which is £14 cheaper. There's little reason to buy the WD AV at this price.
By Alan Lu
SPECIFICATIONS: Capacity: 500GB Formatted capacity (NTFS): 465GB Price per gigabyte: £0.19 Interface: SATA 300 Power connector: SATA Spindle speed: 7,200rpm Cache: 8MB Quoted seek time: 10.9ms HD Tach access time: 13.4ms Platters: 3 Heads: 6 Bearing technology: Fluid dynamic Noise level when idle: 29dB(A)
