Dec 8, 2010 09:42 GMT  ·  By

There is little point in debating whether or not HDDs are already threatened by SSDs, because they more or less are, at least in the long term, but such concerns are still low, especially with HDDs like WD's Caviar Blue getting faster.

As end-users may or may not know, the SATA 3.0 Gbps technology hasn't been the fastest of its type for quite some time already.

This is because its next-generation incarnation exists and has already been added to a significant number of motherboards.

Conversely, the hard disk drive and even solid state drive market have been seeing the appearance of storage units with compatibility with this connection.

Said interface goes by the name of SATA 6.0 Gbps and, obviously, can work at up to 6 Gbps as long as both the platform and the storage drives support it.

Noticing that both Intel and AMD-based mainboards have started to incorporate SATA 6.0 Gbps ports by default, Western Digital made an update of its own.

What this means is that a certain line of HDDs, known as Caviar Blue, now includes members with this feature.

They can have capacities of 250 GB, 320 GB, 500 GB, 750 GB and 1 TB, respectively, and all have a platter rotary speed of 7,200 RPM.

Additionally, the 750 GB and 1 TB models have cache memory of 32 MB, while the set settle for 16 MB.

Furthermore, Western Digital implemented its Advanced Format technology, which raises the sector size to 4k.

As for pricing, the 250 GB, 320 GB, 500 GB, 750 GB and 1 TB newcomers are listed in Europe for 32.85 Euro, 33.25 Euro, 34.49 Euro, 45.10 Euro and 53.19 Euro, respectively.

Of course, all information available on the products can be located on the designated page that their maker's website already includes.