Remember Western Digital? Well if you do, then you probably have hard drive units with 500GB of storage capacity at most. I say that because up until now, only Seagate and Hitachi offered disk drives with capacities larger than 500GB. And since a little history lesson won't hurt anyone, let's take a moment and remember.


Seagate was the first to jump over the 500GB mark with its 750GB Barracuda (7200.10 version). Some 6 months later, Hitachi followed with an even bigger bang, the 1TB hard disk drive. Evidently they also rolled out a 750GB version in order to offer a competitive alternative to Seagate's product. And now it seems that WD's Caviar SE16 GL188 (750GB, 7200rpm, 16MB cache, 4.2ms average latency, 70MB/s buffer-to-disk transfer rate) is also jumping in the "big" section of magnetic storage units.

The Caviar SE16 GL188 will work with native SATA-II controllers (SATA 300) and supports NCQ due to its firmware improvements. Also the new WD comes with a pretty low power consumption due to the fact that it uses only 4 platters. Regarding the new desktop drive, Don Bennett, WD vice president and general manager of desktop storage stated:

"WD knows that there is nothing more important than our customers' data. Uniquely, our new desktop hard drive brings together SecurePark for better shock characteristics, StableTrac for better vibration performance, and IntelliSeek to reduce power consumption. These proven features will further WD's lead as the most reliable desktop products."

All in all, the SE16 750GB with its $249 MSRP seems to be a pretty successful product. What about "too little too late", then?. Well if you look back in time (again) you will notice that WD's drive comes about 1 year after Seagate's own 750GB version. And that can't be good for business especially since large HDD buyers prefer safety over pure performance. And we all know who wins in the "safety" battle, don't we? On the other hand, the price might help WD push its product forward. We'll see...

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