Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB Hard Drive Review

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Now that the dust has cleared, it’s time to determine where we stand on the Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB hard drive. On the one hand, we have a 1TB drive that offers what is claimed to be the best performance around for a desktop drive. It has a dual processor and a myriad of other technologies that are supposed to make it fast. On the other hand its performance is somewhat suspect in our usual test suites.

Although the HDTune testing didn’t go so well for the Caviar Black, the drive did manage to redeem itself in the PCMark tests. The results posted from that test were inline with what WD claims. Also we need to take into account the problems Seagate is having with it’s drives right now. Drives that all of a sudden forget they are hard drives is a bad thing. It’s hard to find anyone in the industry willing to recommend their hard drives even if they have issued firmware fixes. This makes drives like the Caviar Black that much more enticing because you simply don’t have to deal with these sorts of issues. Peace of mind is always worth something, especially in these trying economic times.

So what am I trying to say? Well in the end, it’s hard to deny the Western Digital Caviar Black as a viable option for someone looking for a large reliable drive for their performance system. It’s not as fast a VelociRaptor, but it’s also much cheaper. OK, a lot cheaper. Not to mention, it uses a standard form factor unlike the Velociraptor, which makes it ideal in most circumstances. Though it’s not as cavernous as the Seagate 1.5TB, it’s far more reliable in the real world. It’s a good all around drive for a system that needs both performance and storage space. When Western Digital rolls out their 2.0TB models in a little while, it’ll be that much more enticing.

Pros