Western Digital Corp. today announced the availability of its new high capacity 400 GB Serial ATA (SATA) WD Caviar® SE16 desktop-class hard drives. With 7,200 RPM spindle speed, native SATA technology and 16 MB cache, the new desktop-class WD Caviar SE16 400 GB hard drives are ideal for graphic design, video editing, gaming, advanced business computing and other high-end desktop applications. The WD Caviar product family delivers cool, quiet and high performance storage that has long made WD Caviar the hard drive brand of choice worldwide.
Separately the company announced a 3-year warranty for its desktop-class hard drives, including WD Caviar, WD Caviar SE and WD Caviar SE16—the highest performance of the WD Caviar product family.
“From 40 to 400 GB, the WD Caviar desktop hard drive family has long been one of the world’s most popular hard drive brands because the name has come to stand for reliability, performance and cool and quiet operation,” said Richard E. Rutledge, vice president and general manager of WD’s Computing Components Group. “WD offers a diverse range of hard drives to satisfy the varied storage needs of our customers—from consumer electronics to enterprise to desktop and notebook computing environments.”
WD Caviar SE16 400 GB (Model WD4000KD)
Available now at WD’s online store (store.westerndigital.com) and from WD-authorized distributors, the new desktop-class WD Caviar SE16 SATA 400 GB hard drives (WD4000KD) combine a 16 MB cache with 150 MB/s transfer rate for industry leading performance.
Suggested retail pricing is $279 USD for WD Caviar SE16 400 GB hard drives. WD Caviar SE16 drives are covered under a 3-year warranty. Customers who order WD Caviar SE16 400 GB hard drives from WD’s online store before Aug. 31, 2005, will receive free standard shipping on all hard drives and special savings on all SATA hard drives.
Cool Drives and Enhanced Reliability
Heat is a major contributor to hard drive wear and cool drive operating temperatures help increase long-term drive reliability. WD hard drives are designed to have the lowest power consumption of any high-capacity desktop-class hard drive.
Lowering the drives’ power consumption means the operating temperature of WD Caviar drives is much cooler which provides for enhanced drive reliability. Cool drives are increasingly important for today’s multi-drive and small-form-factor systems.
Whisper Quiet
Today’s PCs, digital video recorders and gaming machines are increasingly operated in environments where noise is less tolerated. WD reduced WD Caviar drive noise levels to be virtually imperceptible to the human ear in home and business environments with its WhisperDrive™ technology, which features a highly efficient power driver design. To reduce seek noise, SoftSeek™ technology streamlines read/write seeking algorithms, resulting in the drive operating more efficiently when accessing and writing data.
