WD’s 160GB Caviar named best hard drive by Mac Format

Western Digital Corporation’s WD Caviar RE 160GB RE hard drives have been named the best hard drive solution for building high-speed RAIDs by Mac Format magazine (UK).

In its endorsement, the magazine said: “We tested the 160GB (WD) Caviar RE drives with the SeriTek SATA housing and found them to be fast, quiet and cool. In fact, they are the ideal drives if you are thinking of setting up your own RAID.”

The hadr drive was subjected to intensive tests that found that WD Caviar RE drives were not only fast and blessed with an 8MB cache, but also include Time Limited Error Recovery, thus making them particularly suited to RAID applications by preventing long interruptions.

WD’s TLER feature means that the drive reports itself as being okay even when it is repairing. This means it can go on being a part of the RAID.

The WD Caviar family, which spans the 40-320GB range, addresses users’ capacity requirements, minimising the need to buy supplementary external storage systems and media. Operating temperatures of the WD Caviar 320GB drive are low, ensuring extended life of the unit. It also runs quieter and incorporates extended buffer technology for faster operation.