WD Caviar RE2 500 GB Hard Drive

I remember reading somewhere, "640k ought to be enough for anybody". We all have experienced the successful invasion of computers into our homes and lives. We need space, a lot of it. To the uninitiated, let me clarify, I am talking about storage space, more specifically - Hard Disk storage.

We use the computer for more reasons than all the devices in our homes combined. So, it is natural for us to have loads and loads of data to share and store on our computer. Almost everyone comes across a situation where they do not have enough space to copy a couple of Gigs of music or movies. Thankfully, digital storage technology has improved in leaps and bounds over the past few years. More and more capacity is being crammed into lesser space. This review gives you an example of such technology coming in our daily life in the very near future.

The Drive
The Western Digital RE2 500 GB is the latest addition in the Caviar series of hard drives. The form factor is the same as any conventional hard drive. The only appealing part is the all black casing, which gives it a more Commando Elite look. But, what the heck! It's not that your are going to see that everyday anyways.

The RE2 can store around 468 GB of data (after formatting) and sports a 16 MB buffer. The drive has a SATA2 interface with theoretical transfer speeds of up to 748 Mbits/s. It spins at 7200 RPM with an average latency of 4.20 milliseconds. It can also withstand an operating shock of 65 G and a non-operating shock of 250 G which is quite standard.

Advanced acoustics and WD's patented WhisperDrive and SoftSeek technologies make this a very quite piece of equipment. Apart from this noise reducing initiatives, the drive also has Data Lifeguard which is a set of data protection features, including shock protection, an environmental protection system and real-time embedded error detection and repair.

Specifications:

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Test Bench
We used the following configuration of the system to perform benchmarks for this hard drive

CPU: Athlon 64 3400+ (Socket 754)
Motherboard: ASUS A8N-E
Memory: KingMax 2 x 512 MB DDR 400
Case: VIP ATX Cabinet w/ 400 Watts SMPS
Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2

Performance

HD Tach
HD Tach 2.70 and 3.0 test the low level Read and Write performance of the drive. Following are the results.

Sisoft Sandra
SiSoft Sandra 2005 File System Benchmark to get a precise idea about the real time capabilities of the drive.

The SiSoft Sandra 2005 File System Benchmark figure of 61 MB/s is the highest till date for a 7200 RPM drive that we have reviewed. As we can see from the benchmarks, this drive is super quick at read operations. The write speed is not bad but as we have seen in the past, the 16 MB buffer doesn't really provide the boost that one expects from it.
This drive is found to be absolutely silent even when operating but it does get hot. But we never encountered any heat related crashes.

Conclusion

The Western Digital Caviar RE2 5000KD is available for a street price of around Rs 16,000 and comes with a 5-year warranty which we feel is expensive. Although the overall performance is better than its contemporaries, the MB per Rupee ratio is still very high as compared to the 400 GB variant that is available for under Rs. 10,000. That's quite a premium for those extra 100 GB. Also one can always easily get 2 drives of 250 GB each for under 9K. But if you want massive storage on a single drive, this is it. It will appeal more to system admins, database architects or tech geeks who fancy every new piece of hardware that is available.