Encoding a lot of gameplay videos requires a lot of space and the Western Digital Caviar was a much needed addition to my array. My Samsung F3 1Tb was running low and I was looking to purchase another; except the Thai flood happened. As a result, prices of hard drives rose and the Samsung F3 rocketed to £100+. I've been waiting for the prices to settle down, but yet they haven't.

However I was lucky to grab a bargain with the Western Digitial Caviar for £75. The purchase was out of necessity as I said and I had never before used a Western Digital product. I am however happy I have; and for good reason.

First of all the huge 64MB cache buffer and the fact that its SATA3. Now if your motherboard doesn't support SATA 3, you can still use it but not at the same speeds. The black editions come with 5 year warranty which is a very rare offering in the hard drive market.

As for the drive itself and how it performs; it can be summed in just 1 word - BEAUTIFULLY. Not only is the drive fast but it is superbly silent. Applications load up on par with the Samsung F3 I have and write speeds are equally good. Encoding, saving and compressing files runs smoothly and steadily and I cannot emphasize enough how silent the drive is. Large files are no problem for this disk drive.

According to WD the drive:
Stores Upto 2460 Action Packed Games
Stores Upto 284000 Digital Photo's (6Mpix)
Stores Upto 250000 MP3 Songs
Stores Upto 24000 CD Audio Songs
Stores Upto 76ours of Digital Video (DV)
Stores Upto 400 Hours of DVD Quality Video
Stores Upto 120 Hours of HD Quality Video

However, I was short of nearly 200GB and the drive actually has 879GB. It is a tad disappointing but I cannot complain as it is a solid performer; almost equal in all terms to my beloved Samsung F3. However, the 5 year warranty sets this hard drive apart from the rest of the field.

For me this buy was a revelation and I definitely will be buying more Western Digital products in the future.

1TB hard drives sell at around £80+ price region, but if you require disk drive urgently, get this one.
Summary: Perfect buy for those who urgently require a new hard drive.