Western Digital Announces the First 2TB Drive

Sacedog

Sacedog

Active Member
big_wd20eads_2tb_hd_front.jpg

I just saw this on the web:


There's no veil of secrecy covering this one, but Western Digital has finally come clean with the industry's first 2TB internal hard drive. Launched today in the USA, the planet's highest capacity single HDD -- otherwise known as the 2TB Caviar Green ($299; available now) -- sits on a 3.5-inch platform, includes 32MB of cache and is based around WD's 500GB per platter technology (with 400Gb/in2 areal density). HotHardware was able to take a sneak peek at this here device (a pre-engineering sample, as it were), and was gracious enough to host up some juicy benchmark results for those eager to see how this capacious beast performed. Against the formidable Spinpoint F1 (Samsung) and Barracuda 7200.11 (Seagate), the WD managed to hold its own, which is saying a lot for a drive of this magnitude.

Full review here:

http://hothardware.com/News/WD-2TB-Caviar-...-Drive-Preview/
 
I've been waiting for them to be released so I can replace the 1TB drives on my HD DVRs. You can never have too much space with HD.

Thanks for the update!

Kevin
 
All these larger drives do is convince me it will be a complete disaster when (not if) it fails....instead of the mere utter disaster I get now with 200 GB drive failures.
 
beelzerob said:
All these larger drives do is convince me it will be a complete disaster when (not if) it fails....instead of the mere utter disaster I get now with 200 GB drive failures.
Click to expand...

You don't buy one...you buy at least two (Raid1) or 4 or more (Raid 5 or 6)
 
I've got three 500GB hard drives in a RAID-5 inside the server in my home. These backup to a four 750GB RAID-5 NAS. Critical files are backed up to tape and kept in a fireproof safe and a copy off-site, and are also backed up to an online backup service.

The 2TB drives are excellent for DVRs, though. HD takes a lot of storage, and I didn't want to run a RAID-0 to get more than 1TB. Though it wouldn't be the end of the world if you lose a DVR drive, it is disappointing. With a RAID-0, you double the risk of drive failure.
 
Backups...Who needs backups... :)

Now all we need is all the NAS manufacturers to update firmware to support them...
 
I'd probably wait a while before picking up one of these, I've been having horrible luck with large capacity drives from both WD and Seagate lately. But if anyone picks up a few of these and they prove to be stable I'd be interested.
 
Kevin L said:
I've got three 500GB hard drives in a RAID-5 inside the server in my home. These backup to a four 750GB RAID-5 NAS. Critical files are backed up to tape and kept in a fireproof safe and a copy off-site, and are also backed up to an online backup service.
Click to expand...

:)
 
I guess I can finally retire my 2 GB (Yes that is 2GB) hard drive that's in my PC for the Operating System only. :)
 
Heh...I think brosten has been trolling the forums, just WAITING to use that smiley.
:)

I wish I had as good a backup plan. At least I've finally made the effort to burn our digital pics to DVD's...but it still feels unsafe.
 
I backup everything to portable hard drives, and take the drives to work. That way, if my house gets robbed/burned down/flooded, I will at least have my data. I try to do this at least once a month.

I'll be real interested in using these drives in my Sage box. I have 2 - 1GB drives in there now, and I will be needing more soon.
 
beelzerob said:
Heh...I think brosten has been trolling the forums, just WAITING to use that smiley.
:)

I wish I had as good a backup plan. At least I've finally made the effort to burn our digital pics to DVD's...but it still feels unsafe.
Click to expand...

Count up all the time is took you to compile the data you have, the memories, the ripped MP3's, etc...

For a few extra bucks you really are saving you a HUGE amount of future headache and heartache.

The horse smiley is great...btw
 
Sacedog said:
I backup everything to portable hard drives, and take the drives to work. That way, if my house gets robbed/burned down/flooded, I will at least have my data. I try to do this at least once a month.
Click to expand...
Way to go! I have been doing the same thing with removable SATA drives - Every 2 weeks, with 2 drives. One always home, one always at work... Except for that short time when they are both together during the swap. Also do the "online" backup someone else mentioned.
 
My 500 GB external sata drive died recently while copying files. I suspect it was a drive error, as I think files were moved onto it from 2 different computers...something like that. Beware Cavalry drives, I say.

I have recently thought of using my spare old hard drives to store data, since I have an IDE-to-USB adapter, so any old drive becomes a USB drive. But I have recently decried the fact that there is still no really good backup solution, in my mind. DVD's take long to burn, and have such limited capacity (and the spectre of having a shelf life too). Tape backup is just bulky and cumbersome, and also expensive (though it's still probably the best overall solution).

We need permanent, cheap, lightning fast backup. Is that so much to ask?
 
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