Western Digital unveils improved Black series HDDs

Western Digital has announced an update for its Black line-up of high-end HDDs. The new series has a bunch of improvements over its predecessors, key highlights among which are improved performance, better accuracy, efficiency and reliability.

The new Black HDDs spin at 7,200rpm and have 64MB of cache available. It is available in 1TB, 2TB, 3TB and 4TB capacities. There is also a 500GB model, which is likely aimed towards OEMs.

The HDDs have a new dual-core application processor with WD’s Dynamic Cache technology. The company claims that this increases performance by using improved caching algorithms in real time.

The new Black HDDs are major improvements over the older ones

It also optimises the allocation of the cache between reads and writes, which in turn results in reduced data congestion and improved performance. WD claims that the new 1TB drivers are 26 percent faster than its predecessors, and the 4TB model is 48 percent faster.

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Also featured in the new Black series HDDs is something WD calls High-Resolution Controllers, which have an improved architectural design. This allows for a higher level of data precision on the HDD, which in turn gives better responsiveness.

The new HDDs also have Vibration Control Technology, which essentially lets the disks in the drives to adapt to mounting problems and vibration conditions in a computer. This translates to better reliability. The higher-end 2TB and 4TB drives also have StableTrac, which has a more secure motor shaft inside the drive to reduce vibrations.

WD hasn’t revealed the pricing for the new HDDs yet, but we expect them to be more expensive than the previous iterations of the Black HDDs, which retailed at around Rs 6,000 for the 1TB model.