It is a relief to see that Western Digital was able to deliver a product with best in class performance without the need to invest in expensive SATA 6G products. Just like when the Caviar Green was introduced, we are put off by the initial high cost of ownership, but over time we should see the prices start to drop. Western Digital has been on a roll this past year with their dual controller and other technology advancements and the Caviar Black keeps the steak alive.

SATA 6G is the latest and greatest, but we found out today consumer hard drives are just not ready to take advantage of the increase in available bandwidth. The Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB managed to outperform the Barracuda XT in many of our real world tests despite using an older SATA 3G chipset. Being an apples to apples performance comparison, we can safely say that the Caviar Black is defiantly the way to go if you are looking for a 7,200 RPM 2TB drive.

The only real issue we found with the Caviar Black 2TB is the price. With the 1TB drive selling for roughly a third and the Caviar Green selling for half the cost of the Caviar Black, you are going to have to dig deep in your wallet to get a Caviar Black. At the time of writing Newegg has the drive listed at 299.99 USD, but I think we will see these prices go down at least 10% in the next month or two. With the Holidays coming up we may see a few e-tailers offering the drives for sale, so keep an eye out for sales. The Caviar Black is already a hot item, so when you do see them on sale you will need to act quickly.