WD rolls out high-speed 1TB hard drive

Western Digital hopes today to ramp up the speed of high-end pro and gaming desktops with new Caviar Black desktop drives. The 3.5-inch drive comes in 750GB and 1TB storage levels like many others but includes dual processors as well as 32MB of cache that are said to speed up moving data on the drives. This added edge could be crucial for video editors and others who depend on short load times, the company says. A locked-down motor shaft and a read head that never touches the drive platters both keep the drive quiet and also reduce the physical wear on the disk.

The hard drive maker plans to ship both capacities of the Serial ATA II drives next week, with official pricing set at $199 for the 750GB drive and $249 for its 1TB sibling. The initial launch is targeted at users upgrading their own systems but will soon expand to include PC builders pre-installing the drives themselves.