Value and Final Thoughts

It’s clear from our testing that the Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black is the fastest 1TB+ hard disk drive we’ve ever tested, and even manages to surpass the 10,000RPM VelociRaptor under a number of circumstances. However, while the performance is a massive improvement on the 2TB Green, the 2TB Black’s price makes it far from a recommended product. Retailing at £230 the £/GB is a hefty 11p – small in comparison to pricey SSDs, but well over twice the £/GB of competing 1TB and even 1.5TB drives.

We’re also in a quandary as to what place a “performance” hard disk drive holds in today’s market. Performance mechanical storage is rapidly going the way of way of the CRT monitor with the introduction of SSDs. The 2TB Caviar might offer close to sixteen times the storage of a similarly priced Indilinx based SSD, but the SSD will offer massively superior performance, especially when it comes to random read speeds where a Indilinx SSD is fifty times faster than the 2TB Caviar Black.

We’re not joking when we say an SSD has the potential to significantly change the way you use your PC, with massively improved boot speeds, game load times and generally superior responsiveness – the 2TB Caviar just can’t deliver in these regards.


As the 2TB Black is priced so highly, it’s actually in the same price range as performance SSDs – a 128GB Crucial M225, using identical hardware and firmware to that of the OCZ vertex can now be had for around £215 - £15 less than the 2TB black.

In fact, its poor value means that even if you demand a high capacity from your boot drive, the 2TB black is tough to recommend. A Spinpoint F1 1TB (or soon to be reviewed Spinpoint F3 1TB) will cost less than £60 and deliver very similar performance to the 2TB Black across the board.


Even if you’re after a 2TB drive due to space constraints, such as in a NAS box or media PC, the Western Digital 2TB Green is a much better option as it’s not only received a healthy price cut down to around £170, but runs much quieter than the 2TB Caviar, which has a tendency to sound like a tin full of angry bees when put under heavy load. While the 2TB green is laboriously slow in comparison to the 2TB Black of course, in these circumstances high performance isn't always necessary.

In the end then, the 2TB is a product that despite comfortably claiming the spot of fastest 1TB+ hard disk drive, is priced so highly that its performance advantages become impossible to justify. SSDs now dominate the performance storage market despite their still extravagant £/GB rate and 1TB drives that perform within a few percent of the 2TB Black can be had for less than £60. For bulk storage needs the cheaper 2TB Green is a more affordable and thus more enticing prospect.

Unless your storage needs demand both mammoth size and performance in a single 3.5" drive bay, there are better, cheaper and faster alternatives. End of.

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