Western Digital WD5000KS 500GB SATA HDD
If we were to play a word association game with a PC enthusiast and said "Western Digital," it's likely his geek reflexes would immediately trigger and force him to reply "Raptor" before he even realized he had spoken. Western Digital makes many more storage products other than just the speed demons known as Raptors, though. While it is easy to be enamored with the Raptors, they are relatively expensive and offer only a fraction of the capacity of the 500GB and 750GB behemoths currently on the market.
Our labs were blessed with one such behemoth from Western Digital, the WD5000KS, which is a member of the Caviar SE16 family. This 500GB SATA 3Gb/s drive features a 16MB cache and a 7200 RPM spindle speed. The Raptors, with their 10k RPM spindle speed, have won the overall 3.5" desktop HDD performance crown, but they don't win any capacity battles. That's where the WD5000KS comes in. Most people choose capacity over speed, especially considering the price premium for higher performance. But can the 500GB Western Digital WD5000KS drive be a winner on both fronts? Read on to find out...
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PHYSICAL SPECS Capacity: 500 GB Interface: SATA 3Gb/s Spindle Speed: 7200 RPM Cache Buffer: 16 MB Height: 26.1 mm Length: 147 mm Width: 101.6 mm Weight: 0.6 kg PERFORMANCE SPECS Seek Times Average Latency: 4.20 ms Read Seek Time: 8.9 ms Write Seek Time: 10.9 ms Track-To-Track Seek Time: 2.0 ms Full Stroke Seek: 21.0 ms Transfer Rate Buffer To Host (Serial ATA): 300 MB/s (Max) Buffer To Disk: 748 Mbits/s (Max) Acoustics Idle Mode: 28 dBA (average) Seek Mode 0: 33 dBA (average) Seek Mode 3: 29 dBA (average) Power Requirements Read/Write: 9.50 Watts Idle: 8.75 Watts Standby: 1.60 Watts Sleep: 1.50 Watts |
FEATURES 16 MB cache Bigger cache means faster performance. A massive 16 MB cache combined with up to 300 MB/s transfer rate make these ultra-fast drives the perfect solution for the fully loaded PC with a fast processor. Cool operating temperature WD hard drives are designed to have the lowest power consumption of any high-capacity, desktop-class hard drive which lowers the operating temperature for enhanced drive reliability. Whisper quiet These highly reliable drives deliver technologically advanced acoustics. With its WhisperDriveTM and SoftSeekTM technologies, WD has minimized noise to levels virtually imperceptible to the human ear in home and business environments. 3 Year Warranty |
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Although it didn't come in a retail box, our sample was not shipped as a bare drive. It came with the same accessories you would find in a full retail package, including a Quick Install Guide, a CD with Data Lifeguard Tools, four mounting screws and a Serial ATA cable with SecureConnect.
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In the second picture above, you can see the WD5000KS's connectors, which include an 8-pin custom header, a SATA data connector, a SATA power connector, and a 4-pin (or Molex) power connector. The inclusion of the 4-pin power connector will please users who do not have a power supply that features SATA power cables.
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In this image, you can see what the custom 8-pin header is for. When pins 1 and 2 are jumpered, SSC (Spread Spectrum Clocking) is enabled. Jumpering pins 5 and 6 enables SATA 150MB/s only operation, which may be necessary for compatibility on some older motherboards.
