Introduction

When Seagate sent over their new SATA 6 Gb/s Barracuda XT 2TB hard drive we were caught off guard. At the time I was neck deep in enterprise products and working with LSI on their new RAID controllers. If the Caviar Black 2TB drive would have been tested before the Barracuda XT, would our final thoughts have been different than they were? Today we are going to put the two drives head to head in a battle of the two flagship 2TB, 7,200 RPM contenders (for your 299.99 each).

We have already tested two 2TB drives from Western Digital this year. The first drive was the Caviar Green. The Caviar Green performed very well, but we didn't like its 299 Dollar price. Since then Newegg has lowered their price on the Caviar Green 2TB and you can now pick up the Green version for 139.99. At that price the drive made our Holiday Gift Guide as a must have (or receive).

Our second 2TB drive review from Western Digital was the RE4-GP, an enterprise class drive meant for near line, NAS and general enterprise duty. While testing the RE4-GP we found that the drive was a little slower than we expected, but once paired with another drive in RAID it was like someone flipped the switch. In RAID, what the RE4-GP was designed for, the drives really came alive, especially in our server tests.

Today we are looking at Western Digital's third 2TB HDD, the Caviar Black. As with all of the company's latest products, the Caviar Black packs a lot of exciting technology, some of which has carried over from their enterprise line-up. Let's have a look!