Western Digital WD2001FASS 2 TB Caviar Black SATA 3 GB/s 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive

by Western Digital

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 4 x 1 inches ; 1.6 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B002MD05SA
• Item model number: WD2001FASSSP
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,414 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 14, 2004

Product Description

Product Packaging: Amazon Frustration-Free

WD Caviar Black high performance 3.5-inch SATA hard drives combine 7200 RPM spin speed, 32 MB or 64 MB cache, SATA 3 Gb/s interface, and up to 2 TB capacity for the ultimate in power computing. Backed by a 5-year limited warranty. High Performance Electronics Architecture: Dual processor – Twice the processing power to maximize performance. Colossal cache – Bigger, faster cache of up to 64 MB means faster performance. Rock Solid Mechanical Architecture: Dual actuator technology – A head positioning system with two actuators that improves positional accuracy over the data track(s). The primary actuator provides coarse displacement using conventional electromagnetic actuator principles. The secondary actuator uses piezoelectric motion to fine tune the head positioning to a higher degree of accuracy. StableTrac – The motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking, during read and write operations. NoTouch ramp load technology – The recording head never touches the disk media ensuring significantly less wear to the recording head and media as well as better drive protection in transit. Massive Capacity – WD Caviar Black SATA drives are available in capacities up to 2 TB. Compatible – We perform tests on hundreds of systems and a multitude of platforms in our FIT Lab and Mobile Compatibility Lab to give our customers confidence that our drives will work in their systems. 5 Year Limited Warranty.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Faster than a velociraptor and over six times the size!, October 23, 2009

By 

C. Peremsky (Tucson, AZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Western Digital WD2001FASS 2 TB Caviar Black SATA 3 GB/s 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive (Personal Computers)

I have been waiting ages for a large capacity hard drive that runs at 7,200rpm and this Caviar black has most definitely answered my call.

Lets look at the technical specs first... As Borat would say, They're very nice! (bet you didn't expect a lame Borat reference did you?)
It features: Two Processors, Four 500GB platters, 64MB of cache and a dual mode actuator system that, (to make a long story short) enables precision head tracking that speeds up your seek times. Plus like most Western Digital hard drives, this one features a No-Touch loader, meaning the read and write head never comes in contact with any of the platters, increasing the life span of the hard drive.

Now to benchmarks. (all testing performed on an Intel 2.4Ghz Q6600 paired with XFX 780i Sli Mobo and recorded in HDTach)
First off, this thing has the fastest sustained writes and reads of any standard magnetic drive I've used. (or heard of for that matter) Mine exceeded 113MB/s each compared to my previous 1.5TB Barracuda that scored 99MB/s sustained reads and 84MB/s sustained writes. That gives the Caviar Black about 16 and 30 percent faster sustained reads and writes respectively!

Random Access Reads and Writes were also faster for the Caviar Black at 7.4ms and 5ms respectively. Compared to the Barracuda's 12.9 and 5.4.

Burst Read speeds for the Caviar Black were 215.1MB/s compared to the Barracuda's 209.1MB/s

Also, just for fun I compared the Caviar Black's benchmarks against my 300GB Western Digital VelociRaptor. (Thinking the VelociRaptor would totally own it) I was pretty shocked at the results.

Raptor sustained read/write: 99.1MB/s and 98.2MB/s
Caviar sustained read/write: 113.3MB/s and 113.1MB/s (It actually beat it)

Raptor random access read/write: 7.3ms and 3.3ms
Caviar random access read/write: 7.5ms and 4.9ms (Pretty close here)

Raptor Burst read: 250.3MB/s
Caviar Burst read: 215.1MB/s (O well, can't win em all ;)

Not bad considering this thing is running about 27 percent slower than the Raptor. :D

Bottom line is, the Caviar Black 2TB is a hard drive running nearly as fast (or faster) than a VelociRaptor for about only a hundred bucks more and its six and a half times the capacity. Is it worth it to you? I think it is, the price will only drop in time to come but with this size and these speeds even at the $299msrp I don't think the Caviar Black 2TB's value can be beat at the moment.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Stay away for now. 2TB version., December 10, 2010

By 

nr2134 (Addison, IL) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Western Digital WD2001FASS 2 TB Caviar Black SATA 3 GB/s 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive (Personal Computers)

Its not often that I take the time to write a review on a product, but I had to do it for this drive. I have been in the IT field for over 20 years and though I have seen it all.

I purchased 3 of the 2TB Black drives in the last month. One here on Amazon and the rest, somewhere else. Out of the 3, 1 was DOA, 2nd died in 3 hours and the last, had so many bad sectors that WD's own software ran for 13 hours and it finally gave up and errored out. This is completely unacceptable in this day and age. How can they be releasing 3TB drives when they have huge issues with the 2TB offerings. It almost seems like they are having problems with the latest batch reading through some review on other sites. I also purchased a couple of the 640GB drives and these Im extremely happy with. Even the 2TB Green drives have been good to me. Out of the 8 that I purchased this year, only one had to be replaced, which I consider acceptable.

Thankfully, WD's RMA process is painless, but there is a catch. When you receive your replacement drive, it only comes with a 90-Day Warranty. WD, can explain this to me. How can you reduce the warranty on this drive from 5 years to 90 days when its your QC issues that are causing this high of a failure rate that makes the IBM Deathstar look good.



If you are looking for 2TB drives that will not be used in a RAID environment, check out the 2TB Green drives, or even Hitachi.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poor Amazon Packaging, July 7, 2010

By 

Peter A. Mcgovern (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Western Digital WD2001FASS 2 TB Caviar Black SATA 3 GB/s 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive (Personal Computers)

This hard drive came basically loose in a box and was rattling around. Upon opening the box I found another box. Inside the second box was a hard drive that was basically loose. The second box was constructed in a way that, if it had been made of quality materials may have held the hard drive securely. But because of the cheapness of the construction, it had completely failed (tiny cardboard tabs were supposed to be in tiny slots but weren't) thereby releasing the hard drive so that it could bounce freely around in every direction with every drop or bang.

I will *not* consign 2 terabytes of data to a drive that has been shipped improperly and outside of Western Digital's shipping specifications. Hard drives consist of moving parts that must operate at high speeds for years with only microns of tolerance. The *last* thing a hard drive needs is to be banged about for days in a poorly packaged box. I will never buy a hard drive from Amazon again unless it is a retail drive that has been packed securely by the manufacturer.

I have no choice but to return the drive in the same crumby box it came in. This means that Amazon, after they receive it, will then ship this drive which has traveled in two directions back to some customer (possibly you) for whom it will probably fail.

There is a retailer (with two zs and an f in its name)that ships hard drives properly in a secure foam insert which surrounds the drive on all six sides. They are a little more expensive than Amazon, but at least if there is a problem with the drive..it won't be because of negligent shipping practices.

BTW, almost *all* of the large online retailers participate in this folly. Anytime you read reviews of a drive and see lots of DOAs *and* complaints about the packaging you can put two and two together.

Oh....also.....I have one of these drives I ordered from the retailer who ships them properly and it is a great drive!

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