Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS

Note: Since the publication of this review, this drive has been retested under Testbed4, a newer hardware/software/benchmark platform. Please see this article for updated results. This review remains for reference purposes only.

Western Digital Caviar WD2500KS Capacities Model Number Capacity WD2500KS 250 GB Lowest Real-Time Price (250 GB): Introduction WD has been noticeably absent when it comes to SATA drives featuring a native, non-bridged interface. While Seagate has had native SATA designs in place for over two years now (ever since the Barracuda ATA V) and while Maxtor has boasted the MaXLine III and DiamondMax 10 (with 16 MB buffers to boot!), WD has stuck with placing bridge chips on tried-and-true designs while the market transitioned. Even the blazing 10,000 RPM Raptor remains a PATA design retrofit for SATA operation.

Finally, however, things are changing. Western Digital has recently began shipping the Caviar WD2500KS, the firm's first from-the-ground-up SATA design. WD actually labels the drive "SATA II" since it implements the 300 MB/sec transfer rates found in the SATA-2 spec. Regrettably, despite the "SATA II" moniker, the WD2500KS does not implement SATA Native Command Queuing (NCQ). Though competitors such as Seagate and Maxtor have commenced with NCQ inclusion even on desktop-oriented drives, WD claims that NCQ does not help and can even hurt single-user performance.

Like all Caviars, the WD2500KS is built around a 7200 RPM spindle. WD claims an 8.9 millisecond access time. Though they have demonstrated the ability to work with 100 GB platters in the WD3200JD, the firm has chosen to go with three of the more conservative, last-generation 83 GB disks to yield a capacity of 250 GB. Most interesting, however, is the drive's buffer size: WD has followed Maxtor's lead and moved to 16 megabytes.

In fact, the firm dubs the WD2500KS as the "Caviar SE16," or Special Edition 16, perhaps an attempt to reclaim the magic of the original "Special Edition." Long-time readers surely recall the original WD1000BB SE that broke industry paradigm by quadrupling buffer sizes from a standard two megabytes to a then unheard of eight.

As a capacious 7200 RPM drive marketed squarely at leading-edge individuals, the Caviar WD2500KS will be compared against the following drives in the tests that follow:

Hitachi Deskstar 7K400 (400 GB)	Previous-generation competing unit
Maxtor MaXLine III (300 GB)	Current-generation competing unit
Samsung SpinPoint P80 (160 GB)	Previous-generation competing unit
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 (400 GB)	Current-generation competing unit
Western Digital Caviar WD3200JD (320 GB)	Manufacturer's current SATA-I offering