Western Digital's Performance-Oriented 4 TB Hard Drive

Western Digital recently added a new model to its Black family of performance-oriented hard drives. The new disk, technically referred to as WD4001FAEX, sports 4 TB of space. It spins at 7,200 RPM, employs a 6 Gb/s SATA interface, and includes 64 MB of cache.

Although the company won't divulge how many platters this behemoth uses to hit its capacity ceiling, our benchmark/power data suggests the magic number is five. You can’t tell by simply looking at it; the drive is 26.1 mm-thick, just like many other 3 and 4 TB repositories.

As a general rule, the more capacity a hard drive hosts, the longer it takes to benchmark. Western Digital's WD4001FAEX is certainly no exception. It took us 19 hours of testing to get a complete picture of its performance. Fortunately, the company kept this in mind when it sent out samples, providing us with some much-needed sugar. It's too bad that you don't get chocolate as part of the disk's standard bundle. When you spend $330, a bare 4 TB hard drive is all you get.

Technical Specifications

Manufacturer Western Digital Family Black Model Number WD4001FAEX Form Factor 3.5" Capacity 4 TB RPM 7,200 Other Capacities 500 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB Platters Unknown Cache 64 MB Interface SATA 6Gb/s Operating Temperature 0-55° C Power Consumption at Idle (Manufacturer's Specifications) 8.1 W Power Consumption at Idle (Measured) 7.9 W Maximum Allowable Shock Level (2 ms, read) 65 G

Image 1 of 2 Image 2 of 2

Benchmark System