Western Digital has got a new hard drive on the way and it’s a world first, according to the storage company. The Black² is a combination solid-state and conventional platter-based mechanical drive with a joint capacity of 1.120TB. That’s split between a terabyte of conventional hard disc storage and a 120GB section of solid-state storage, in case you were wondering.
Kalvin Subbadu, Western Digital’s Components Sales Manager for South Africa, said in a statement “WD’s Black² is the world’s first 1TB and 120GB Dual drive in a 2.5” inch form factor, an ideal HDD for the South African gaming community which is growing exponentially every year…With WD’s Black2 dual drive, we have combined the best of both in one drive.”
“With a 120GB SSD big enough to store the OS, apps and games as well as the 1TB HDD to store all your data needs, this make it the ideal purchase for a gamer. This dual drive is also ideal for notebook users that are looking to upgrade for a faster ‘boot up’ experience. The 2.5-inch form factor means it will fit most notebooks and ultrabooks. The SATA 3 6GB/s interface is also ideal for these users, delivering performance whilst featuring capacity.”
There is a spot of confusion regarding the capacity of Western Digital’s Black² drive’s solid state section in the comment above, though it seems that 120GB is the actual size for the Black². The Western Digital Black² is due to debut in South Africa in Q1 2014, with a recommended price of R5,500 (Pricing updated, see below).
UPDATE: Western Digital SA has contacted us with new pricing for the Black² dual drive. The hard drive will carry a recommended price of R4,000 when it launches in SA next year.
UPDATE 2: The quote has been updated to read 120GB rather than 128GB for the SSD size, which was originally supplied by WD. 120GB is the correct size for the Black²’s solid-state drive portion.