Western Digital Corp is shipping the latest model in its Caviar line, a 1.6Gb 3.5 disk drive with enhanced IDE and data transfer rates of up to 16.6Mbps. The drive has three platters, each with a capacity of 540Mb, and uses thin film heads. Part of the improvement in storage capacity has been achieved by implementation of the firm’s chip set, now in its third generation, which increases bit densities through hard sectoring and Partial Response Maximum Likelihood read channel. It also has CacheFlow4 which the company says enables adaptive read and write caching capabilites that complement caching capabilites of today’s operating systems. Companies taking it OEM include AT&T Global Information Solutions, Dell Computer Corp and Gateway 2000 Inc.
