Western Digital's mainstream desktop hard drives are getting a bump in capacity, with the manufacturer upgrading its 2-platter 500GB model to a 640GB version. Sure, the new Caviar SE16 drive may not look that exciting from a storage capacity perspective due to the fact that 1TB drives have been shipping for quite some time now, but the switch from 250GB to 320GB capacity per-platter is noteworthy nonetheless.
This type of areal density places WD in direct competition with Samsung's F1 lineup featuring 334GB per-platter sizes with similar thermal, acoustic, and power envelope specifications. Western Digital's 3.5-inch Caviar SE16 disks boast a 3Gb/s SATA interface, feature 16MB of cache built in, and are available now for $140.