Cool-running, quiet operation, superior performance and industry-leading reliability make these next-generation WD Caviar SE drives the perfect hard drives for desktop and enterprise storage. WD, the first to introduce an 8 MB buffer, has advanced the caching algorithms of this new and improved Caviar family of hard drives, resulting in next-generation high performance - performance that matches the speed of most 16 MB cache drives. Heat is a major contributor to hard drive wear, and cool drive operating temperatures help increase long-term drive reliability. WD achieves the lowest operating temperature of any hard drive in it's class, including slower drives spinning at 5, 400 RPM, by lowering the drives' power consumption through advanced design of electronics and firmware. Today's PCs, digital video recorders and gaming machines are increasingly operated in environments where noise is less tolerated. WD minimizes WD Caviar noise to levels virtually below the threshold of human hearing with its WhisperDrive technology, which features a highly efficient power driver design. And to cut seek noise, Soft Seek technology streamlines read/write seeking algorithms, resulting in the drive operating more efficiently when accessing and writing data.