Product Features - Western Digital caviar blue xl500s Technical Reference Manual

Description and Features XL500S
1.2

Product Features

Serial ATA (SATA) — Serial ATA (SATA) is the next generation bus interface for hard
drives. It is designed to replace Parallel ATA, and has many advantages including
increased transfer rate, improved signal integrity, enhanced data protection, and hot plug
support.
Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) — With PMR technology the
magnetization of each data bit is aligned vertically to the spinning disk, rather than
longitudinally as has been the case in hard drive technology for decades. This enables
more data on a given disk than is possible with conventional longitudinal recording, and
provides a platform for future expansion of hard drive densities.
IntelliSeek™ — Key product feature that calculates optimum seek speeds to lower
power consumption, noise, and vibration.
NoTouch™ Ramp Load Technology — The recording head never touches the disk media
ensuring significantly less wear to the recording head and media as well as better drive protection in
transit.
Native Command Queuing (NCQ) — Performance of a random I/O workload can be
improved through intelligent re-ordering of the I/O requests so they read/write to and from
the nearest available sectors and minimize the need for additional disk revolutions or head
actuator movement. This improvement can be achieved though Native Command Queing
(NCQ) , which is supported by these hard drives.
Pre-emptive Wear Leveling (PWL) —This WD feature provides a solution for
protecting the recording media against mechanical wear. In cases where the drive is so
busy with incoming commands that it is forced to stay in a same cylinder position for a
long time, the PWL control engine initiates forced seeks so that disk lubricant maintains
an even distribution and does not become depleted. This feature ensures reliability for
applications that perform a high incidence of read/write operations at the same physical
location on the disk.
Femto Slider — These drives incorporate the femto slider form factor in which the read/
write head is mounted on the small, lightweight femto slider which allows the head to
move more quickly from track to track on the disk.
S.M.A.R.T. Command Transport (SCT) — The SCT Command Transport feature set
provides a method for a host to send commands and data to a device and for a device to
send data and status to a host using log pages.
World Wide Name (WWN) — The World Wide Name (WWN) defined in ATA/ATAPI-7
is a modification of the IEEE extended unique identifier 64 bit standard (EUI-64) and is
comprised of three major components: naming authority, organizationally unique identifier
(OUI) and serial number. WD's OUI is 0014EEh.
Reliability Features Set-Data Lifeguard™ — Representing WD's ongoing
commitment to data protection, Data Lifeguard includes features that enhance the drive's
ability to prevent data loss. Data Lifeguard data protection utilities include thermal
management, an environmental protection system, and embedded error detection and
repair features that automatically detect, isolate, and repair problem areas that may
develop over the extended use of the hard drive. With these enhanced data reliability
features, the drive can perform more accurate monitoring, error repair, and deliver
exceptional data security.
2 RELEASED 10/21/10 (WD CONFIDENTIAL) 2679-701211-A06