Western Digital certainly has the middle-capacity sector locked down, with yet another drive that punches above its price. This may be the second cheapest 400GB drive, but it's also the fastest.

The Caviar SE just edged out Seagate's Barracuda ES from the top slot in the 400GB drive category when loading the Relic level in Crysis, taking the same time as the 500GB Caviar AV. It was also faster than the Barracuda ES in our Gimp image editing test. This was despite the fact that its throughput results in HD Tach 3 RW were slower than those of both Seagate's Barracuda ES and Hitachi's P7K500, thanks to its 160GB platters.

If you can't muster enough cash to buy a 500GB drive, the £60 that you'll have to fork out for the 400GB Caviar SE is good value. It isn't quite as fast as the 500GB Caviar AV when image editing, but it provides the best balance of performance and price of all the 400GB drives.

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