With 3-Gb/s transfer rates and a 16-Mbyte cache, the company is aiming these desktop drives squarely at those running high-performance computing and multimedia systems.

According to the disk manufacturer, the 750-Gbyte hard drives will include the company's SecurePark technology, which anchors the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down, and when the drive is not operating. This will improve the disk's overall shock tolerance by ensuring that the recording heads never touch the disk surface, while also reduciing head and surface wear, Western Digital says.

Also built into the Caviar drives is something called StableTrac, another technology that reduces system vibration and stabilizes the spinning platters for accurate tracking during read and write operations.

And finally, for the Watt conscious out there, WD is including its IntelliSeek technology, which the company says will calculate optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise, and vibration.

The Caviar SE16 750 GB (model WD7500AAKS) is available now through Western Digital's online store and other online distributors. Purchase does not include crackers or buttered bread.