Western Digital (WD) today announced it is shipping SATA II harddrives that offer a theoretical data transfer rate of up to 300 MByte per second. The new Caviar SE16 hard drive integrates 16 MByte cache and is available with 250 GByte capacity. The platters of the model rotate at a speed of 7,200 rpm.

The company said the drive will be able from the firm’s online store before May 31 and will cost $200.

In another announcement the firm introduced an external consumer drive that offers customizable color settings with the touch of a button. WD Extreme Lighted Combo 320 GByte External Hard Drives allows users to "select fast or slow kaleidoscope mode featuring the lights morphing across an array of colors ; save color settings ; turn off the drive’s lights ; or power off quickly and easily," the manufacturer said. The device is equipped with either a FireWire or an USB 2.0 port.

The drives will ship in June for about $300. (THG)