At the beginning of last year we saw the introduction of the power and energy efficiency behind the Western Digital 1TB Green Disc.  This really amazed us all as it romped on home against its main rival the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11, knocking it well into the sidelines.   To date the secret behind the true spindle speeds of the Western Digital GP 1TB disc are only known to the few.  A good set of guesses have been made, though just not right.   In July 2008, along came Seagate not wanting to stand still with their 1.5TB Hard disc which then caught the community truly on the hop.  Drive claims of 120 MB/s sustained data rate and a 32MB Cache.  Today we see Western Digital coming back with a bang introducing the first new ground breaking 2TB Green Hard Disc.   A few thoughts that will be rattling through the minds.  2TB WHOW, what can we store on this.

The design of a disc at this magnitude is aimed squarely at the end user that stores masses amounts of games and fixes.   Oh yeah mega gamer whose hard discs fill with all those patches and games galore that require excessive disc space.   These discs will most certainly satisfy all those thirsty requirements listed.   Video streaming and monitoring, file storage the list itself is endless of the capabilities.   Some files used within the professional graphics arena can be as large as 2GB and as recently demonstrated some Photoshop files in excess of 750MB's.  Therefore the need for good high-end storage is in demand and Western Digital has been to fore in providing a sound eco-friendly solution.

When the 1TB drives became available last year we forecasted that the standard system of the workstation and SoHo users would have as a slave disc of data storage the 1TB disc.  This fact has been well borne out as many good OEM's and System builders have followed this route.  Taking into consideration the actual cost per MB of a 1TB hard disc has dropped so greatly it makes sound logical sense.  Will this see the advent of the 2TB disc being a slave disc by the year end, time will tell.

Massive hard discs of this nature now are being vogue with many end users and the demand for reviews with the discs in as powerful systems possible is the request of the day.   With professional graphic’s applications producing huge files and demanding more disc space, it’s critical that the correct systems show the right hard discs, as there are some instances conflicts.   Here with showing exclusive first outings of the new professional graphic cards, it’s critical that the whole system I/O performs flawlessly.   Therefore with each new outing, you the reader knows, what is seen here – works.

Before we go on any further with the dialogue let’s have a few pictures to grasp the fantastic engineering that has gone into this most powerful beast to venture out from their prestigious stable.

Key Features of the Western Digital Caviar® Green™ (Our Thanks to Western Digital PR for the information supplied here)

Cooler. Quieter. Eco-friendlier.

Western Digital Caviar Green SATA hard drives reduce power consumption by up to 40% compared to standard desktop drives and offer best-in-class acoustics and operating temperature. Based on WD’s exclusive GreenPower™ technology, these drives are designed to deliver power savings as the primary attribute. By using environmentally-conscious PCs with our WD Caviar Green drives on board, large organizations with many desktop computers can minimize their carbon footprint and save real money on electricity costs.

Ø  Reduced power consumption — WD has reduced power consumption by up to 40% compared to standard desktop drives with the combination of WD’s IntelliSeek™, NoTouch™, and IntelliPower™ technologies.

Ø  Environmentally responsible — WD Caviar Green drives yield an average drive power savings of 4-5 watts over standard desktop drives making it possible for our energy-conscious customers to build systems with higher capacities and the right balance of system performance, ensured reliability, and energy conservation.

Ø  Cool and quiet — GreenPower technology yields lower operating temperatures for increased reliability and low acoustics for ultra-quiet PCs and external drives.

Western Digital Caviar® Green™   Featuring WD’s Exclusive Intelligent Drive Technology

Ø  IntelliPower — A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate, and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance.

Ø  IntelliSeek — Calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise, and vibration.

Ø  NoTouch Ramp Load Technology — The recording head never touches the disk media ensuring better drive protection in transit as well as significantly less wear to the recording head and media.

Ø  StableTrac™ — The motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking, during read and write operations. (2 TB models only)

Ø  Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) — Employs PMR technology to achieve even greater areal density.

Ø  Low Power Spin-Up — WD Caviar Green drives consume less current during start-up allowing lower peak loads.

Ø  Advanced Power Technology — Electronic components deliver best-in-class low power consumption for reduced power requirements and increased reliability.

With these facts completed lets move onwards to some pictures and the Set-Up for the tests.

Page 1 - Introduction
Page 2 - Pictures, System Set-Up and Benchmarks Used
Page 3 - PC MARK 2005 Advanced, ATTO Benchmark and Everest Ultimate Ver. 4.6
Page 4 - HD Tach 3.0.4.0
Page 5 - SiSoftware Sandra 2009 with SP1
Page 6 - HD Tune Pro Ver. 3 and File Transfer Copy Speeds
Page 7 - Conclusions