Western Digital RE4-GP Drives

Western Digital divides their internal hard drives into four distinct families :

• the Desktop Storage line - WD Caviar Black, WD Caviar Green and WD Caviar Blue drives,
• the Mobile Storage line - WD Scorpio Black and WD Scorpio Blue drives,
• the Enterprise Storage line - WD VelociRaptor, WD S25 and WD RE4/3 drives, and finally,
• the CE (Consumer Electronics) Storage line - WD AV drives.

Western Digital's Enterprise Storage line covers four different products :

• WD VelociRaptor - for high-performance applications
• WD S25 - the SAS version of the WD VelociRaptor
• WD RE4 / RE3 - RAID-optimized versions of the WD Caviar desktop hard disk drives
• WD RE4-GP - lower-powered, RAID-optimized version of the WD RE4 hard disk drive

The biggest difference between the Western Digital RE4 hard disk drive and the Western Digital RE4-GP hard disk drive is the spindle speed. The "regular" RE4 drive spins at 7,200 RPM while the RE4-GP spins at a slower fixed speed between 5,400 RPM and 7,200 RPM. Everything else remains identical between the two drives.

Although the WD RE4-GP may appear to be a RAID-optimized version of the WD Caviar Green desktop hard disk drive, it is far more than just the Caviar Green with TLER support. Take a look at its key features :

• Faster - 64 MB cache, dual processors, and increased areal density yield twice the processing power results in up to 25% performance improvement over the previous generation.

• Greener - Improvements in power-conserving technologies - IntelliSeek, IntelliPark, and IntelliPower - deliver improved power consumption over our previous generation of WD RE-GP drive.

• Improved rotary vibration tolerance - Advanced mechanical optimizations along with system characterization and validation provide the highest performance under vibration conditions of any WD product.

• 24x7 reliability - With 1.2 million hours MTBF, these drives have the highest available reliability rating on a high-capacity drive.

• IntelliPower - A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate, and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance. Additionally, GreenPower drives consume less current during start up allowing more drives to spin up simultaneously resulting in faster system readiness.

• IntelliSeek - Calculates optimum seek speeds to lower unnecessary power consumption, noise, and vibration.

• IntelliPark - Delivers lower power consumption by automatically unloading recording heads during idle to reduce aerodynamic drag, and by disengaging read/write channel electronics.

• Active Power Management - WD drives with GreenPower Technology monitor work load and automatically invoke idle mode whenever possible to further reduce unnecessary power consumption. Drive recovery time from idle mode is less than one second, providing seamless power management between the drive and the host controller.

• StableTrac - Secures the motor shaft at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking, during read and write operations.

• RAID-specific time-limited error recovery (TLER) - Pioneered by WD, this feature prevents drive fallout caused by the extended hard drive error-recovery processes common to desktop drives.

• Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward (RAFF) - Optimizes operation and performance when the drives are used in vibration-prone multi-drive systems such as rack mounted servers.

Western Digital currently offers only a single RE4-GP model - the WD2002FYPS with a storage capacity of 2 TB. Let's find out just how well it performs against the 10,000 RPM WD VelociRaptor and other leading desktop hard disk drives.

Packaging

Like most OEM-packed hard drives, the WD RE4-GP 2 TB hard disk drive came in just a sealed anti-static plastic packet with a sachet of dessicants to keep it dry. Other than the sparse packaging (and no documentation), this OEM-packed drive is no different from the retail version, right down to the excellent 5-year warranty.

All you need to do is just cut open the plastic packet and slide out the drive. Be sure to ground yourself before removing and handling the hard disk drive as static can damage it. In particular, you should try to avoid touching the exposed PCB located at the base of the drive.

If you like your packaging or need to deliver this hard disk drive by mail, you can always opt for the retail version of the drive. It comes with its own box and proper padding to ensure the drive survives a mail delivery. Of course, the retail package comes with a price premium as well.

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