Western Digital Caviar Green Drives

Western Digital divides their internal hard drives into three distinct families - the WD Caviar Blue for their basic hard drives, the WD Caviar Green for their quieter, cooler hard drives and the WD Caviar Black for their performance-grade hard drives.

According to Western Digital, Caviar Green hard disk drives offer an average power saving of 4-5 watts over their competitors, a feat that they claim is equivalent to reducing CO₂ emissions by 13.8 kg per year. Of course, that's a mere drop in the ocean but if you can help save the environment while you work or play on your computer, why not?

Western Digital Caviar Green models all support the following features :

Reduced power consumption - WD has reduced power consumption by up to 40 percent compared to standard desktop drives with the combination of WD's IntelliSeek™, NoTouch™, and IntelliPower™ technologies. WD Caviar Green drives yield an average drive power savings of 4-5 watts over standard desktop drives.

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

Advanced Format Technology (AFT) -Technology being adopted by WD and other drive manufacturers as one of multiple ways to continue growing hard drive capacities. AFT is a more efficient media format that enables increased areal densities.

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

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

NoTouch ramp load technology - The recording head never touches the disk media ensuring significantly less wear to the recording head and media as well as better drive protection in transit.

Low power spin-up - WD Caviar Green drives consume less current during startup allowing lower peak loads.

Advanced power technology - Electronic components deliver best-in-class low power consumption for reduced power requirements and increased reliability.

Today, we will look at the improved Western Digital Caviar Green 2 TB hard disk drive - the new Western Digital WD20EARX with Advanced Format Technology and SATA 6 Gbps interface. Let's find out how well this drive performs!

Packaging

Like most OEM-packed hard drives, the Western Digital WD20EARX 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 3-year warranty.

As this is an Advanced Format Technology drive, there is a warning label that reminds you to either use the Adv Format jumper or WD Align to properly set the drive for use with older operating systems like Windows XP.

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.

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