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 new Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB hard disk drive with AFT (Advanced Format Technology) - the WD30EZRSDTL. Let's find out how well this drive performs!

Packaging

The Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB hard disk drive came in a big, brown cardboard box. It is basically the retail box minus the outer sleeve. There's a label on the bottom of the box that lists the model number and length of warranty. Interestingly, this drive comes with free telephone support for 30 days. Western Digital probably figured that you might need it to set up the drive properly.

Inside, you will find a quick installation guide, and under that, the hard disk drive nestled between two plastic spacers. To the right is a small cardboard box containing the SATA controller card. Basically, the kit consists of :

• the Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB hard disk drive,
• the HighPoint Rocket 620 SATA controller card,
• and a Quick Install Guide.

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