The Connectors

This is a Serial ATA hard drive, with native support for SATA 3.0 Gb/s. However, it is backward-compatible so you will have no problem using it with older SATA 1.5 Gb/s controllers. However, the faster SATA 3.0 Gb/s interface is necessary for optimal performance since this WD Caviar Green hard drive has a large 32MB buffer and boasts a sustained internal (platter-to-buffer) transfer rate of 100 MB/s.

Like all Serial ATA drives, it comes the standard SATA data (left) and power (right) connectors and is hot-pluggable. That means you can connect and disconnect this hard disk drive to your PC while it's still running. To the left side of these SATA connectors is the jumper block. From what we can tell, Western Digital ships some drives with a jumper and others without a jumper. Since our OEM unit did not come with one, it is likely that only retail drives come with the jumper.

According to the label, jumpering pins 1 and 2 enables Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC). Similarly, placing it across pins 3 and 4 enables the drive's Power Up In Standby (PUIS) mode.

Finally, placing the jumper across pins 5 and 6 will force the drive to use the slower SATA 1.5Gbits/s (OPT1) interface. This is only necessary for certain SATA controllers that do not properly implement the SATA 3.0 Gb/s speed negotiation, like the VIA VT8237 and VT8237R south bridge chips. This was not printed on the label but is one of the standard jumper settings for WD Caviar Green hard drives.

Unless you are facing any problems with the drive, there is really no need to mess around with the jumper block.

The Breather Holes

The WD Caviar Green 2TB does not have any clearly-marked breather holes on the top plate, although there are two holes on the top plate that could be breather holes. To be safe, do no cover any of these holes.

The underside has a clearly-marked breather hole (see picture on the right) near the top of the drive. This hole must not be covered.

Breather holes allow condensation inside the hard drive to escape. They also equalize the hard drive's internal pressure with the ambient air pressure. The hard disk drive needs them to function properly, so please make sure you do not occlude the holes!

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