Conclusion

Armed with dual processors and a fast 64 MB cache, the 3 TB Western Digital Caviar Green is latest iteration of Western Digital's venerable eco-friendly desktop hard disk drives, and the first to feature new higher-density 750 GB platters. With a reported spindle speed of around 5,405 RPM, this drive sacrifices some performance for a lower ecological and monetary footprint. In other words, it's economical as well as eco-friendly.

Like all newer Western Digital high-capacity hard disk drives, this model supports the Western Digital-pioneered Advanced Format Technology (AFT). However, this is not full-fledged AFT drive as it still uses 512-byte emulation for compatibility reasons, and therefore appears to be a regular hard disk drive to the outside world. Due to the use of an emulation mode, there are performance ramifications, of course. You can read all about it here - The Western Digital Advanced Format Performance Comparison Guide.

When we compared the new 3 TB Caviar Green's performance against its 2 TB brother, it was faster at random accesses but slower when it came to sequential accesses. Despite its higher-density platters, the 3 TB Caviar Green delivered a lower internal transfer rate. As a result, it was slower than the 2 TB Caviar Green in the real-world WinMark 99 benchmarks.

The Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB (and its 2.5 TB brother) are the only hard disk drives available today that offer storage capacities above 2.1 TB. So if you need a ton of storage capacity in a single drive, there is only one obvious choice. Kudos to Western Digital for introducing a workaround to the 2.1 TB capacity limit and delivering the first internal hard disk drive to break the limit!

Before you go running to stores to buy one, please note that this hard disk drive will not support older operating systems like Windows XP. It is also more than twice as expensive as the 2 TB Western Digital Caviar Green. Obviously, Western Digital decided that there should be a price premium for a drive that, for the moment, has no competitor.

To learn how to properly install this 3 TB hard disk drive in Microsoft Windows Vista, click here!

For the lowest current prices on Western Digital Caviar Green hard disk drives, click here!

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