Western Digital Rolls Out WD Green 4 TB 3.5-inch Hard Drive

[btarunr]

Keeping up with its product roadmaps, Western Digital rolled out WD Green 4 TB hard drive (model: WD40EZRX). Designed for personal desktops that need energy-efficient, high-capacity storage, the drive offers 4000 GB of unformatted space, which should yield about 3.6 TB under a Windows NTFS file-system. Built in the 3.5-inch form-factor, the drive features SATA 6 Gb/s interface, variable sub-6,000 RPM spindle-speeds, 64 MB cache, and acoustics management. When spinning and idling, the drive is designed to draw about 3.3W, which goes up to 4.5W under stress, and just 0.4W, when the drive is parked and spun-down. Available now, the WD Green 4 TB is priced between $170 and $190, depending on what package you choose.



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[miluthui]

Good price but I've heard many bad stories with the Green series, I think it's better to buy the Red one.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Good price but I've heard many bad stories with the Green series, I think it's better to buy the Red one.

you cant really compare them IMO - Greens arent made specifically for server/NAS use like reds are.

Ive been running a 2TB green drive for close to 3 years in my pc and never had any issues. there are ways to fix their spin down times though which greatly increases their lifespan if used in a NAS which powers drives down when not in use


Greens are fine for normal desktop use. and placed inside a enclose for use as an external drive.

 

[Fourstaff]

Good price but I've heard many bad stories with the Green series, I think it's better to buy the Red one.

On the other hand I have never heard any bad stories about the Greens. They have a tendency to spin down to conserve power but once spun its quite fast.

 

[kater]

WD Greens DO NOT, repeat DO NOT, change RPM on the go. They work at CONSTANT rotational speed. It varies from model to model, some are 5400, some are 5900, but for any given drive the speed is constant. They are not capable of spinning down or up. Please, read WD marketing BS carefully. IntelliSeek is not about changing speed but about changing seek speed.

This has been a major misunderstanding caused by marketing speak that proves difficult to decipher. From the beginning of the Green series, masses have believed that these drives can actually change the speed. THIS IS NOT TRUE. There are plenty of reviews (see SCPR, storagereview...) that have proven this claim to be UNTRUE. WD itself has never published official speeds (at least so far) but only claimed the drive are somehow optimized. Optimized = slower, but constant RPM. That is all. Of course, just like any modern HDD, WD Green can stop alltogether and then spin up. But this is 1 or 0, not in between.

So far only selected Hitachi drives can change RPM during operation - see Hitachi CinemaStar 5K1000. Can't say if this is the only one or Hitachi have introduced more such drives.

Please, get this right, let's kill this myth that WD spawned.

 

[Fourstaff]

Of course, just like any modern HDD, WD Green can stop alltogether and then spin up.

Yup this is what I mean. They do that very often.

 

[RejZoR]

Caviar Black or bust.

 

[progste]

Good price but I've heard many bad stories with the Green series, I think it's better to buy the Red one.

i have 3 caviar greens and all my friends use them too and not one ever failed, also i've always only heard good things about these drives

 

[kater]

Ranting aside, I also have a trusty WD GP 640GB, one of the earlier models. Great archive/backup drive, v quiet, vibrates only a little. Compared to another WD I have, Blue 500GB, the Green is v v quiet. Performance wise - never bothered to check, as both these drives serve only to hold s***t. Historically, I also had 2 VRs and also still use a Scorpio notebook drive in my HTPC. None of my WDs ever failed or dissappointed me.

BUT!!!

Their WD GP / Green marketing efforts are, to say the least, shady. If they've stepped up and clarified this RPM issue once and for all, that would only help them gain more cred. For now, I'll hold it against them.

 

[Fx]

I have had 4-5 Greens over the years and none of them failed. I also used em as they were designed; not in a RAID. They are good for a media drive, and perfect as a backup to a media drive.

 

[newtekie1]

Good price but I've heard many bad stories with the Green series, I think it's better to buy the Red one.

The Red and Green drives are identical, they even use the same PCB with the exact same components. I've had both sitting next to each other on me desk and they are identical.

The only difference is the firmware loaded on each, mainly the Red drives support TLER, which makes them suited for RAID.

 

[Jetster]

The only WD green drives that had issue were the first ones released 2 Tb Caviar Green drives In 09. That mistake has haunted them

 

[TheOne]

I had trouble with a WD15EARS, I purchased it at the beginning of 2010 and started having problems with it reading and writing within the first 6 months, did a full format on the drive and it worked ok until last November when the drive became pretty much unreadable, fortunately it was still under WD warranty so I was able to RMA it, they sent a refurbished WD15EARX, I've turned up the head parking to 5 minutes, and so far I haven't had any trouble with the drive.

 

[miluthui]

Whoa my post is already quoted 4 times I'm so honored guys anyway if this new WD Green 4TB has no issue like the old model I may buy one. I'm actually eyeing for the Red 4TB as my current Red 3TB has been serving me well but it's full already too much porn lol.