Western Digital Ships Second-Generation Green HDDs

After yesterday's release of WD ShareSpace, Western Digital's first product ever to address the small-office network storage market, the company has introduced today its second-generation Caviar Green desktop hard drives. The new HDDs feature the proprietary GreenPower technology, which is meant to significantly reduce power consumption, compared with other standard drives.

 

The platform of the new WD Caviar hard disk drives is based on the company's 333GB/platter technology with 32MB cache, delivering capacities ranging from 500GB to 1TB. These drives have been designed to consume up to 20 percent less power, and deliver a 10 percent increase in performance, when compared with the company's previous version of 1TB WD Caviar HDDs. In addition, the new drives are said to enable quieter and cooler-running desktop computer systems and external storage devices.

 

“WD's first-to-market offering of green technology has generated positive customer experience, while lessening the burden on our natural resources,” said Don Bennett, vice president and general manager of WD's desktop business unit. “Compared with competitive drives, customers realize a reduction in power consumption, leading to less heat generation, which enables greater long-term reliability in all applications.”

 

Western Digital's new 3.5-inch Caviar Green hard drives are equipped with some of the company's well-known technologies, including IntelliPower, IntelliSeek and the NoTouch ramp load technology. IntelliPower enables WD's HDDs to consume less power during startup, as well as during normal working time, while the NoTouch ramp load technology is meant to improve the overall lifetime of the HDDs.

 

Regarding pricing and availability, all of the company's WD Caviar Green hard drives may be ordered through select distributors and resellers. The 1TB WD Caviar Green comes with a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $219.00. In addition to the 1TB model, the company's lineup of Caviar Green hard drives also includes three other models with capacities of 750GB, 640GB and 500GB.