WD Caviar & RE2 GreenPower 1TB HDs

Performance Summary: Despite their sub-7200 RPM spindle speeds, Western Digital's GreenPower drives proved they can hang with, and even beat, some respectable 7200 RPM drives (and a 10k RPM drive for that matter) in many tests. The drives offer solid performance despite their reduced power consumption and low noise levels. 

In the end, does Western Digital's GreenPower line really help the environment? From what we've seen so far, the answer seems to be "yes." Not only do the 1TB Caviar GP and RE2-GP offer good performance, but they also require less energy (at idle and during read/write operations) and generate less noise than most of the other 3.5" SATA desktop/server drives on the market. WD created a winning formula with the GreenPower platform. We would obviously love to see even better performance from the drives in future revision, but can't complain about the level of performance provided.

We're glad to see innovations like these, where one aspect of a product is enhanced (power in this case) without severely compromising something else that is important (performance in this case). The big CPU and GPU companies are already battling on this front, so it's nice to see a hard drive company jump in with the same idea and take the lead. We think it is great to see innovation that truly has a positive impact.

Backing these drives is a 3-year warranty for the Caviar GP and a 5-year warranty for the RE2-GP. We of course wish the Caviar GP also had a 5-year warranty, but three years at least matches the current industry standard for consumer-level drives. Recall that the Caviar GP is a consumer desktop drive, while the RE2-GP is designed for more demanding server environments. Just in case you want to figure out how much money can be saved by deploying RE2-GP drives in your company's server environment, WD created a handy money savings calculator on its web site.

Speaking of money, you must be wondering how much these two huge drives cost. The 1TB Caviar GP currently costs about $230, and the 1TB RE2-GP runs about $250, according to our PriceGrabber search engine at the time of this writing. These prices are fair, as they fall in line with or are lower than the prices of other 1TB drives on the market.

WD Caviar GP 1TB SATA HDD If you need massive storage but don't need the absolute best performance and want to decrease your electricity usage, we highly recommend the 1TB WD Caviar GP.
•  BIG capacity •  Relatively low power consumption •  Low noise level •  3-year warranty	•  Not a 5-year warranty •  Lower performance than other 1TB drives

WD RE2-GP 1TB SATA HDD For energy-conscious server builds, we recommend you consider the WD RE2-GP line of drives.
•  BIG capacity •  Relatively low power consumption •  Low noise level •  5-year warranty	•  Lower performance than other 1TB drives