Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB Hard Drive Review

Manufacturer’s Product Page: WD Caviar Green 2 TB
Model Number: WD20EADS
TechWiki Info: Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA - TechWiki
Price: Click Here to Compare Prices
Warranty: 3 years




In a computing world that is seeing its storage needs rapidly expand with the introduction of HD movies and other large file formats, we have seen a quick surge in the capacities of today’s hard drives. While we all know that the recent SSD revolution has produced some of the fastest consumer-available storage mediums around, these drives lack the capacity to store large amounts of data at a reasonable price. This is where drives like the Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB come into the equation. They offer vast storage capacities while retailing for a fraction of what higher-end SSDs go for while offering more than acceptable performance.

In the past we have looked at many of the various storage options available but this is the first drive we are going to put under the microscope which is not marketed or designed for enthusiasts or speed-seekers. While Western Digital’s own Black and VelociRaptor series steal the lime light, these Green series drives go about their business giving not only great bang for your buck performance but abilities that you cant get in other lines. After all, a VelociRaptor may make a great OS drive, but sticking it in an external enclosure is not such a great idea due to the heat it produces but it is these situations the Green series is designed for. Based on previous experiences, an extremely fast hard drive for the OS (or Solid State drive) combined with a Green for storage purposes is about as good a one-two combination as you can get.

These drives are all about efficiency, whether that be in reduced power consumption or noise. However, to get this reduced power consumption and noise Western Digital had to design this drive to rotate much slower and WD states each one may perform differently as they are set to their optimum speed at the factory. As such, speed can vary from 5400 to 7200RPMs and based on previous use, we are more inclined to believe they are usually on the lower end of that spectrum. In other words these drives are designed to be data drives first and foremost and not ultra low latency, “high performance” products. When you consider the fact that a millisecond or ten really doesn’t matter in a drive which has data storage as its primary purpose, this seems like a brilliant move to us. Catering to different niches with separate products lines (Green, Blue and Black in WD’s case) just makes sense to us.

As a nice little bonus, the Green series are priced to be a much greater value when compared to the Black, Blue and VelociRaptor series. In the case of the WD 2TB iteration, we have recently seen them on sale for as little as $159, but a more typical price is $170 which translates into a lot of storage space for your hard earned dollar. This frugality combined with its efficiency is the main reason why we are so interested in seeing what this drive is made of. We will of course be putting it through the wringer to see how much performance the Western Digital Green 2TB has to offer but our main focus is going to be on how well it does as a storage drive. One way or another, we are excited by the possibilities this drive opens up for consumers.