I really don't understand

Submitted by atomaweapon on Mon, 10/06/2008 - 2:05pm

I really don't understand this whole "green computing" intiative some companies have going. I can maybe understand apple going that route since they cater to an uppity genre of people, but I don't really think regular everyday folks giving a crap if their terabyte drive is "green" or not. Companies should learn unless these "green" products offer some other kind of benefit, no one is really going to take a performance hit just to go green. It's just ridiculous.

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I bought the 500GB version

Submitted by horzo on Sat, 10/04/2008 - 7:46am

I bought the 500GB version of this drive for a Shuttle-based Linux server I built last month. Combined with a Celeron 440 and a couple of 1GB RAM sticks, it only draws around 43W during normal operation. Also very quiet and generates very little heat.

I don't fool myself into thinking I'm saving a ton of money, but for a system that's running 24/7 and wouldn't benefit much from a 7200RPM drive, why not?

 

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It is a nice cheap drive for mass storage though

Submitted by Skiplives on Fri, 10/03/2008 - 1:36pm

 The drive goes for $130 as an OEM part on Newegg. The WD Black 7200rpm model is $30 more.

I've already installed one, but my need was a bit peculiar.  I had to replace the HDD on the family G5 iMac.  This is the computer where all the family photos and videos end up, so a 1TB drive made sense.  Also, the drive runs cooler as well as with lower power.  The iMac is a laptop wedged into a monitor case, the power supply is small and not robust; and heat is an issue considering how the thing is jammed in the case. I had to move some ducting to remove the old drive and fit the new one in.

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Ahh, here we go

Submitted by TheMurph on Fri, 10/03/2008 - 1:20pm

Ahh, here we go again.

Western Digital's green drives are relatively uninteresting to a general consumer who just wants the cheapest, biggest drive on the market.  These are far more pertinent to enterprise use, where the power savings of 1,000 of Greenpower drives in huge clusters of storage will actually play a big role.

As it stands, you aren't going to suddenly see a huge reduction in your energy bill if you decide to swap out your primary hard drive for an energy-conscious one. If you hit $10 a year in savings, I'll be impressed.  The concept of "green storage" is more a marketing buzzword than anything else right now.  At least, that's true for 99% of the computers Maximum PC readers will be building.

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pff

Submitted by hogkill on Fri, 10/03/2008 - 1:17pm

Green HDD's are so useless.  Harddrives don't even come close to CPUs and GPUs.  If a customer was willing to pay extra to "Go Green" then why wouldn't he just buy an SDD instead.  Not only would it consume less power than a green HDD but it would also perform better.

 

 

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