Maximum PC

I thought all Western Digital Caviar Green HD's spun at 5400 which was part of the energy savings?!?!

Guy on Ebay selling a 1.5TB, 3.5", 64mb cache, 7200rpm for $99 including shipping. Also has 40K auctions at 99.7% positive feedback so I'm all ready to buy. Top of page just says Western Digital but I scroll down and it says it's a Green Caviar HD, which I thought only spun at 5400rpm.

Does anyone know for sure that there are Caviar Greens out there that spin at 7200rpm???

The green drives are variable speed, plus other "power saving mechanisms". They are primarily data storage drives, like wise any "blue" drives. All the "Eco-Friendly" features slow the drive up for any other purpose.

What do you want this drive for?

If you start with this page at Newegg, you will quickly see that that Ebay deal is no bargin. Especially (IMO) with all the attendant quality/warranty risks involved. There are several drives both Eco-Friendly and full speed variations that are cheaper and you have much less risk warranty wise.

Those prices are not even sale prices and probably can be beaten at other sites such as buy.com and tigerdirect. If you were talking about a cheap computer case with no risk to your data, whatever value you place on it, then fine give Ebay a shot. But it's your money and your data. I've had bad experiences with Ebay, it's to damned convoluted and to easy to get screwed. I have found that there is just no way to know just what you are getting and if it's bad is the guy going to be there tomorrow. But like I said, if you can gamble and not sweat loosing a $100 have at it.

1I've never seen it in print from WDC, but all greens should be variable w/ no fixed rpm rating. IntelliPower as a spec is just listed with "For each drive model, WD may use a different, invariable RPM" which is confusing by definition (never changing). I assume it very well could be 7,200RPM.

Anyway, I agree about buying at Newegg rather than eBay. The WD15EARS (1.5TB/64MB cache WD drive) are $70 w/ free shipping. I use the 2TB versions of the Green drives in a WHS, but am slowly collecting faster 1TB black drives to replace them for when WHS2 is released. The space was nice, but I'm still not using half of the total capacity, won't for a while, and would prefer more random access speeds I'm witnessing with the 1TB black on the Beta. As Tug states, these are pretty ho-hum drives without much to write home about. Even the 2TB blacks come to a price that equals two $80 1TB drives, so space with performance is pretty darn cheap IMO.

I wouldn't include "Blue" drives into the power savings arena. Most, if not all, WD blues are simply out dated black drives. The 32MB-cached 6400AAKS black drive, is now just a blue drive. Blue's just in between black and green.

Jesus Christ you guys spent more time talking about how much I am paying for this drive then the actual question.......does anyone know for sure that a Caviar Green drive spins at 7200?????

See, a question like this is for people that own or know someone that owns a Caviar Green drive that spins at 7200, if it's possible.

So I guess what you guys MEANT to say is "we don't know"....................

.............and btw, I checked out that Newegg page you posted. There's not one drive there that beats the drive I'm buying in price!!!

You do realize mine is a 1.5TB and not a 1TB HD? 64mb cache?? Western Digital?? Which one of those drives had better or same stats at better price????

Couldn't even get that right.

The $70 Caviar Green's at Newegg had a TON of DOA's if you read the feedback and are obviously the much slower 5400rpm speed. I use an SSD for my C drive which runs my OS and a few other programs, this drive is just a slave along with the other drives. High definition movies and tv eat up a lot of space. Just filled up my 1TB a few weeks ago.

Just wanna get what I paid for....a drive that spins at 7200rpm among other things. I saw the Caviar Green and began to doubt. Hoped someone here had actual experience with a Caviar Green drive that DOES spin at that speed and could tell me for sure.

You do realize that you are being an obnoxious spoiled brat. What's the matter daddy didn't tell you what you wanted to hear. That ""deal" you are so proud of finding may not be all it's cracked up to be so you didn't get a nice pat on the head?

If you can't or don't feel you should have to, for what ever reason, do your own (very basic) research then then pay attention to what you're told. For what these drives are designed for there is squat real world difference between 32 and 64 MB cache. Why would you take a chance with an Ebay ripoff for something like a HDD?




We told you that the "Green drives" were variable speed. What don"t you understand about the word variable?? They spin at from 5400-7200 RPM according to what the onbd controller has been programed to give you under specific conditions. We did not address reliability as we were not asked that question. No one can give a valid answer to that question unless they have had one up and running for a couple of years. They haven't been on the market that long. You did not tell us what you wanted that drive for so we gave you the benefit of the doubt and made sure to advise you of that drives limitations.

Did you do "ANY" research before this post? Did you try to find any reliable 3rd party reviews? You would be an idiot to take etailer reviews at face value for something as important as your HDD's.

An Ebay ripoff??? Are you high??? The company has over 35,000 successful auctions with a 99.7% positive rating. With all the DOA or soon after install dead drives Newegg sells...I wonder what their rating would be?!?!

It's obvious the problem you have with Ebay isn't Ebay......it's you.

Ok stupid. I'll do some of your homework for you this time.

WD Green 2 TB, 64 MB cache for $99.99
WD Green 1.5 TB 64 MB cache for $89.99

Now as to the negative Newegg reviews, If they are so alarming to you why are you even considering a WD Green drive even from Ebay. What? Do you think that a magic lightening bolt strikes the package on the way to the shipper that makes it different from what Newegg recieves from WD?

Now back to your rant about spindle speed, if it advertises on an etailer's site as 7200RPM, that is the "Maximum" speed it is going to run at.

Direct from WD's Product page:



From what I read in the Newegg feedback tab, many of the complainers are ignoring this variable speed aspect completely. Some even bought this drive for the OS drive and blamed it for being so slow. Reliability complaints can be for many reasons all of which will apply to these drives where ever you buy from.

So why again are you so worried about the spindle speed ???? I guess you forgot to notice that these drives go to "sleep" when not in use meaning they even virtually shut down on their own. All these features make max spindle speed academic. When they do wake up there is no guarantee what rpm they are going to spin to.