WD green drive isn't that bad in performance!

It all depends on what you want: a cheap drive or a fast drive. It can't compete with the black editions from Western Digital, but... yes, it's cheaper.

If heat is a problem then there's an option of installing cooling fins on these drives. Something I myself want to do in the future to expand it's lifecycle.

My experience of WD Green Hard drivers is really bad. As WD made them energy-efficient, they reduce there RPM which cause a great performance loss  

On my PC, having Intel E8500 and Intel mobo with 2 gig of Crosair XMS2 I was most of the times stuck on multiple process running in background(like VM and setup's). I strongly unrecommended these drives for performance PC's. They are only suitable for DVR's and backup storage devices where performance is not a concern.

quanta08:

Did you think they were fast?

Yes i thought they were   , because i didn't read there reviews and specification thoroughly before buying due to short time  

They are made to be energy saving drives with moderate performance. At that, they excel. However, for pure performance, you want the Caviar Black series, or even a Velociraptor.

I'm happy with the performance with my WD EADS 1TB HDDs. They get blown away by my WD FBYS 1TB HDDs, but the purpose of the "green" HDDs is lower energy consumption as opposed to performance. However, the EADS series is faster than the older EACS series.

Its been almost a year since i posted this and let me tell you guys i haven't had any problems with my WD Green Drive. I am very happy with it.

I've standardized on using the WD Greens in my external USB enclosures because they run significantly cooler and since USB is the bottleneck the lower performance isn't an issue (for the most part).

I have two of the EADS in one of my systems as bulk storage. Boot drive is a WD 640 Black.

They are not cheap drives. Inexpensive, yes. But not cheap. I am not really as concerned with the efficiency as I am the noise and heat.

The data in real-world test provided by Xbitlabs shows the newest ones with >375GB/platter outperforming some 7200.11 like mine. The trick is in firmware optimisation (especially in cache utilisation) to make up its lack of RPM and therefor access time. Pretty impressive stuff I must say.

It was actually quite painful to see all those 7200.11 performing slower in real-world tests. But data is data and I do not defend my inferior purchases.

Actually i do not see a future market for 7200rpm and above disks in the 3.5" format. That will die out.

Either it will be fast small 1.8" and 2.5" disks (10k rpm 2.5" disks like velociraptor), or it will be fast slow disks aimed at capacity, like the WD Green series. 5400rpm sounds like the ideal tradeoff. Even with a lower spindle speed; high transfer speed is possible. High enough for any data files that require streaming (movies, music) and fast enough to transfer alot of files. The sequential speeds of the WD Green are pretty good, and i do not think harddrive manufacturers will invest alot of money in a dying sector.

SSDs will take over sometime, not that HDDs will disappear. But they wouldn't be used as often. As they will loose the position of system disk they will only be used as second "data" disk, with all the installed software and operating system on the SSD instead. Many people would not need an HDD anymore.

Then there's a problem, the current price of HDDs is only maintainable because of the high production volume, so producing an HDD is efficient. But that can change if the demand for HDDs drops significantly. Then the HDD makers will have to increase prices, or change their strategy. I'm convinced this should prove to be a positive development for consumers. I'm just hoping it would go faster.  

Current strategy seems to outgrow the SSDs by capacity. Making them look really small. But howmuch do you actually need as a system disk, seperating your data files? Probably alot less than HDD makers are implying with their current capacities.