Western Digital Releases 4 TB WD Green Drive HDD
Western Digital has expanded its Green series to include a 4 TB option.
Western Digital has finally released the 4 TB iteration of its Green series HDD. The company's Green series is already home to 1 TB, 2 TB, and 3 TB models. WD's plans for a 4 TB model were revealed in a roadmap from late in 2012 which said a 4 TB option would be available in the third quarter. Though the arrival of a new 4 TB drive isn't exactly exciting, it does mean we're getting closer to those 5 TB models.
The WD Green series is the company's more environmentally-friendly line of desktop drives, manufactured with lead-free, conflict-free and halogen-free materials. According to last year's leaked schedule, the 4 TB model (WD40EZRX) was to ship sometime around the second or third quarter of 2013. The 5 TB model (WD50EXRX) is slated to arrive not too long after, in the following quarter, so it looks like we'll see the 5 TB before the year's end. Both the 4 TB and 5 TB models sport a 3.5-inch form factor, 64 MB of cache, and a SATA 3 (6 Gb/s) interface.
We haven't spotted the WD Green 4 TB in stores or online but TechPowerUp reports that it is available and is priced between $170 and $190, depending on what package you choose. Let us know if you find it!
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236604&Tpk=wd%20green%204tb
http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=718037778457&vpn=WD40EZRX&manufacture=WD%20Bulk&catid=18
Supposedly they'll max out SMR at about 20TB per drive, at which point they can combine SMR with HAMR to reach even higher capacities. And once they max out that route, they can start using helium to eek out that last bit of density assuming they will not have found a better means of increasing capacity at that point in the future.
SSDs will keep getting faster but HDDs will continue to increase in capacity at about the same rate. Their relevance will not be overshadowed in the near or foreseeable future.
Yet I have had hundreds of customers, spending thousands of dollars (one customer had to spend 28k to get his data back) on their SEAGATE drives.
HITACHI and WD are the only two companies that actually make long term storage a possibility. Even the Seagate "enterprise" drives fail at a M U C H higher rate than WD or HITATCH combined.
If you honestly believe that Seagate makes nice hard drives, then you are simply "playing the part" and have no real world experience.
Yeah, if you all could make hard drive that lasts more than a few years that would be great! I would hate to lose 4 T O of data