WD's 2nd Gen GP: More Speed, Less Power

Conclusion

Finally, there is some hard proof that green products really can make a difference without throwing performance overboard. Western Digital’s first-generation environmentally-friendly hard drive, called the Caviar GP, introduced rather small benefits in power consumption, and it did so by reducing performance by a noticeable amount. The second-generation Caviar Green WD10EADS, though, is radically different. WD stayed at a maximum capacity of 1 TB, but it reduced the platter count from four to three.

Performance Up. Power Down

The new Caviar Green WD10EADS stores the same data utilizing fewer moving parts, and it obviously comes with additional improvements that have it perform much better than you’d expect from a drive that only spins at 5,400 RPM. Although I/O performance isn’t stellar, access time, application performance and throughput are above average in the segment, and the Caviar Green marched through our efficiency tests confidently. This is the first green drive that we consider suitable for a mainstream desktop PC.

… Paired With High Efficiency

This drive delivered better streaming read performance and workstation-type I/O performance than most of its competitors, namely the first-generation WD low-power drives, the Samsung EcoGreen F1 and Hitachi’s Deskstar P7K500. And it still required the least power in these tests, delivering the best-in-class performance per watt ratio.