Western Digital 2TB Caviar Green review roundup

Now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag on Western Digital's 2TB Caviar Green HDD, hardware fanatics have had a chance to take the 3.5-inch drive for a spin. While its performance leaves something to be desired -- transferring files took longer than the 1TB Caviar Black or 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda -- instead we've got low heat and noise. Of course, the biggest boon is a ginormous storage capacity for just three Benjamins, the same price as some 128GB SSDs. Solid state be damned, rotating disks aren't going away anytime soon.

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[pika2000 @ Jan 30th 2009 3:42AM]

My drobo is hungry.

[bendis79 @ Jan 30th 2009 10:29AM]

Mine too!

[Nick Catalano @ Jan 30th 2009 3:47AM]

I would be way too scared to rely on one of these for ALL of my data. Would probably get 2x and run RAID 1.

[RyanTV @ Jan 30th 2009 11:56AM]

That's exactly my plan. any idea if i can use an on-board raid controller to use 2 of these in RAID1 config and then use a small 3rd HDD for the OS?

I'm assuming it's possible...

[Zane @ Jan 30th 2009 3:55AM]

2TB in RAID 0 sure sounds nice...

[Joshua Ochs @ Jan 30th 2009 4:07AM]

Yes, so you can lose even MORE data when a drive fails. I seriously can't think of a single use for 2TB drives in a RAID-0. When will you need that much space, but not care about data integrity?

[Dillon @ Jan 30th 2009 4:17AM]

RAID5 ftw...

[ethana2 @ Jan 30th 2009 4:19AM]

porn

[Timmay @ Jan 30th 2009 8:20AM]

RAID6, if you used RAID5 the rebuild time could take long enough that another drive could fail

[collegekid13 @ Jan 30th 2009 5:21PM]

damn!

[JerseyBricklayer @ Jan 30th 2009 4:21AM]

Finally! A drive that can hold my pr0n collection.

[TREX6662k5 @ Jan 30th 2009 5:08AM]

A text book comment that's been said to death already.

[Level 5 @ Jan 30th 2009 7:21AM]

Ah but very true. I subscribed to videobox just for shit (in my 27 years, first time I've ever paid for porn, lol), and I'll be damned if I didn't download over 20GB of DVD-res stuff with a few hours...

I need to start seeing the girlfriend during the week, lol.

[JerseyBricklayer @ Jan 30th 2009 2:34PM]

@ trex, I'm not even kidding. Maybe not all pr0n, But the fact still stands, my 1tb is almost full.

[bot @ Jan 30th 2009 11:21PM]

Why is bragging about porn cool? In my mind the amount of porn you have is inversely proportional to the amount of actual sex you get, which means that you're massive quantities of porn probably means you can't get laid at all. I'm not saying porn is bad, or that it's useless, but it seems silly to collect it in large quantities and brag about it. "Finally, a house big enough to store all my sex dolls." Sounds weird, no? Well, porn is the same in the virtual world.

[ethana2 @ Jan 30th 2009 4:22AM]

If I were trying to counter the oncoming waves of SSDs with a mechanical drive, then I'd do what these guys are doing, plus a transparent drive cover. Moving parts certainly have their disadvantages, but they have got to look fricking awesome. SSDs just sit there.

[Volvagia356 @ Jan 30th 2009 4:47AM]

Agreed. I love to see mechanical parts moving around, electronic parts just sits there......

[lpppppl @ Jan 30th 2009 6:29AM]

but photons' linear momentum can interrupt the read head =(

[suprxtragrav @ Jan 30th 2009 8:25AM]

they got it to work with a Raptor X from about 2 years back though:
http://regmedia.co.uk/2006/03/21/raptor_x.jpg

[lightbulb42 @ Jan 30th 2009 4:26AM]

So when can we expect to see a Black version? To hell with Green, I want performance.

[S.M.A.R.T. @ Feb 1st 2009 4:01PM]

Isn't the Black edition just a marketing scam annulled by turning off the silent mode (AAM) of the Green...

[Level 5 @ Jan 30th 2009 5:41AM]

Damn I literally just had my 1.5TB Seagate show up last week.. sigh... :(

[RyanTV @ Jan 30th 2009 12:19PM]

did they ever get those firmware issues sorted out?

[NineT9 @ Jan 30th 2009 3:51PM]

Ive bought quiet a few 1.5TB's myself, not a single one has gone bad on me nor have I had problems

Ive read the horror stories, but no problems here at all...and ive had these for months

[FILA @ Jan 30th 2009 5:55AM]

well I have 120GB left on my 500, and Im running out fast, probably before summer. Let me check my torrent here...yep...but theres no way Im gonna be able t afford 2 of these (1 for storage and one for backup, but think ill go with a software backup right? Is that my best bet?) 300 is way to much for me to spend at the moment, so i think ima have to settle for a 1.5TB, which isnt bad either, and the price is wayy better.

but really, software backup or raid? I hear so much bad stuff about raid, the last thing i want is to loose everything

[beq @ Jan 30th 2009 6:23AM]

The QNAP TS-809 Pro NAS coming next month (8 bays, Core 2 Duo) could be even faster than the 6-bay ReadyNAS Pro.

8 x 2TB in RAID6 would be nice (12TB before formatting).

But QNAP's officially supported maximum volume size is only 8TB. They're trying to qualify the TS-809 Pro for up to 12TB in a single volume (otherwise we'd have to use multiple volumes).

http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&p=52471

http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=109

[Kilters @ Jan 30th 2009 6:56AM]

Looks good if you're a business. Otherwise get an old Dell Precision with 4 to 6 bays, stick in an Adaptec Raid 5 card and away you go.

[TKWarrior @ Jan 30th 2009 7:44AM]

Was originally looking to the 509-Pro before the new line was announced. Now looking to get a 639-Pro in the near future. Initial reviews show its just as speedy but consumes less power due to the atom processor. More then enough for my storage/streaming needs.

[Apot @ Jan 30th 2009 11:15AM]

Any idea if this would work in a garden variety external enclosure? I'm using an old notebook as a media server.

[Bootleg Zani @ Jan 30th 2009 2:45PM]

I'm waiting till Seagate releases a 2 TB Barracuda plus the 1.5 TBs from Seagate are failing at an alarming rate.

[NineT9 @ Jan 30th 2009 3:53PM]

A small percentage of people having problems is an alarming rate?

[scootinger @ Jan 30th 2009 4:54PM]

$300 is still too expensive for me. And how the hell do these sell for less than $250 in Australia (per Engadget post) but sell for $300 in the US?

[joe blow @ Jan 31st 2009 12:23AM]

I just paid $112 for that Seagate 1.5 with the latest firmware. Shipped. It's awesome.

[cherie22984 @ Jan 31st 2009 1:22AM]

Word on the street is that these are the worst drives by seagate. Read a few reviews from online retailers,

[joe blow @ Jan 31st 2009 3:00PM]

You have to listen to the gutters and sidewalks too. The CC1J firmware fixed most of the problems and the lions share of difficulties were with RAID setups anyway. The drive was slow returning from sleep and dropped out of the configuration. What many don't know is that Seagate reduced the warranty period from 5 to 3 years starting Jan 1st. Luckily I beat the clock. The drive is cool, fast, quiet and huge.

[no_to_co @ Jan 31st 2009 3:07PM]

they showed up on ebay. some jerk is selling them for $550 !