Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EADS - 2TB?

[onethreehill]

Available at newegg

Western Digital WD20EADS 2TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM @$299.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136344

Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB Hard Drive Preview

These benchmarks were run on an engineering sample, so we're not assigning a rating yet. But we're pretty impressed with the overall performance, lack of heat, and relatively quiet operation. The new WD20EADS is really terabytes for the masses: affordable, capacious, and efficient.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2339784,00.asp

Updated:Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB Hard Drive Review

Western Digital will break new ground later this month when its 2TB Caviar Green WD20EADS hard drive goes on sale. Seagate packed 1.5TB into its Barracuda 7200.11 drive by using four platters and eight heads, but WD has gone a step better and squeezed 33 per cent more storage capacity into the same space.

This marks the 2TB - 1.81TB once formatted - Caviar Green as the first drive to pack 500GB of raw storage capacity on each platter. It’s worth making it clear that this is a single internal SATA hard drive so there’s no jiggery-pokery involved, like packing a pair of RAIDed drives together.

The WD20EADS is a one of WD's GreenPower-branded units, complete with IntelliPower motor control which means that some drives in the product range may have a rotational speed of 5400pm while others may operate at up to 7200rpm. In the case of the 2TB Caviar Green, the notional speed is 5400rpm which results in a latency of 5.5ms rather than the 4.2ms you typically see on a 7200rpm drive.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/01...iar_green_2tb/

Updated: Western Digital to Launch 2TB Hard Drive This Week

Last December, the etailer Czech Computer ever reveiled Western Digital’s 2TB hard drive (Model: WD20EADS). Now, we finally get some exact information about this large-capacity drive.

Coming from Western Digital’s Caviar Green Series, this hard drive features 32MB cache and 8.9ms seek time, running at 7200RPM or 5400RPM. It’s expected to have employed four single-platter 500GB disks.......

http://en.expreview.com/2009/01/13/w...html#more-1927

New HDD from WD?
https://www.czechcomputer.cz/product...B+a+v%EDce\2TB

[Klarko]

I find it hard to believe but hey, itd be nice

[zanzabar]

so im thinking 6 333GB platter, there was no real limitation why they couldent exept for the software 48bit lba limit of 1.6TB

[kevinbo03]

Hope its true

[One_Hertz]

so im thinking 6 333GB platter, there was no real limitation why they couldent exept for the software 48bit lba limit of 1.6TB

huh? 48 bit limit is like in the petabytes or something. 2^48.

[SoulsCollective]

Address is down? Even http://www.czechcomputer.cz/ gives me a page not found.

[redrumy3]

seems down but i found this pic

[Bobsama]

I don't think it's real. WD's site has nothing, and there's no press release for something like this, surpassing Seagate's 1.5TB drive.

[TuKo]

2Tb, 5400rpm, it'd be a killer disk for massive data storage... i'd get 4 of them for RAID6 for my home SAN

[Xope_Poquar]

I've heard the green versions can't be put in RAID because of the variable rotation speed. Is this true?

[randomizer]

I don't think it's real. WD's site has nothing, and there's no press release for something like this, surpassing Seagate's 1.5TB drive.

Yea, you'd think WD would be blowing their horn if they had a bigger drive than Seagate.

[TuKo]

I've heard the green versions can't be put in RAID because of the variable rotation speed. Is this true?

They don't have variable rotation speed.

The manufacturer is careful in not directly citing spindle speed, instead nominally positioning the Caviar GP as a "7200 RPM-class" drive. Under its "IntelliPower" moniker, WD claims a "A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate and cache size designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance." Some folks have misinterpreted some admittedly vague specs on WD's website. Under "Rotational Speed," the manufacturer cites "IntelliPower (5400 to 7200 RPM)." This does not mean the drive dynamically changes its spindle speed during operation... indeed, such a feature would entail considerable mechanical engineering and would in many ways defeat the point -- rapidly accelerating and decelerating the spindle's speed would increase rather than decrease net power draw. Rather, the IntelliPower term indicates that the GP family as a whole does not have a set spindle speed (nor a set buffer size, for that matter). Different capacity points may feature differing spin speeds and buffer sizes. For those that must know, WD admits "sub-6000 RPM operation" for the 1-TB Caviar GP (more on this on the following page).

Source: http://www.storagereview.com/1000.sr?page=0%2C1

[don_xvi]

I've heard the green versions can't be put in RAID because of the variable rotation speed. Is this true?

And FYI, you should see the kludge I've got with a pair of the 1TB GPs and a pair of 500GB... non GPs. The 2 500s are assembled into a 1TB, then it's used with the real 1TBs. Linux software RAID to the rescue !

[Hornet331]

Imho for a storage drive the GP WDs are unbeatable, low noise and power consumption at a reasonable speed. For everything else use a VR or a sdd.

[tiro_uspsss]

if this is true...

[Ozzfest05]

imagine defraging this beast

[donitsi]

imagine defraging this beast

ufff...

[3NZ0]

imagine defraging 2 or more of these beasts in raid

fixed for the truth

[Gogeta]

imagine defraging this beast

Imagine formatting with ext2 and then performing a fsck....

See you guys next Tuesday.

[ryboto]

I don't see how this could be very green with 6 platters, or is 6 platters at 5400rpm still low power? The site lists 7200rpm, right?

[Bobsama]

As I said--I don't think WD would do something like this quietly. They typically announce, "We beat Seagate to the punch. Buy your 2TB drive from us--we love your money." Anyways--I don't think they'd try slapping 6 platters in a 3.5" drive. I could see them trying it with 4 platters, but not 6 in a consumer-level drive.

[alfaunits]

A lot of sites on the net mention it (google WD20EADS), but, nothing concrete.

[Start]

As I said--I don't think WD would do something like this quietly. They typically announce, "We beat Seagate to the punch. Buy your 2TB drive from us--we love your money." Anyways--I don't think they'd try slapping 6 platters in a 3.5" drive. I could see them trying it with 4 platters, but not 6 in a consumer-level drive.

They may be going for a hard launch (with official press release + being able to purchase). But of course, someone always slips up and release information more early than WD anticipated. I'm sure we'll see an official announcement in a couple of days (if this is true).

[BulldogPO]

And price will be?
I will get two of these for HTPC, if this is true

[Starscream]

Bout time tbh. I expected that all big companies would have their 1.5TBs by now seeing how Samsung was talking about 1.5TBs and 2TBs back when they launched their 1TB HDD.