What Constitutes an Energy Efficient Hard Drive?
Understanding the Concept of Energy Efficiency in Hard Drives
A computer with its power turned on has its hard disk drive (HDD) spinning its disks in order to read/write the data stored in it. Some tend to consume more electricity while going through this seemingly dynamic process. However, the advent of green technologies made possible the development of hard drives that harness energy power in the most efficient ways possible.
There are HDDs that can read/write more data, at relatively the same pace compared to the ordinary hard drive, while consuming the same amount of electrical energy. They do not have any of the intrusive sounds or cause too much vibrations, which are actually indicators that more power than what is necessary is being consumed.
In line with this, let’s take a closer look at the cost-cutting technologies employed by Western Digital for its green power hard drives, which allow the devices to perform remarkably well with less power consumption.
The Green Technologies of Western Digital (WD) Caviar Green Large Capacity Drives
Western Digital Caviar Green 1 TB Sata 3.0 Gb-s combine different technologies in order to achieve its objective of maximizing energy use with optimized results. A newer edition, the SATA 6 Gb/s interface is outfitted with the same connector as SATA 3 Gb/s and is compatible with Microsoft Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000 and Mac OS X. Take note, however, that Windows XP is not included among the supported systems.
IntelliSeek
The HDDs are intuitive enough to compute its own speed in performing read /write functions quietly and without any unnecessary motion.
IntelliPower
Western Digital’s green power initiatives have evolved into its latest innovation, called “Intellipower.” The disks’ performance have been fine-tuned using this technology. It is said to create a balance between the spin speed, and the transfer rate during start-up and storage, as the algorithms have been designed to achieve solid performance at less power consumption.
NoTouch Ramp Load Technology
This innovation provides better protection against wear and tear since the recording head has no direct contact with the disk media.
Storage Capacity Features
The WD 3TB Caviar Green drive has four platters in full use with the capacity to store as much as 750 GB, which can easily store a wide variety of desk top applications from the most basic to the most advanced business computing. Its closest competitor, Seagate’s 3TB Barracuda XT, makes use of five platters but with lower storage capacity of 600GB each.
The WD green power high-capacity hard drives have reliability ratings of 1.2 million hours MTBF which gives the user about 10,000 hours of use before the hard drive fails and falls out. In fact WD pioneered the “RAID-TLER**”** or a specific time-limited error recovery which prevents the WD hard drives from fallout due to extended error-recovery processes, which is a common occurrence in desktop drives.
Energy Savings
Accordingly, Western Digital estimates that the combined efficiency of the Intelliseek, Intellipower and NoTouch in a single drive approximately reduces power consumption by at least forty (40) percent. Large capcacity hard drives like these are ideal for companies that demand large data storage capacity with a need to employ more than just a single energy efficient hard drive. Some examples include those entities operating as search engine service operators or involved in providing background checks or people search or file hosting service provider or any data-hungry enterprise for that matter.
Image Credit: Courtesy of [Amazon.com Western Digital Caviar Green 1 TB Sata 3.0 Gb-s 32 MB](https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-3-5-Inch-Internal-DrivesWDBAAY0010HNC-N RSN/dp/B00471G8CC/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1304556165&sr=8-9/brih ub02-20)
Reference:
WDC.com - “WD Caviar Green Cool Quiet and Eco-friendly” from https://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=120
