Home > Consumer Reviews > Western Digital Caviar GreenPower 1TB SATA Hard Drive - 16MB WD10000CSRTL

I know, I know. You're upset because this "Intellipower" concept allows hard drive speeds as low as 5400 rpm, but can be as high as 7200 rpm. So which is it- high performing drive or budget friendly consumer class model? It's both. This new variable spin speed system is absolutely transparent in operation. You don't notice lag, you don't hear odd sounds; quite the opposite, this drive is whisper quiet. It's a fast drive, has boatloads of space, and is priced pretty reasonably to boot. If you are looking for all out insane speed, get a Raptor-X or a 15K RPM SCSI setup. If you want a drive that will boot fast, hold your whole iTunes library and maybe even help Mother Nature a little bit, here's your answer.

My 320 GB WD Caviar was getting too full I did some searching around for a 1TB drive (as a secondary drive to my computer). Slashdot just happened to have an article on this drive the day I was looking to buy one. I was a little skeptical about the 5400 RPM but I was looking for a data drive not a OS drive.

Well, this drive is nice... It is as fast as my 320GB 7200rpm drives (just doing MP3 transfers). It only took like 10 seconds to do a Quick Format - as with all drives you won't get the full 1TB due to formatting but everyone knows that.

The drive is inaudible... I can't hear a THING - especially when using it. My old 320GB Western Digital Caviar clicked and clacked like the old 1GB drives ... So it is nice not having to listen to that anymore.

Being "green" is kinda cool too. Nothing like helping everyone out a little by buying something that uses less electricity.

I definitely recommend this drive.

I bought four of these to go with a 3ware 9650 raid card, I noticed that the drive with the older firmware 1.0A (the newer version is 1.0B) regularly times-out. I believe the firmware can be updated by contacting western digital based on some online research, however, it appears to be an involved process and involve getting a dos based utility from WD support. When you are running eight hard-drives in a single array the energy savings will be significant. Moreover, if used in an array, the reduced performance of the individual disks as compared to other 1 TB drives is not noticeable.

I bought three of these drives to fill out an HP EX470 home server. They have proven to be reliable, cool running, and quiet performers in their 24/7 environment. And on top of it all, they use less power. Excellent drives

I bought two of these drives to install in my HP MediaSmart 475 server. They are easily the quietest and coolest running drives I have used so far. Recommended !