Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
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56%
28%
5%
3%
6%
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 Rating: Review Date: 07/06/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
formatted only gets 1.83TB, not 2TBnot the fastest (5400rpm)
Pros: super quiet (almost silent)runs very cooleasy plug and play |
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Rating: Review Date: 07/06/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
- Advanced Format is still unproven tech.- WD support is kind of vague.- Where are the 5TB drives we were promised?
Pros: - Inexpensive for 2 TB.- Super quiet, like a ninja!- Larger than usual cache.- Low power usage, less heat.- Performs better than expected. Comment:
Setup was quick and easy. Installed into Cooler Master case, did a quick NTFS format using my Acronis Disk Director CD (took about 5 seconds to complete), aligned using the Acronis boot CD (another 5 seconds), encrypted the resulting aligned partition with TrueCrypt using its quick format option, then copied a little over a terabyte worth of data to the drive.This drive is the quietest hard drive I've ever encountered and I've been through many. Based on comments by other users, I was worried about heat and performance. Neither worries were justified however. Surprisingly, performance is on par with my Hitachi 1TB 7200 RPM drive and only slightly slower than the 74GB 10000 RPM Raptor I use for Windows XP (also encrypted). Testing was done by copying a large number of various files, as well as unzipping large files with 7zip. The idea was to look at this drive from a real life usage point of view when testing. To me, it looks as if RPM's have become moot so far as being an indicator of performance is concerned.If your plan is to store a lot of data on a single partition and not use it as the boot drive your OS is on, you likely won't have any problems using the WD20EARS with XP. You might have issues if you start getting creative with your partitioning however, in which case Windows 7 is probably a better choice. Advanced Format is still an unproven technology and it is hard to say whether it will continue to be supported in the long term. If it is, start saving up now because makers of drive enclosures will likely try to cash in by forcing you to buy a new one, even though they could easily update their current offerings.My only real complaint? I could have saved an extra $20 if I had procrastinated 48 hours longer than I did. Well that and the fact we were all supposed to be at the 5TB mark by now. Still waiting... ;) |
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Rating: Review Date: 07/06/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
Speedsingle proc
Pros: Price64M cache Comment:
I now only buy Western Digital drives since I had so many problems with Seagate. This is my first green drive so I feared performance issue over Blakc drives. As of now this have not benn a problem as the drive is used for backup. By my estimation it is about 80% as fast as the Western Digital Black 1To I own. So it's a perfect Secondary drive. |
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Rating: Review Date: 07/02/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
None to report as of yet
Pros: Great price! ($105)Tons of storage (1.81TB formatted)Plug and play with Windows 7Extremely quiet, I can't hear it at allWD brand reliability Comment:
I have been very satisfied with this purchase, it's so quiet compared to my WD black 1TB's. Great for storage and will take me a while to fill this up! XP users will need to make a jumper change or run WD software to make sure this drive works but with Windows 7 x64 I just plugged it in, formatted and away I went. No problems to report |
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Rating: Review Date: 07/01/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
Some may think they are slow - if that's the case buy faster ones
Pros: Huge capacity, low power, easy to install, will save the planet Comment:
Got these for the HTPC. In fact got two of them. 4Tb. Unbelievable amount of storage, I'm sure they'll house my entire Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Two and a Half Men collection and then some. Seriously, when on sale a super steal, works great in my HTPC streaming 1080p blu-ray content. Nice that when not in use they power down and say a bit of leccy. Only slight issue is they take a llittle while to spin up after low power mode, but it's just a few seconds so don't sweat it. |
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Rating: Review Date: 07/01/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
slower than WD black
Pros: Low power consumptionLots of roomgreat price Comment:
This is great hard drive with lots of room,good warranty, save power, and good for store my files and movies. I love it. |
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Rating: Review Date: 06/30/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
Relatively slow, but doesn't really matter for backup purposes.
Pros: Cheap.Quiet.Low Energy consumption. Comment:
This is a great drive, so far. It's crazy big and acts as a really great backup drive. I probably wouldn't use it for primary data tasks, but I'm a performance junkie. |
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Rating: Review Date: 06/30/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
Doesn't work well in nas.
Pros: Great drive, lots of space. Comment:
This is a great drive if you're using it in a vista or win7 computer. I bought it to put in my d-line 323 nas and because of the advanced formatting it takes a huge performance hit. You can get it to work but it's a big work around. So don't buy it if you plan on using it in a nas. |
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Rating: Review Date: 06/29/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
None to date
Pros: Great deal for a great product Comment:
Picked up a Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA2 3GBPS 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM for just over $100 on sale + received free shipping for my enter order! |
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Rating: Review Date: 06/27/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
- slow write speed
Pros: - large capacity- good price per GB- good streaming read speed Comment:
The hard drive is great for archiving files. With 2GB, files can be stored on fewer drives.The read speed is quite good for a low power drive. It doesn't feel unreasonably slow. The write speed, however, takes a noticeable compromise.I didn't have any problems using the drive under XP. On a clean drive, it's painless to align it. |
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Rating: Review Date: 06/20/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
None, if you remember that these are meant to be storage drives instead of performance drives.
Pros: Great capacity for a great price.Runs cool Comment:
Great value for a Green product. The only issue would be the head-in issues with Windows XP, but this does not affect anyone with Vista/7. Works perfectly as a storage device and would highly recommend to anyone looking to stock a enclosure. |
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Rating: Review Date: 06/14/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
None that I can think of
Pros: Good hard drive, really faster than SATA2 Comment:
Great hard drive, good warranty. I wasn't so sure about the advanced format thing but it runs without a hitch. I believe it is faster than my actual SATA2 non-3GBPS drives. I highly recommend it. |
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Rating: Review Date: 06/14/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
-Noticeably slower than WD black-Loud when revving up
Pros: -Low power consumption-Lots of room-Reasonably priced Comment:
I really like this drive. The only possible gripes a could have with it would be that its slightly slower than i would like and can be heard revving up when you go to access a file on it after it have gone in to what i assume is a power save mode. When it does this it is way louder than my wd black ever gets. Aside from that i think this i a awesome as a secondary drive or for a low power system. |
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Rating: Review Date: 06/06/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
A little slow but solid
Pros: Stable and steady data transfer fora storage unit Comment:
I transferred 29,152 files (770 GB)of data in 6 hours.The date is good and accurate. No hic-cups in transfer. I played the movies on the drive without any problem. Easy set up with W7. I would highly recommend this as a storage drive. |
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Rating: Review Date: 06/01/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
price drop after I bought
Pros: quiet drive, pretty easy to set up Comment:
I bought two of these to go into an HP media server. One drive will mirror the other. I'm now in the process of formatting and installing the drives. Wish me luck. |
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Rating: Review Date: 06/01/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
Speed
Pros: Massive Storage SpaceRuns CoolLower Power consumption Comment:
While the Green can't compare to the Black series in performance, it's lower power consumption, temperature and cost make it an absolutely ideal storage drive for music, movies, and other files that don't need to take up valuable storage on your higher performance drive. |
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Rating: Review Date: 05/25/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
it is 5400rpm, but this is not used for speed, used for storage only, which makes it better
Pros: very calm, cool, and quiet. Good price, got it no sale. Comment:
I bought this along with an Antec MX 1 enclosure, and so far it runs perfectly. It doesn't make a sound (maybe due to enclosure) and it runs very cool. The enclosure has a fan too to prevent overheating. |
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Rating: Review Date: 05/16/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
None
Pros: 2TB of storageQuietFastLow power Comment:
Right now as I type this review I am transferring some videos from my 1TB to this drive and it is transferring at 26MB/s. It is a pretty fast drive for a low power drive. I don't think I would use this drive for regular use. It good for storage and that is about it.Overall I am really happy with this drive! |
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Rating: Review Date: 05/14/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
Not that fast
Pros: Huge capacityQuiteLow power consumption Comment:
Bought this for a friend to use as a media drive to hold all his movies and music. For that kind of use these drives do great. Pricematched it down about 10 dollars as well, which made it even more appealing. You can't beat these drives in terms of GB / dollar at this point, so for now they're a great buy. |
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Rating: Review Date: 05/12/10 |
Install WD software
Comment:
Since this is an Advance Format disk and Windows XP does not recognize sectors larger than 512 bytes, it is necessary to either change jumper settings on the HDD or install WD Data align (not sure of the name) in order to make the OS recognize the new format of 4K sectors. In 2011, all HDD will be Advanced Format, anyway. Windows Vista, Win 7 and Linux are already 4K-sector-format aware. |
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Rating: Review Date: 05/12/10 |
Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA 3 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM
Cons:
AFT can cause problems with XP, wasnt a problem with Win7 machine though.
Pros: Huge Capacity! Decent cache size too. Comment:
I had been skeptical on purchasing these huge 2TB drives from WD, but after hearing nothing but good things about them, and finally having a use (media computer) for these drives, I took the plunge and am very happy. Still waiting for 2TB WD Blacks though! |
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Rating: Review Date: 05/10/10 |
Problems with SATA I
Comment:
Westerns Digital does have a jumper to support a SATA 1 controller however that didn't work well at all. After a LOT of trouble I finally decided to buy a new motherboard that supports SATA II. |
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Rating: Review Date: 05/10/10 |
Sighh
Comment:
I can't stand the people who write about things they don't understand. A HDD is mechanical which means it WILL fail. Some earlier than others. That's why it's so important to back things up. It's also why hard drive manufacturers offer warranties on things like this. The drive is a great value for what you get, you can ignore the naive commenters who don't know what they're talking about. |
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Rating: Review Date: 05/10/10 |
Advance Format Drives
Comment:
This is an Advance Format Drive. Special Consideration must be followed when installing this drive. Please read the Manufactures Web site to understand what this means. Search for advanced format drive then go to the manufactures web site Links are not allowed in the review. I you follow the instructions you will not have any troubles. As with any Green type Drive, Speed and Performance are slower than the non-Green counterparts. |
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Rating: Review Date: 05/10/10 |
No IO errors
Comment:
I have two installed in my desktop computer and I have 2 that I use in a disk drive dock. I have never had any problem. I got my first one when they first came out. I like them for my disk drive dock because this Green version doesn't get too hot to handle when swapping out. I also have the 1.5 TB version with no problems. |
very nice drive, for the price, its a killer deal for big storage, its very quiet, the quietest drive i have owned so far, with no disc vibrations, but only problem is the transfer speeds dont seem as fast as my other 7200rpm drives